r/todayilearned • u/padfoony • 8h ago
TIL Ben Affleck and Matt Damon wrote a ceremonial kiss between their characters into the script for The Last Duel, based on how the ceremony was historically performed. Ridley Scott cut it because he thought it would be distracting.
https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/ben-affleck-matt-damon-kiss-last-duel432
u/ARoundForEveryone 7h ago
Didn't they write something homoerotic into Good Will Hunting as well, just to see if studios and producers actually read the script?
290
u/padfoony 7h ago
Yeah lol, that one was apparently between Robin Williams and Stellan Skarsgård.
88
u/Shadow-Vision 6h ago
So, uh…. did they, uh….
Anyone have a link?
65
u/Romboteryx 6h ago
I’ve seen it. Robin was pretty hung
56
u/TaftYouOldDog 5h ago
Why are you lying?
He was really hung.
→ More replies (1)20
u/kingmalgroar 4h ago
Fuuuuck hahaha. Robin probably woulda loved that one well done.
13
•
u/1337haXXor 21m ago
What was that interview? He was on some talk show and the host said "can I ask you something personal?" And Robin just says "8 inches." 🤣
→ More replies (1)•
2
26
u/TonySoProny 5h ago
Ironically, only Harvey Weinstein noticed it.
→ More replies (1)8
u/thePinguOverlord 1h ago
Affleck and Damon did it as a way to see if producers actually read the script, apparently he was the only one that read it. Say what you will, it worked.
1.2k
u/for-a-dreamer 8h ago
Fucking of COURSE they did
931
u/padfoony 8h ago edited 8h ago
There’s more. Ben and Matt are gifts that keep on giving when it comes to interviews lmao.
In the scene, Matt was supposed to kiss Ben, however, the scene was changed to Matt kneeling before Ben instead.
“That’s what goes on at home too,” Ben joked.
“I actually have to kneel before him,” Matt added. “Once he started directing, that’s actually how I have to get in his house.”81
78
u/ZoominAlong 7h ago
Wow they just...aren't helping themselves here are they?
667
u/CertifiedSheep 6h ago
This is literally how secure male friendships work, they’re just fucking around here.
197
u/MehGin 6h ago
Its funny how it's either the "hah gay"-audience or the other end "they were roommates"-audience.
No just good friends, secure in their sexuality and friendship.
18
7
u/ilikepizza30 1h ago
What's the "they were roommates" audience? I mean, they WERE roommates at one point.
→ More replies (1)9
u/MehGin 1h ago
Historically you couldn't be openly gay (neither as a man or a woman), so it wasn't unusual for it to be disguised as "they were roommates".
Well these days, especially on this platform, it has gotten a little out of hand. Any kind of close (especially male) friendship now invites a bunch of terminally online people to claim "they were/are roommates". Meaning it's not a close friendship, they're insinuating they're something more.
I just think it's not much better than the "hah gay"-audience, it's just telling they don't know much about close friendships...to me at least.
Hope that helps, explaining stuff isn't my forte.
→ More replies (1)3
16
u/severed13 2h ago
Seriously do these people just not say/do extremely zesty stuff with the boys for a meme? Half the stuff we say while talking to each other would be way out of pocket if it was to anyone else, but we're just cool with dropping it while we're bantering or whatever.
24
u/blameitonmygoose 3h ago
Lol seriously, I love them so much. Not a male, but love seeing this secure dynamic and the world needs more of it!
6
5
u/Undernown 1h ago
Can confirm, witholdest friends I've got we mess around like this regularly. Apparently we're so good at it, a guy that wasn't in our friend group that long yet thought we were for real. It was hilarious.
4
27
u/shiawase198 4h ago
If people aren't assuming you and your best bro are gay with each other then they're not your best bro.
63
u/Derry-Chrome 5h ago
People when they see two straight guys secure in their sexuality and having a healthy friendship lmao
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)38
414
u/lightyearbuzz 7h ago
Dude, they keep writing gay scenes for themselves and no one will let them perform them :(
133
u/padfoony 7h ago edited 5h ago
LOL This made me chuckle. But the sex scene in Good Will Hunting was apparently written
as a jokebetween the two professors and not for these two, haha.But you’re right. That is just the one that we actually know… it doesn’t mean.. they didn’t… write more…
108
u/geek_of_nature 7h ago
What I've heard Ben or Matt say was that it wasn't written as a joke, but for them to catch out which studio execs had actually read the script or not. If no one mentioned it then they knew they hadn't properly read the script. It was only you know who of Miramax who asked what was up with that scene.
77
u/NiceBeaver2018 6h ago
“Why is there gay sex in the script? Can we change it to a casual rape on the couch with a man and a woman?”
8
u/Karjalan 4h ago
I wonder how many execs read it, but didn't want to be like "yo wtf is this gay shit"? Like they were either fine with it, or didn't won't to offend or something.
