Matt Damon is a busy man. Apart from acting, the Oscar-winning screenwriter is frequently involved in a variety of ventures, including spearheading the artist-led studio, Artists Equity, alongside his long-term friend and creative partner, Ben Affleck.
It seems the intense work ethic has had an impact on Damon’s personal life, as he had to make a promise with his wife, Luciana Barroso, to take a break from his busy schedule. However, the genius actor negotiated an exception for one Hollywood legend.
How Christopher Nolan Impacted Matt Damon’s Acting Hiatus
Matt Damon portrayed the role of Leslie R. Groves, a lieutenant general in the United States Army, Oppenheimer. The documentary feature on J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Father of the Atomic Bomb, also chronicles Groves’ influence in attaching the enigmatic theoretical physicist to the Manhattan Project.
While Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. are understandably attracting the majority of the camera flashes for going head to head in Christopher Nolan‘s drama, critics have also waxed lyrical about Damon’s performance.
However, had any other filmmaker sat in the director’s chair for Oppenheimer, there’s a good chance fans wouldn’t have gotten the pleasure of seeing Damon portraying Groves.
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly in July, The Talented Mr. Ripley actor revealed that he made a promise to his wife during couples therapy to take a break from filming. But he set an interesting condition to come out of his hiatus.
“This is going to sound made up, but it’s actually true,” Damon revealed. “I had — not to get too personal — negotiated extensively with my wife that I was taking time off. I had been in Interstellar, and then Chris put me on ice for a couple of movies, so I wasn’t in the rotation, but I actually negotiated in couples therapy — this is a true story — the one caveat to my taking time off was if Chris Nolan called. This is without knowing whether or not he was working on anything, because he never tells you. He just calls you out of the blue. And so, it was a moment in my household.”
Downey Jr., who was also present for EW’s Around the Table, quipped that even modern psychology has a caveat for Nolan.
How Christopher Nolan Stunned Matt Damon With His Oppenheimer Script
To be fair, Damon isn’t an exception. Nearly every Hollywood star keeps their doors open for the Inception director due to his ability to not only shape engrossing movies but also his unorthodox behind-the-scenes methods.
Much has been written about the extreme lengths Nolan – who blew up a plane for Tenet – went to recreate a nuclear explosion without CGI in Oppenheimer. Interestingly, The Dark Knight director also employed unique methods while preparing scripts for his actors.
When Damon first got the script of Oppenheimer, he was left flabbergasted to see it was written on red paper and in the first person. As per IMDb, he had never seen such a format before.
The 2023 summer thriller, which grossed $954.1 million at the box office, was the first time Nolan adopted the approach of writing a script in first-person.
