Ben Affleck and Matt Damon make quite the dynamic duo, recently writing and starring in the well-received film The Last Duel. Through the years both stars have established, celebrated careers in Hollywood. The Last Duel wasn’t their first writing project that they underwent together though, as the 1997 film Good Will Hunting acted as both their writing debut and their first Oscar win at just 25 and 27 years old, respectively. While winning one of the most revered film awards Hollywood has to offer may be grounds for some tears shed, Damon has confirmed that the two filmmakers actually cried while filming Good Will Hunting, and what exactly started the flow of tears.
In an interview with GQ, Matt Damon reveals that it didn’t take long at all for the water works to creep up on him when filming Good Will Hunting. The Stillwater star says that it happened when both he and Ben Affleck were behind the camera watching Robin Williams and Stellan Skarsgård work their magic, and the emotions came from watching those huge Hollywood names act in a film they wrote. Here it is in Damon’s own words:
Sometimes those moments sneak up on you. And that was another one of those moments we never thought was going to arrive. To see not only actors, but those actors, saying the stuff that we wrote, was like…fuck. Just, I guess, a mixture of joy and disbelief. And relief. And gratitude. That would probably be it. That was a really nice moment. I’m not ashamed to say it.
Having been in the business together for around 30 years, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck seem to be on the same page in a lot of cases work pretty seamlessly together. That being said, Damon reveals in the same interview that he recalls Affleck crying right along with him in that moment when they watched Robin Williams and Stellan Skarsgård reciting words that they had written together. This is what Damon has to say in that regard:
I remember him as crying. Now, memory is a funny thing, as we know, so you would have to ask him, but my recollection is we both were. Yeah. I think, as I recall, I put my hand on his arm, as these guys were talking. On his shoulder. Like: ‘Holy shit…’
If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that Ben Affleck probably feels very much the same in regards to not being ashamed to admit that the emotional moment would be enough to get some tears to fall. Now, the two friends turned stars are just as big of names in Hollywood as the two men they shed tears over.
You can catch both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in The Last Duel, which is exclusively in theaters now and will be available to stream once its theatrical window closes.
