Way back in the early days of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot, it seemed crazy that he would try to cast anyone but the biggest names possible, which is how the likes of Matt Damon, Adrien Brody and James McAvoy got tossed around in the rumor mill. Now that Abrams' choice to cast virtual unknowns as the crew of the Starship Enterprise has been rewarded with millions and millions of dollars, he's able to admit that, in the beginning, yeah, he did want a big name.
And actually, he tried to cast Damon-- but not as Captain Kirk, as everyone previously believed. Talking to MTV, Abrams, admitted that he gave Matt a call. "I went to Damon for the role of Kirk's father, and he declined in the most gracious and understandable and logical of reasons. We lucked out with Chris Hemsworth, and he did a great job. Maybe it would have been distracting to have someone as massively famous as Matt Damon in that role. ... The decision was made very early on to have actors who were not necessarily the most famous but the most right for the role."
Hemsworth, of course, has parlayed his few minutes of screen time into a gig as Thor, while Matt Damon has gone on being the superstar he was before. In the end, the decision was a good one... not that we can't imagine for ourselves what it would have been like to see Jason Bourne pilot the ship into that Romulan mining vessel.
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