Matt Damon To Leonardo DiCaprio: ‘That’s How You Make A Movie’
Matt Damon will be going up against Leonardo DiCaprio as both actors vie for the Best Actor award at this year’s Academy Awards later this month. Unfortunately for Matt Damon, DiCaprio seems to be the clear favorite, and as Cinema Blend notes, DiCaprio’s role in The Revenant seems to be the one to beat.
Guys! The picture of the day with Michael Fassbender, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. pic.twitter.com/NCXuRwWPwJ
— Emilie Isaac (@HeartlessLives) February 15, 2016
What’s interesting, though, is that much of the hype surrounding The Revenant involves what DiCaprio and the rest of the cast and crew endured in order to create the film, rather than the acting and quality of the film itself. Matt Damon spoke at the Directors Guild Awards last week and decided to make mention of this point. While introducing Ridley Scott, the famous director who Matt Damon worked with on The Martian, Matt Damon decided to draw attention to the similarities and differences between his and Leo DiCaprio’s performances.
In some ways, Matt Damon’s role in The Martian was not dissimilar to DiCaprio’s role in The Revenant. Both films depict a lone man doing what is necessary in order to survive in the harshest of conditions, but as Matt Damon was at pains to describe, the similarities existed only on screen.
“Every night at 6 o’clock, the horn blew and Ridley [Scott] and I went to dinner. And that’s how you make a movie, and we finished the film really early and we saved 2 million bucks. And Leo — we weren’t cold at all. I’m just sayin’. There’s another way to do it.”
When this is contrasted to DiCaprio’s experience while filming The Revenant, the differences become clear. DiCaprio famously ate raw liver while filming, made even worse by the fact that in real life, he is a strict vegan. In addition, Leo’s film cost about twice as much as Matt Damon’s film to shoot, and also took considerably longer to complete. In fact, as Cinema Blend points out, the conditions on the set were considered so brutal that at one point it was accused of providing unsafe working conditions for the cast and crew.
While Matt Damon’s comments may seem unsportsmanlike at best and brutal at worst, they were all in jest. Leonardo DiCaprio was in attendance at the Directors Guild Awards, as was Alejandro González Iñárritu, the director of The Revenant. Apparently they both laughed along at Matt Damon’s speech. It also seems that this is not the first time that this point has been made.
Matt Damon pokes fun at Leonardo DiCaprio’s harrowing Revenant stories https://t.co/OiZvtPO1wi pic.twitter.com/uM2vZoyAHs
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) February 8, 2016
Matt Damon may have had the last laugh for now, but only time will tell who will reign supreme once the Best Actor envelope is read out later this month.
In other Matt Damon news, his character’s diet in The Martian has sparked a lot of interest, with one Australian man taking it to the next level. As the Mirror reports, Matt Damon’s character, Mark Watney, had only a few potatoes to hand after he found himself stranded on Mars.
For 36-year-old Australian Andrew Taylor, Matt Damon’s character’s eating habits inspired a personal weight loss challenge. Taylor resolved to eat nothing but potatoes for the 366 days of 2016 (yes, this year is a leap year) in a quest to lose weight.
Posting his ongoing journey to Facebook, Taylor has become somewhat of a local social media celebrity.
And despite many popular diets claiming that carbohydrates should be avoided at all costs, Taylor actually appears to be losing weight during his endeavour.
And to allay any concerns, Taylor insists that he is being advised by a dietician.
“I eat three kilograms of potatoes daily and I’m getting 600% of the daily [iron] recommended dietary requirements.”
It seems unlikely that the creators of The Martian ever envisaged that Matt Damon’s character’s forced eating habits while stranded on Mars would spark a weight loss trend!
[Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images]
