Matt Damon said his wife, Luciana Barroso, pulled him up after he “fell into depression” while filming an unnamed movie.
In an interview with the YouTube series Jake’s Takes, the Oscar winner opened up about shooting a film that wasn’t what he hoped for.
“Without naming any particular movies, sometimes you find yourself in a movie that you know, perhaps, might not be what you had hoped it would be and you’re still making it,” Matt told host Jake Hamilton.
“Halfway through production and you’ve still got months to go and you’ve taken your family somewhere and you’ve inconvenienced them, and I remember my wife pulling me up because I fell into a depression about like, ‘What have I done?’” the actor continued. “And she just said, ‘We’re here now’.”
Matt married Luciana in 2005, and they have three daughters together, along with his stepdaughter.
He explained that his wife helps motivate him to give a role his all even when he suspects the film won’t do well.
“I do pride myself ― in a large part because of her ― at being a professional actor and what being a professional actor means is you go and you do the 15-hour day and give it absolutely everything, even in what you know is going to be a losing effort,” Matt said.
“And if you can do that with the best possible attitude, then you’re a pro and she really helped me with that.”
It’s unclear what “losing effort” film Matt was referring to in the interview, however. But he and his Oppenheimer co-star Emily Blunt explained they know a movie they’re in is important.
“When Chris Nolan calls you up,” they both said about the Oppenheimer filmmaker.
Matt later said that he also felt that way when he made his 1998 film Saving Private Ryan.
“When you match somebody of that kind of virtuosic skill level with a story,” he said. “I think like Spielberg or Nolan or Jim Cameron or one of those directors with a story that is worthy of their considerable gifts.”
Oppenheimer is set to hit cinemas on 21 July.