Matt Damon discusses his decision to decline a role in James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar. Damon rose to fame owing to his role in Good Will Hunting, which he co-wrote with Ben Affleck and won him an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Damon confessed during a masterclass at the Cannes Film Festival that he passed on a project that would have made him a fortune, according to Deadline. “I was offered a little movie called Avatar, James Cameron offered me 10% of it. I will go down in history… you will never meet an actor who turned down more money.”

At the global box office, the 2009 film grossed $2.8 billion. It is the all-time highest-grossing film.

Damon claimed he couldn’t do the film since he was filming the Jason Bourne films and felt it was “moral” not to abandon the franchise. Cameron instead cast Sam Worthington, who was relatively unknown at the time but is now on board for the sequels despite presumably not receiving 10% of the original’s revenues.

Following his success with Good Will Hunting, Damon went on to star in other blockbuster films, including Saving Private Ryan, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Ocean’s Eleven. The actor subsequently advanced his career by starring as a super-spy in the Bourne series, which began in 2002 with The Bourne Identity. Damon has established himself as a bankable actor in huge films like The Martian and Ford v Ferrari, as well as doing more offbeat stuff (Suburbicon, Downsizing) and being up for a brief appearance in an MCU picture like Deadpool 2 or Thor: Ragnarok. He still makes appearances for his long-time buddy Steven Soderbergh, most recently in the director’s film No Sudden Move.

Damon spoke about his choice to pass on Avatar with his good buddy John Krasinski. Krasinski’s response was classic him: “Nothing would be different in your life if you had done Avatar, except you and me would be having this conversation in space.”

When a member of the crowd mentioned that Cameron is already working on sequels to the film, Damon quipped, “There’s sequels? Oh my god.”

Damon was in Cannes to promote Stillwater, his new film, which has received acclaim. Damon admitted that his return to the red carpet and movie premieres was emotional after being shut up for so long during the epidemic. “It was such a relief to be in a room with a thousand strangers who are part of a community because we love the same thing,” he said. “I’ve never felt that so strongly, having been denied it for 18 months, I was really overwhelmed by all of us being able to gather here again.”

The actor also discussed how, despite getting close on many occasions, he has never directed. He said he was scheduled to direct Promised Land, which was subsequently directed by Gus Van Sant, and that he was set to direct eventual Oscar winner Manchester By The Sea at one time. “Kenny, you have to direct this, this is you,” he remarked after reading Kenneth Lonergan’s script.

This isn’t the first time Damon has spoken out about giving up the opportunity to feature in the biggest film of all time.

In a 2019 interview with GQ, he said, “Jim Cameron offered me Avatar. And when he offered it to me, he goes, ‘Now, listen. I don’t need anybody. I don’t need a name for this, a named actor. If you don’t take this, I’m going to find an unknown actor and give it to him, because the movie doesn’t really need you. But if you take the part, I’ll give you 10% of…’”

Though Damon will very certainly regret turning down Avatar after the picture became a great success and he realizes how much money he lost as a result of his decision, the actor isn’t in any financial trouble. Indeed, Damon has done an excellent job throughout the years of combining commercial ventures that have helped him build his bank account with quirkier, more personal films that have helped him establish his reputation. For Avatar fans, the question is how much Damon’s participation would have enhanced the film. Given his extremely wooden portrayal as primary protagonist Jake Sully, Worthington is frequently regarded as one of the film’s flaws. There’s no question Damon would have brought more to the table than Worthington, but at the end of the day, Avatar was more about the awe-inspiring sights than it was about acting. Avatar was always going to be enormous, Damon or no Damon.

A question on how the actor deals with stardom elicited this response from the actor. “The media gave up on me because I was so boring. What sells magazines is sex and scandal. Everybody knows I’m married and a dad, and relatively free of scandal, it’s not worth their money to sit outside my house. They also know I’ll wait them out,” he said.