Even though Matt Damon has appeared in a number of high-profile roles in massive box office hits and awards-worthy features, he’s probably turned down just as many. And in a recent interview, he details a few of those roles, including a couple of superhero-y ones.
Speaking to Happy. Sad. Confused., Damon opened up about the myriad opportunities that he’s had to pass up over the years. And we’re not talking just some indie features, but some of the most acclaimed and biggest box office hits of their times, including a role in Christopher Nolan’s superhero epic, “The Dark Knight.”
Included in the list of films that Damon walked away from are award-winning features such as Tom McCarthy‘s “Spotlight” (he would have had Mark Ruffalo‘s part) and Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” (a role that eventually went to Josh Brolin who earned an Academy Award nomination for the part). But he seems to take it all in stride saying, “I really do believe the actor gets the part they were meant to get… this happened for a reason and [Josh] was amazing.” Interestingly, Damon also said he and Ben Affleck almost had parts in “Dead Poet Society” when he was only 18-years-old.
But perhaps one of the biggest films he turned down is a prominent role in Nolan’s “The Dark Knight.” No, he wasn’t up for the Joker role, but he did have to turn down the role of Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face.
“Well, Dark Knight’ was a small role that I was offered,” Damon said, originally downplaying the part. “It wasn’t Heath or Christian’s part.” He then, eventually, confirmed it was Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent 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,” he laughed, clearly talking about his “Avatar” incident.
Damon added, “Sometimes you look at a role, it’s good, it’s a good role in a great movie— I subsequently did a small role in one of Christopher Nolan’s movies in ‘Interstellar.’ I wanted to be part of that troupe, he works with the same actors over and over again, but I wanted to be on that ride.”
READ MORE: Matt Damon Turned Down ‘Avatar’ Lead Even After Being Offered 10% Of The Film’s Profits
However, his flirtation with “The Dark Knight” wasn’t the only time he circled a ‘Batman’ film. Damon said he auditioned for a Robin role in 1986 or 1987. He doesn’t give a lot of details and doesn’t remember much because he says he was about 16-years-old, but that has to be Tim Burton‘s 1989 “Batman” film. It has been revealed that Burton’s initial ideas for “Batman” did include a Robin, though the character was later scrapped. Then, years later he was one of the Robin finalists for George Clooney‘s film,”Batman & Robin” with Joel Schumacher at the helm.
“In 1993, I was one of the final three to play Robin in the George Clooney/Joel Schumacher ‘Batman,'” he explained, but he said the part was technically never his to get. “Chris O’Donnell had the part, but they were haggling over money, and so the studio was flexing by flying two other people to screen test, but they wanted Chris, but they wanted him for a price. And I knew Chris and I remember calling him and being like, ‘I’ll work for a quarter of what that dude’s [asking for],” he laughed. “I want the job! So I flew in and auditioned for Joel, but they always intended it [for Chris.”
Clearly, Matt Damon has been involved in quite a few “almosts” in Hollywood. Though, you could argue that perhaps it’s best about him not appearing in “Batman & Robin.” At least these all pale in comparison (financially, at least) to that “Avatar” situation.