Everyone loves a good bromance, and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are arguably the most iconic Bostonian duo. The childhood friends have risen in the Hollywood ranks since they spent the start of their career appearing in films together and blew up after both starring in their co-writing debut Good Will Hunting. Not surprisingly, Damon recalls his favorite scene he’s ever filmed with bestie Affleck and it’s one from their classic, career-making film.
A ton of extra work went into writing Good Will Hunting, as it was Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s first experience with writing a screenplay. It took the pair a number of years to get the film made, and the anticipation of filming some scenes was pretty high. Apparently Affleck was so ready to film one scene that he only needed one take. While in most cases this would be both impressive and satisfying, apparently Affleck still needed a few extra takes to get the emotion of the scene out of his system.
In an appearance on First We Feast’s Hot Ones, where celebrities answer questions as they eat wings that escalate in hotness, Matt Damon explains that his favorite scene with Ben Affleck was the one where Affleck’s character told his to leave town and that he was too good to be wasting away there. Apparently this was a scene that meant a lot to Affleck, and his bewilderment over not being able to spend more time on it stuck with Damon. Here’s what the star says, exactly:
There’s a scene in Good Will Hunting where [Ben] tells me to get outta town and that was really cool because we worked on that 4 or 5 years up to that point and it was a big scene for him. When he did it he did one take. And the first take, Gus Van Sant, the director said, ‘Great, I think I have it.’ And Ben was so shocked, because we’d been imagining this day for so long, he looked at me and I was like, ‘I think Gus is right, I think we’ve got it.’ So he kind of insisted on doing it again. So, we did it only three times -- and I don’t know which take Gus used because they were all great -- but the look of bewilderment on his face, that this thing he’d been waiting so long to do was like over in 20 minutes. That was probably my favorite scene.
It’s a show of a great friendship that Matt Damon’s favorite scene had more to do with how his buddy responded to it than being in the actual scene itself. The admiration for Ben Affleck shows as Damon speaks about him and his talents, even through one of the spicier mouthfuls of wings.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting over 20 years ago, and the pair have teamed up again for a new film, this time going full Game of Thrones. The Last Duel both stars and was written by Damon and Affleck and has already completed production. The newest team up of the Boston buddies is set to release this October 15th.
