Ben Affleck and Matt Damon: ‘Mixing work and personal relationships can be complicated’

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are about to drop crime thriller The Rip on Netflix, treating audiences to another onscreen pair-up of the real-life best friends who first sowed the seeds of a professional partnership back when they were teenagers growing up together just outside Boston.

But it’s moved so fast, you’d be forgiven for not realising this propulsive action flick would be available to watch this weekend; writer-director Joe Carnahan managed to get both stars signed on, alongside their company, Actors Equity, within 48 hours – and for a film where the script didn’t exist two years ago.

‘It almost never happens like that!’ Carnahan exclaims of the ‘crazy’ speed. But that’s just how Damon and Affleck roll.

‘It’s one of the things we pride ourselves with at our company is because we’re all filmmakers, we can move really quickly,’ Damon tells Metro. ‘Oftentimes these things languish, Hollywood tends to move at a glacial pace and being a smaller company, we can move really quickly.

‘We’re the bosses now, so we can just kind of push the button and go!’

They even have history with this kind of fast turnaround and producing through their company, which was founded in 2022.

‘When we did Air together, I think we finished the movie before the deal was papered and Amazon came to us and we’re like “No, we’re done with it, here’s the movie!”. They were kind of shocked by that – but that’s how we like to move.’

‘Also, the cast that showed up,’ chimes in Affleck, of The Rip. ‘We went up and said we think we should do it immediately – you know, here’s Teyana [Taylor], here’s Steven Yeun, Sasha [Calle], here’s Kyle Chandler.’

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s new movie is a smart and slick Netflix thriller

In The Rip, the pair play Miami cops who are part of team that discover a stash of what looks to be $20million (£14.8m) in a safehouse. They have to count the money before they can leave the scene, but also have to survive the night as suspicion sets in. Damon leads the group as Lieutenant Dane Dumars, recently promoted, while Affleck is his friend and colleague, Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne.

There were absolutely no issues with figuring out who would play which role.

‘We’re pretty agnostic. Especially in a case like this, where both roles were excellent,’ says Damon.

‘And we’re director-based, it’s a director’s medium, the director makes that decision,’ adds Affleck, of allowing Carnahan to make the call.

Cue an epic casual namedrop that only stars of this magnitude can get away with, from Damon.

‘I remember that happened on The Departed where Leo [DiCaprio] liked both roles and I liked both roles and we just said to Marty [Scorsese], “We’re just completely agnostic. What do you think? Your call, you’re the director.” It’s got to be the directors. It’s got to fit the director’s vision.’

Both actors have been chipper throughout our conversation so far, with Damon quipping when I say I’ve spoken to Carnahan just before them: ‘My condolences.’

‘Are your ears ringing? Joe’s got a lot of energy,’ jumps in Affleck.

How their decades-long friendship has translated to the heights of Hollywood success

But when I lead the conversation into discussing their 40-plus-year friendship and how they’ve managed to work so successfully together too (picking up an Oscar in 1998 for Good Will Hunting’s script as their big breakthrough), things kick up a level.

Damon mentions their famous shared bank account from when they were auditioning for the same parts at 16, travelling into New York, to pursue their dream.

‘I mean, we always wanted to be the one who got the part, that went without saying, but if we didn’t get it, we really wanted the other one to get it,’ he says of their long-rooted support for each other.

‘And then as we got older and got out into the world and we’re living together and broke and unemployed, it was more of a practical necessity. We were desperate for one of us to get it because somebody had to pay the bills!’

We always wanted to be the one who got the part, that went without saying

‘I’ll tell you, it’s a hell of a lot easier to work with somebody you love and trust and respect and who’s terrific than it is to work with people you don’t like! You’ll have a hard time, I think,’ adds Ben. ‘This is a joy, it’s a lot easier, you have a shorthand with people you know.’

‘And I know what you’re getting at, which is sometimes mixing work and personal relationships and stuff can be complicated. Why it’s not is because we both love this job separate and independent of one another and we both understand that you can’t ask a friend to change the rules of the universe to conform to your friendship.’

While they both have acted and worked together on projects like Dogma, Sir Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel and recent producing credits such as Irish drama Small Things Like These and Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring Affleck’s ex-wife Jennifer Lopez, they have also enjoyed huge success separately.

Affleck has been Daredevil, Batman and won an Oscar for his film Argo, while Damon was the only cinematic spy to give James Bond a run for his money, Jason Bourne, and starred in The Martian (Oscar nominated) and True Grit before Sir Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in 2023, which paved the way for him to star in one of this year’s most anticipated films, The Odyssey.

It’s a hell of a lot easier to work with somebody you love and trust and respect

‘We’re subject to, frankly, the demands of the audience. If they want to see Matt in a certain part more than I, I don’t then turn around and resent Matt for that. I’m actually happy!’ says Affleck.

Navigating Hollywood has, if anything, only strengthened their relationship. ‘In a way, you feel more bonded. Because it’s competitive, and it’s crazy, and it can feel like you against the world – it’s nice not to feel alone in that.’

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s playbook for production company Artists Equity

Damon agrees that trust in your colleagues is paramount – actually a theme of the movie too.

‘I’ve worked with an extraordinary list of directors and one thing they all have in common is their key people. Their casts will probably change somewhat depending on the story they’re telling, but their key crew members? Every great director, Ben included, they have the same people in those positions because of that shorthand and because those people are so good at their jobs.’

Nolan is famously one of those directors, and Affleck, who has helmed the likes of Gone Baby Gone, The Town and upcoming Netflix collaboration Animals, has no ego when it comes to moviemaking.

‘This is a difficult thing to do. You’re sort of trying to catch lightning in a bottle. It has to be kind of magical, it has to be special, something wonderful has to happen. And to do that, you’ve got to be with a group of people who understand that, and are ready, and whom you don’t have to stop and say, “One of the things I’m trying to do is…” You’re just going to look at somebody, you both know, and it’s like you’re both going after exactly what you want to do.’

This chimes with Artists Equity’s vision too – ‘respecting and recognising the massive value those people bring to the community of the process of making the film’, as Affleck puts it.

And in terms of the actors? ‘From my own experience, the better the other actors are, the better I’m going to be, the better the movie’s going to be. Viewing it as a zero-sum game or a selfish thing where you’re seeking to have all the benefits accrue to you for your ego is probably, I think, the most fatal mistake,’ he insists.

‘I remember Gus Van Sant saying that directing was 95% casting,’ Damon recalls, breezing into another – welcome – anecdote. ‘I was working with Clint Eastwood and I said, “Hey Clint what do you think about this statement? You know, Gus said directing is 95% casting,” and Clint nodded and he goes, “And crew”. It really is about the people that you’re collaborating with.’

Affleck agrees.

‘You don’t see them so it’s hard to [understand], but you know it when you were there creating it and you know the difference between days that work and days that didn’t.

‘So every time somebody else is just making a movie I’m in better, I have no issue with the fact that I have no contribution to that because a rising tide really does lift all ships here.’

And for their director Carnahan, who previously worked with Affleck on Smokin’ Aces, it’s also true – he makes no bones about The Rip being the biggest film of his career.

‘I’ve had a career that’s been up, down, left, right, centre, you name it, so it’s nice to be on this side of things,’ he says, with Damon and Affleck a huge part of that.

‘You’re seeing two guys that people love and want to see on screen, and they want to see in a movie like this, that’s another big deal: those two guys in this movie. And I’m so chuffed and thrilled that it came out the way it did.’

The Rip is streaming exclusively on Netflix from today.

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