Can you imagine a world without Good Will Hunting? More importantly, a reality without Matt Damon and Ben Affleck?! In honor of the film's 15th anniversary, Boston magazine sat down with Ben, Matt, and director Gus Van Sant to get firsthand, insider accounts of one of Hollywood's most unlikely and beloved success stories. We've got all the highlights, including why Ben thought his Oscar speech made him sound like "a complete idiot," in this PopSugar Rush!
To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the release of Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Robin Williams, and many more members of the film's cast and crew reflected on the making of the film with Boston magazine. The film is important to Matt and Ben, especially since it launched both of their careers and, in 1998, earned them their first Oscar win for best original screenplay. The film also earned Robin Williams his first Oscar win that same year for best supporting actor.
Click through to read our five favorite quotes from the oral history — including how Ben and Matt spent their first paycheck — and be sure to read the full Good Will Hunting anniversary interview in Boston magazine.
Sources: Getty Images and Miramax
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were bromancing each other before bromance was even a thing. The Boston BFFs wrote and starred together in 1997's Good Will Hunting, then won an Oscar for best screenplay. Beginners luck? Maybe, but you can't deny the genius behind some of the dialogue that we're still quoting today. Take a gander at our favorite quotes from the Massachusetts-set drama and let us know what yours are below!
Photo courtesy of Lionsgate Pictures
Matt Damon has come a long way in his career since he arrived in Hollywood during the '90s, and his latest movie, Hereafter, hits theaters today — check out what Buzz thinks of the Clint Eastwood-directed drama. In this week's Flashback Friday, we're revisiting Dec. 4, 1997, when Matt and his BFF Ben Affleck attended the NYC premiere of their breakout hit Good Will Hunting with their then-girlfriends, Minnie Driver and Gwyneth Paltrow. These days, 40-year-old Matt's all about growing his family with wife Luciana, though it sounds like she'll be done having kids once they welcome their fourth daughter. Take a trip down memory lane with vintage Matt and Ben — click through for photos!
Birthday boy Matt Damon is great at impersonating his fellow Hollywood stars — check him out doing his best Matthew McConaughey, Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and more!
Every other Wednesday on BuzzSugar, I post a Recast challenge, where I ask you to choose new actors for a classic TV show or movie. The reader who submits the best cast wins a BuzzSugar t-shirt!
Interestingly, some of my favorite recast suggestions this week were for the part of the psychologist character in Good Will Hunting, Sean Maguire, originally played by Robin Williams. My very favorite idea is Forest Whitaker, as put forth by alethe16, though I also like pinkflats' suggestion of Jeff Bridges and alynn's idea of Paul Giamatti.
I also really enjoyed the reversing of genders this week, like kellys' entirely reversed cast and HelloKittyMini's idea to put Ellen Page in the role of Will's pal Chuckie Sullivan. Other Chuckies I liked were WhiplashGirlchild's idea of Peter Saarsgard and Zachary Quinto, as suggested by trvasquez.
However, my overall favorite recast list this week comes from redscorpio! To see who redscorpio picked, along with a new cast photo, read more
Photo courtesy of Sony
Every other Wednesday on BuzzSugar, I post a Recast challenge, where I ask you to choose new actors for a classic TV show or movie. The reader who submits the best cast wins a BuzzSugar t-shirt!
For this recast challenge, let's take a look at Good Will Hunting, which earned Robin Williams an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor along with a Best Original Screenplay win for dynamic duo Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
If you could cast this movie with new actors, who would you choose for the genius janitor at MIT, Will Hunting? Besides Robin Williams, who else could play psychologist Sean Maguire, and which actress would take Minnie Driver's role as the romantic interest, Skylar? While we're at it, let's recast Ben Affleck's role as Will's best friend Chuckie Sullivan.
Leave your entry in the comment section below, and I'll pick one winner to feature Tuesday, March 4, complete with a "new" cast photo.
To see a list of characters to recast and a photo of the BuzzSugar t-shirt, read more
College movies are so fantastic because they can be serious and dramatic, or full of the ill-conceived, hilarious antics that college-aged kids are sometimes prone to take part in. For this week's Buzzworthy challenge, you all picked some great titles as your favorite college movies, and of those here are the ones that are nearest and dearest to my heart as well. And at the end of the post is a widget with all the bookmarked movies!
PCU
I love this movie, as does yiddidea, who writes this about her pick: "PCU is the BEST college movie. Best moment, and something I quote to this day at concerts: 'What's this? You're wearing the shirt of the band you're going to see? Don't be that guy. '"
Mona Lisa Smile
I'm glad tdamji bookmarked this movie, not just because I enjoy it as well, but because many college movies center around men and this movie is an interesting portrayal of a women's college in 1953. About Mona Lisa Smile, tdamji writes, "An excellent cast, an interesting plot and it all focuses on one of my majors: Art History!"
Many more great college movies if you read more
