Matt Damon Felt This Marvel Star Was Going to Be the Next Jodie Foster
Matt Damon has worked with a lot of young actors, but he walked away with a strong impression of his True Grit co-star. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was she was going to be a big star in Marvel.
Matt Damon couldn’t believe how good his younger ‘True Grit’ co-star was
Damon starred in the Coen Brothers movie True Grit with an ensemble cast. He found himself working alongside the likes of Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, and Jeff Bridges in the 2010 drama. But he found his co-star Hailee Steinfeld just as impressive as the veterans he worked with. Especially given how young she was at the time.
“She’s quite extraordinary in general. She’s 13-years-old and I wouldn’t believe that a 13-year-old would really be capable of this type of performance. It’s a really tough role but she’s just got an enormous amount of poise,” Damon once told RTE.
The Dickinson star managed to clinch the role at such a young age after her audition with Bridges, who she worked closely with in the film.
“Just the thought of it was kind of intimidating,” Steinfeld once told The Hollywood Reporter. “But the minute I met [Bridges], I realized that he was just there to do a job — and I’m there for the same reason, and I kind of clicked with him and the Coen brothers.”
Damon was so impressed by the young actor’s performance that he couldn’t help rave to his wife about it.
“I would go back and forth to Texas when we were shooting and I would go home and say to my wife: ‘This girl reminds me of Jodie Foster,’” Damon recalled. “And I hope for Hailee that she is like Jodie because the business can be brutal and Jodie Foster is an example of somebody who clearly has a great deal of intelligence and talent and has come through it and has got the better of the business rather than the other way round. She’s emerged as a great artist, and by all accounts a great human being, and I’m hoping that’s what Hailee has in store for her.”
Hailee Steinfeld didn’t need to audition for ‘Hawkeye’
It seemed many might’ve agreed with Damon, as Steinfeld snagged an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for True Grit. Steinfeld would go on to star in other hits like Bumblebee and Pitch Perfect 2 before nabbing her lead role in Hawkeye.
“Hailee did not audition,” Marvel producer Kevin Feige said according to Heroic Hollywood. “We were very, very lucky that Hailee was open to this because we very much believed that she was sort of the prototype for the character… As occasionally happens, the dream version of the character agrees to do it. I think there were some early meetings and discussions, but we were very thankful that she wanted to jump into this role because we had a feeling that she would be great, and she is.”
It was a role that Steinfeld felt honored to have.
“It’s very, very exciting to be in the MCU at all. I still haven’t been able to get over that,” Steinfeld once told Entertainment Weekly. “Playing someone that people are in fact very excited to see — it makes me feel honored to be the one bringing her to life.”
Why Matt Damon believed superhero movies dominated the film industry
Marvel has nearly cast every major actor in at least one of their projects. Even Damon has had small cameos in the Thor movies. But the Bourne star also had his own theory as to why superhero movies were so popular int he film industry. Apart from being reliably profitable, they told simple and straightforward stories.
“It made the most profitable movie, one that could travel around the world. And if you want a movie to travel and play big you want the least amount of cultural confusion. So there is the rise of the superhero movie, right? They’re easy for everyone. You know who the good person is, who the bad person is. They fight three times and the good person wins twice,” Damon once told The Times (via Comic Book).
