As you might imagine from Matt Damon’s political philosophy, the man isn’t exactly a red-hatted Donald Trump devotee lining up to give a MAGA loyalty oath. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Damon again provided his critique of Trump and shared a fascinating bit of trivia attached to Trump’s attempts to finesse his public image.
The Suburbicon star shared with THR a peculiar ego stroke that Trump allegedly made mandatory for productions looking to film in one of his buildings. Asked if he’d ever met Trump in person, Damon said no, but his first-hand experience dealing with Trump’s demands didn’t leave a positive impression at all.
“The deal was that if you wanted to shoot in one of his buildings, you had to write him in a part,” offered Damon on the arrangement. “[Director] Martin Brest had to write something in Scent of a Woman — and the whole crew was in on it. You have to waste an hour of your day with a bullshit shot: Donald Trump walks in and Al Pacino’s like, “Hello, Mr. Trump!” — you had to call him by name — and then he exits. You waste a little time so that you can get the permit, and then you can cut the scene out. But I guess in Home Alone 2 they left it in.”
Damon’s recollection of how it went down matches up comfortably with what Chris O’Donnell experienced filming the movie.
Trump has been a fairly prolific cameo in movies and TV, so this explanation helps explain his glut of appearances. It also seems to tie nicely to Trump’s notorious desire to be liked and admired. (Heck, think of all the cut scenes.) In 2016, Newsweek looked into Trump’s assorted stockpile of cameos and found that a sizable portion of people who worked with him were left with the same impression of the man as Damon.
“It was absolutely absurd!” recalled Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps producer Eric Kopeloff on the demands attatched to his demands for filming. “‘He should be shot like this! The lighting should be like this! You can only shoot him from this side of his face to make his golden hair glow.’ It’s so absurd. We shot all these people. All these luminaries! You can look and see the movies I’ve made. All these movie actors. Never, ever, have I seen anything like this. Not from the biggest movie stars in the world! It was like you’re going back to the 1940s and getting a note from the head of the studio.”
Here’s a quick refresher CH2 put out featuring Trump’s many cameos.
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)