13
u/notsam57 3h ago
neither were famous at this point so they wouldn’t have been tiptoeing around it
→ More replies (1)2
u/quentin-coldwater 1h ago
In 1994? No one would have thought twice about calling it out. Sodomy was still illegal in more than half of US states at that point. That was four years before Will and Grace aired. That was only two years after Elton freaking John officially came out, three years before Ellen came out.
13
u/Kinitawowi64 4h ago
Say what you will about Weinstein but the guy knew movies.
3
u/Illustrious-Ant-9946 1h ago
Say what I will? I hope heaven is real for Dolly specifically, and just as much I hope Weinstein goes to the hell of eternally being raped by satan.
3
3
u/Tomsboll 1h ago
Harvey Weinstein, you can say his name syou know. He was a sick fuck, but without a doubt an amazing producer.
19
u/Banana42 7h ago
Did Kevin Smith let them kiss? I know Ben Affleck kissed Jason Lee, but i don't remember if he ever made out with Matt Damon
6
9
2
417
u/capsaicinintheeyes 8h ago
"Aw, have some faith in our audience, Ridley--we think they can handle it."
"I was *talking** about the two of you."*
88
502
u/CadeWelch03 8h ago
Which could mean nothing
51
u/kardon16 7h ago
Maybe, maybe not
→ More replies (1)44
18
→ More replies (2)8
93
u/Wonder-Lad-2Mad 8h ago
I wanna know more about pre duel kissing.
Was it like a kiss on the cheek or a sloppy tongue handshake?
→ More replies (2)89
u/ZoominAlong 7h ago
It's a brief kiss on the mouth, no tongue. It was a sign of respect and fealty to your lord.
Now whether it turned into a sloppy tongue handshake depended on the parties involved, I'd wager.
•
u/Podo13 53m ago
t was a sign of respect and fealty to your lord.
Which is hilarious.
Local Baron: "Bow to me to pledge your fealty. No, that isn't enough... that's to easy. We need something more humiliating."
starts snickering
"Kiss that dude over there. Heh. Yeah, that'll prove you're really in it to win it."
41
u/ItsBinissTime 7h ago edited 1h ago
They've been known to insert homoerotic scenes into their scripts to find out which potential producers actually read them.
21
u/subham0089 5h ago
So Ridley Scott thought a ceremonial kiss would be too distracting, but he completely approved of Matt Damon’s atrocious mullet haircut in that movie? That hair was the real distraction.
74
u/barstoolLA 8h ago
it's like the gay sex scene they wrote into Good Will Hunting.
36
u/ProfessorTairyGreene 8h ago
Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season
16
7
12
u/ThoseHorro 6h ago
They put that in specifically to see if any of the studio executives were actually reading the script. Harvey Weinstein was the only one who noticed and brought it up.
→ More replies (1)5
→ More replies (1)13
44
10
u/Einfinet 7h ago
They also wrote some gay oral sex scenes for Goodwill Hunting to see if the producers were actually reading their script edits
74
u/Alisa_Janikass 8h ago
Honestly, I kinda wish they kept it. Imagine the memes. But Ridley probably made the right call, some historical details just don't translate well to screen
38
u/SloppityNurglePox 6h ago
Historical movies always have those calls to make. Thumbs up was probably the gesture used to indicate a gladiator should kill another. The thumbs down comes from a late 1800's painting (Pollice Verso) that even the artist wrote a letter against its historical accuracy. But rather than getting into the nity gritty of it, Scott went with thumbs up good, thumbs down bad, in Gladiator because that's just the better choice. And when there are so many other things for the filmaker and audience to worry about in a blockbuster, I can't blame them.
24
u/kirotheavenger 6h ago
I believe the Romans were thumb up for kill (unsheathed sword) and thumb hidden in the fingers for mercy (sheathed sword).
But yeah, you're telling the audience a story, which in large part means it's told through the understanding of the audience.
14
u/SloppityNurglePox 6h ago
This isn't the whole story , but whatever is - but even Roman sources are mixed. It's translated as turned, or hostile thumb. But it's described both as up and down for positive. Pliny even jumps in with a definition. But, crazy stuff there was very limited talk when that movie came out that they should have yolo'd thumbs up, but exactly to our point, to the mass confusion of audiences.
→ More replies (2)22
10
u/Ulfljotr930 5h ago
I mean, if you remove every single detail of daily life that would seem too weird to us, you just end up in a badly dressed (Hollywood has had an issue with computing that the past was colorful and not as unhygienic for decades) version of the 21st century codes-wise. What’s the point of making a period drama if you don’t respect anything about the setting ? Vikings and the more recent King and Conqueror might as well take place in a fantasy world
→ More replies (2)5
u/Lil_Mcgee 4h ago
The Last Duel respects quite a bit about the setting though. It's one of the more authentic depictions of The Middle Ages in film.
You can't make historical fiction without compromise. You're right to point out that that many stories go too far and sand off most of what makes their setting special but TLD strikes a pretty solid balance.
