There are many celebrities that get mistaken for another celebrity. Daniel Radcliffe gets constantly mistaken for Elijah Wood, while fans think Ben Stiller looks like Adam Sandler and even social media users go viral for looking like A-listers. Apologies to Matt Damon, but it looks like another celebrity gets mistaken for him and it’s Civil War’s Jesse Plemons.
On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the talk show host continues to rip into Matt Damon by jokingly having his comedy sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, hold Kimmel’s latest guest, Jesse Plemons, in a jail cell for being mistaken for his frequently jabbed-at celebrity. After Plemons was released, he came clean to Kimmel about a time one woman mistook the Black Mirror actor for Damon:
It has somewhat been haunting me for a little while. There was an occasion at the Toronto Film Festival maybe 10 years ago or so where I was stepping into an elevator and, you know, everyone at festivals, they’re kind of looking around to see who they can spot. And this woman asked me ‘Are you Matt Damon?’ I said ‘No. I'm sorry, I'm not.’ And she looked at me as if ‘Wow, Matt Damon is a liar.’ And I felt bad.
It's hilarious that a woman thought “Matt Damon” was lying to her about his identity! But hey, there are worse people to be mistaken for. I never would have compared the likeness of the two actors, but I can understand the confusion as they both have a similar smile and friendly demeanor to them. If you take a look at Damon's best movies, he's had a ton of film projects that have shaped his career like The Bourne Identity movies, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Martian, and most recently, Oppenheimer.
And you can’t forget about Good Will Hunting. A cool behind-the-scenes fact about the movie would have to be the Hollywood actor writing the screenplay for a Harvard playwriting class put together with his childhood friend, Ben Affleck. Their collaboration got them Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars and their careers took off from there.
Jesse Plemons said he honestly doesn’t see the resemblance between him and Matt Damon. But, he mentioned that his mom after watching Good Will Hunting always felt her son would look like Damon when he gets older. Clearly, the crew behind one of the best Cormac McCarthy adaptations, All the Pretty Horses, saw an uncanny resemblance to the two as well casting Plemons as the younger version of Damon. Unfortunately, audiences wouldn't get to see their likeness in the Western flick. The Game Night actor talked about not knowing he was cut from the movie until he saw it himself:
At the time, it was the most exciting—even with Matt Damon, it was the most exciting part that I had gotten, you know, western. By the time the movie was premiering, my mom called their local theater and got them to do a special screening for us. I invited this girl that I had a crush on, and I was supposed to be in the very first scene of the movie. And we sit down, and I’m not there. And we keep thinking, ‘Oh well, you know, they could have changed it in the edit.’ And we sat through the whole thing and I never showed up.
The Fargo actor and Jimmy Kimmel joked around that Matt Damon must have had something to do with the cut scene! There’s no worries, though, as the talented actor didn’t need All the Pretty Horses to make it big in Hollywood. The Academy Award nominee has a prolific career coming ahead of him with his next three roles being in the same anthology film Kinds of Kindness. But, I’m sure he’ll always remember one of his earliest roles was playing a younger Matt Damon even if it didn’t make the final cut.
With apologies to Matt Damon, it looks like the fans confuse Jesse Plemons with the Saving Private Ryan actor. If you’re one of those fans confused by their likeness, remember that it’s Plemons you’ll be seeing in Kinds of Kindness and not Damon with the 2024 movie release coming to theaters on June 21st.
