Best known for his stellar performances in The Talented Mr Ripley, Goodwill Hunting and The Bourne series, Oscar-winner Matt Damon in his forthcoming film Invictus, brings real-life player Francois Pienaar to reel life on the big screen.Directed by four-time Oscar-winner Clint Eastwood, the film tells the inspiring true story of how the President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team, Francois Pienaar, to help unite their country. The film presented by Warner Bros Pictures that also stars Morgan Freeman will hit theatres on February 26. You’ve taken on a lot of physical action roles. How does that compare to playing a rugby captain now? Did your co-stars hold back from any of the tackles? The biggest reason they held back was that it was Matt Damon’s stunt double in there most of the time! It’s really tough to choreograph rugby, it’s more uncontrolled. So, a lot of the stuff we shot was free play, which is just letting these guys go and nail each other, and hoping Clint captured that. What did you identify as stumbling blocks? Clint helped me out a lot. Francois (Pienaar) is a big guy and I’m an average size guy, so there were little tricks like putting the camera higher, or making me look a little larger in the foreground. How does Clint Eastwood compare to other directors you’ve worked with? There are people who just collect a bunch of footage and then edit it. You definitely feel more protected when a director is moving on when you’ve actually felt something happen and you know they’re watching intently. It gives you a real feeling of security because you know that you’re in very able hands and the director is watching the movie unfold. What was meeting Nelson Mandela like? When Morgan spoke of Nelson leaning over and commenting on his performance while they were watching the finished film, he also said, ‘The guy who’s playing Pienaar is fantastic!’ But we had a chance to meet him when we were in South Africa and it was wonderful. How important are awards to a film like Invictus? Well, awards are really the only reason to make movies (smiles). And that’s because a lot of people will look through the paper and ask, ‘Which five films have been nominated.’