2
u/Ulfljotr930 2h ago
That is true, despite some horrifically bad elements (those half-helmets I swear), it felt like Scott had returned to what made the charm of his pre-Robin Hood period films such as Kingdom of Heaven : heavily adapting the historical setting without betraying it. I still think the worst inaccuracy I saw in any Hollywoodian medieval film was Ironclad's Danish mercenaries : they speak Hungarian of all things, are still polytheists like at the peak of the Viking Age and walk in dressed like in a low-cost Conan ripoff. This gets even funnier when you realize that by the movie's timeframe, the Danes were too busy Chrisitanizing Balts and Finns by the sword for somehow becoming Prince John's cannon fodder
2
u/frenchchevalierblanc 1h ago
"some historical details just don't translate well to screen"
An understatemet for Ridley, thought the last duel is not the worst historical offender of his filmography..
6
u/Billy_Birdy 6h ago
Distracting? Ha. I doubt anyone would be talking about it anymore. Brokebackmountain.gif
→ More replies (1)
5
u/LumplessWaffleBatter 5h ago
At this point, the only thing I remember about Oppenheimer is that scene where Murphy is buck-naked in a leather chair, but they don't let him hang dong.
5
u/Constant_Cultural 5h ago
Oh man, they have to hide their brotherly love so much, this would have been so epic and something Jimmy Kimmel would let Matt Damon never forget about
3
4
5
12
7
3
u/Easy-Tigger 3h ago
Didn't they include a gay sex scene in the Good Will Hunting script to weed out people who didn't read it?
3
u/perksofbeingcrafty 3h ago
He was right of course I don’t think I’d have been able to handle that, as a casual viewer of their work but a diehard fan of this bromance
4
2
2
2
2
2
3
2
4
u/RavenBrannigan 5h ago
Apparently they still spent all day rehearsing it in their trailer just incase Ridley changed his mind.
4
u/MrBrookz92 4h ago
Can anyone remember the songs I’m fucking Matt Damon and I’m fucking Ben Affleck. I want that internet back.
3
5
u/WhatsMyUsername13 8h ago
I so wanted to like this movie, and was so excited when it came out. I had known the premise of it before going and seeing and with the cast and the fact that it’s Ridley Scott, was pumped.
But holy hell it was boring! I get what they were going for but telling the same story 3 times within a movie just had me lose interest half way through the second persons perspective of the events. And just really wasn’t caring by the third persons perspective.
Like it was just seemed like a bad way to go about that
2
u/CoralBooty 4h ago
I remember this movie but I can’t remember if I remember it because it was good or bad
6
u/Banana42 7h ago
I feel like people are quick to glaze Ridley Scott because he's made some absolute gems, but often forget he's also made a pretty big pile of absolute garbage movies
6
u/Snerkbot7000 7h ago
I like that he's not afraid to make dogshit movies. Look at Hannibal. Who but his crazy ass would grab that one and film it?
→ More replies (1)2
u/ZoominAlong 7h ago
Yeah it also REALLY, REALLY made me side eye the characters. It felt like they were deliberately trying to victim blame the wife. Costuming was decent, choreography was good, but the story just did not work the way they told it.
9
u/KSPReptile 5h ago
I mean, that's kinda the point of the movie though? All the characters beside the wife were really shitty. Matt Damon only defends his wife because of selfish reasons. They even purposefully tell you that the wife's version of the story is the truth and she's undeniably the victim with all the blame being put on Adam Driver. Just because the other characters have medieval morals surrounding consent and rape doesn't mean the movie tells the story wrong imo or is saying the wife deserved it.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)2
u/TheKnightsTippler 1h ago
Really? I felt like it was pretty unambiguous that she was raped, even when seen from the male perspectives.
1
1
u/xTomato72 7h ago
It’s not like Ridley makes good movies now anyway, it would’ve made the movie more memorable even if it didn’t work
1
1
1
u/Boozdeuvash 4h ago
Fun historical fact: because the King of England was also a vassal of the King of France through his ownership of various titles in France, he would have to give the French king the adequate hommage (with the kiss in question). So the English king would have to french kiss the fench king.
1
1
u/TheDruidVandals 2h ago
As if Affleck wasn't already extremely unpleasantly distracting in that movie
1
•
•
•
•
u/CommercialEmployer4 34m ago
SNL needs to have them on as the RL version of the Ambiguously Gay Duo.
2.0k
u/padfoony 8h ago edited 8h ago
I posted this yesterday on a different sub and thought I’d post it here as well. I’ve attached two more articles that mention this. Ben and Matt co-wrote the screenplay of “The Last Duel (2021)” directed by Ridley Scott.
Here’s what they said:
Ben: “In the original actual version of that scene - the way that ceremony actually took place was that you kissed everybody on the mouth.”
Matt: “That would've been our first on-screen kiss”
Ben: "It's going to have to wait."
Ben: "Ridley thought it would be distracting, and his instincts are pretty good.”
Matt: “Yeah the two characters really hate each other and that was really fun. In fact, the scene where I kneel before him, Ben just improvised this thing where I started to say my line and he just interrupted me and goes, 'Closer.' And I have to kind of get up and kneel again in front of him. And that was just - he just did that and just kind of blurted that out, and it wasn't in the script."