Matt Damon Accidentally Offended Christopher Nolan After Reading Oppenheimer

In Christopher Nolan's upcoming biographical film "Oppenheimer," Matt Damon plays Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, Jr., the man in charge of the Manhattan Project who worked closely with the film's title character. Seeing as Damon is playing him, Nolan wanted Groves to be affable, intelligent, and frank, qualities Damon often brings to his performances. Damon is one of 100 notable actors to appear in "Oppenheimer" — the cast list is lengthy and wildly stacked — but is one of the film's actual leads. In previews, he seems to offer a grounded counterpoint to the more intense, heady, determined J. Robert Oppenheimer himself (played by Cillian Murphy).

Damon was, as he revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, thrilled to be involved with "Oppenheimer." Not only was he going to work with Nolan, a widely acclaimed director, but the film was filling a niche that both he and his director felt hadn't been filled in decades. Nolan likened his film to the high-profile Oliver Stone-directed biopics of the 1990s ("The Doors," "JFK," "Nixon"), which attracted just as much attention in their day as the effects-based fantasy blockbusters of the 2010s and early 2020s. Nolan and Damon agreed that "Oppenheimer" was going to be the "everyone is talking about it" movie of the season.

Damon, while always complimentary of Nolan's script, found out after the fact that he wasn't quite effusive enough. When compared to some of his co-stars, Damon seemed downright unimpressed. This (in a playful sense) offended Nolan, and he was called out in front of his co-star Emily Blunt.

Matt Damon, an Academy Award-winning screenwriter himself, thought he knew how to give a fellow writer a compliment. In falling back on a worn aphorism, though, he proved that brevity is the soul of flip dismissal. Damon explained: 

"I kind of offended Chris [Nolan]. 'Cause he came over and he said 'What you think?' And I just kind of blurted out 'I have no notes.' Which was, to me, the greatest thing you could say to another writer. But when Emily [Blunt] met with him, like, a week later she was effusive in her praise, and very articulate. And he was like 'Oh, that's better than I got from Matt. I just got 'no notes.”"

Blunt, during the same interview, also did her Nolan impersonation, playfully adding "Yeah, that was better than Damon's reaction to it."

Damon, Blunt, and Cillian Murphy then all spitballed for a few moments, recalling the early parts of their respective careers. Blunt recalled doing a table read for the 2002 film version of "The Four Feathers" when she was only 17. She didn't appear in the film but was elated to be sitting across from Heath Ledger. Murphy made his co-stars jealous by revealing that his very first audition ever, for a play called "Disco Pigs," landed him a lead role. Damon remembered the time he got paid $25,000 for a 1990 TV movie called "Rising Son" starring Brian Dennehy. Damon was 19 or 20 at the time. He bought a car for his brother and paid his mom's tuition so she could get her PhD. 

30-some years on, they are now all appearing in one of the most anticipated films of the summer. One might say that Murphy, Blunt, and Damon are going places.