Matt Damon’s The Martian is one of director Ridley Scott’s best films. The film had Damon play a botanist who gets stuck on Mars after his team leaves him after a severe dust storm. The actor put on an impressive performance in the film by injecting a comedic touch into his dire situation of trying to survive on Mars until help arrives.
Throughout the film, Damon is seen recording himself as he tries to find ways to survive in Mrs. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t research all the intricacies of all the scientific jargon that his character speaks throughout the film.
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Matt Damon Pulled Off Complex Scientific Jargon in The Martian Through His Acting
Matt Damon played a botanist in Ridley Scott’s 2015 sci-fi film The Martian. The crux of the film is his journey of survival as he gets stranded on Mars after his team abandons him after a mission goes awry. Damon’s character uses his scientific knowledge as a botanist and finds ways to survive throughout the film.
His character records his progress in growing potatoes and delivers various scientific jargon to explain his approach to dealing with his dire situation. Damon surprisingly did not do any research on the scientific side of things, and all he had to do was sell the dialogues through his acting. He talked about this aspect to Collider saying,
“[None] at all. You can [do research] if you want to, but it’s acting. If it’s done right, the audience should believe it. I think it’s always good when an actor knows what they’re saying. You can see when you watch an actor who’s talking and he literally doesn’t have any idea what they’re talking about, that comes across. But if you know in general terms what it is and what the obstacles are, then you don’t have to know.”
Damon’s explanation is spot on as an actor’s job is to pull off any role that they are given by putting up a convincing [performance. By knowing the situation that his character is in, he can sell all the science-related dialogues in the film through his emotion and delivery.
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Matt Damon Was Ready to Take A Hiatus from Acting Before Oppenheimer
Matt Damon had worked constantly for the last couple of years and he was ready to take some time off from acting. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he opened up about how he had told his wife that he wanted to take a brief hiatus from work. His only exception to that was if Christopher Nolan called him for a film.
Damon had worked with Christopher Nolan in his 2014 sci-fi drama Interstellar. It seems he wanted to star in the director’s films once again so much so, that he kept it as the only condition that would go against his planned hiatus. It coincidently came true when the director approached him for Oppenheimer. Damon said,
“I had — not to get too personal — negotiated extensively with my wife that I was taking time off. “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.”
Damon has two films ready for release. The first is Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls which will be released in theaters on February 23, 2024. He also has Doug Liman’s The Instigators where he stars alongside Casey Affleck. The film is expected to be released sometime next year.
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