Christopher Nolan is a man who likes to enjoy his jokes and pranks on his selected cast members in his movies. Working alongside Matt Damon, the director and actor have quite a bond of refusing and accepting opportunities ever since The Dark Knight.
When the role of Harvey Dent/Two-Face was offered to Matt Damon, he rejected the role because he felt it was too small. Well, when Christopher Nolan offered him a small role in Interstellar, the director remembered to take his revenge and played a cruel joke on The Martian actor.
Christopher Nolan Played A Cruel Prank On Matt Damon
Before being offered the role of Dr. Mann in Christopher Nolan‘s iconic 2014 masterpiece Interstellar, Matt Damon had previously rejected an offer to star in The Dark Knight. Since he was offered the role of Harvey Dent aka Two-Face, Damon felt that the screentime was too little for him.
After rejecting that role, Nolan then offered him the role of Dr. Mann in Interstellar. Talking about the cruel joke that was played on him, Matt Damon revealed that Nolan was just too blunt with his words. Before talking about the character that he would go on to portray, Nolan gave a brief description of how big or small the role was. The description is indeed hilarious to hear as Matt Damon told Fandango.
“Chris is very direct. Like when he offered me Interstellar years ago, he said ‘You know they say there are no small parts, there are only small actors?’ and I’m on the phone and go ‘Yeah!’ [And he goes] ‘This is a small part.’”
Since Damon had learned his lesson by that time, he immediately agreed to portray the role of Dr. Mann which was quite an impressive role to portray.
Matt Damon Felt His Role Was Too Small In The Dark Knight
Well, Matt Damon did learn from his mistakes but what was the exact mistake that Damon admitted to making? Back in 2008, Nolan was creating his superhero magnum opus starring Heath Ledger and Christian Bale in The Dark Knight. In an interview with The Playlist, the actor revealed that he was offered the role of Two-Face but he turned it down.
“Well, ‘Dark Knight’ was a small role that I was offered … It wasn’t Heath or Christian’s part … There was some other big movie, some big part that I was doing where I was like, ‘Well, I can’t play Harvey Dent, this is a relatively small role, but I am headlining this other thing.’ But you gotta be sanguine about it and go, ‘It all works out.’ At this point, I passed on the biggest payday in the history [of cinema] accidentally, so I could never do worse financially, I could never commit a worse financial error.”
In the end, Nolan gave Damon another chance and the two bonded quite great. Matt Damon appeared once again in the role of General Leslie Groves in the director’s recent explosive movie Oppenheimer. The 2023 movie is currently screening in select theaters across the world as it gears up for an OTT release date.
Source: Fandango, The Playlist
