‘The Odyssey’ helped Matt Damon feel at ease during pivotal scene
Matt Damon shares how strong support from Christopher Nolan and the crew on “The Odyssey” set helped him tackle a pivotal scene with confidence.
Samantha Morton is looking back on the “sad” experience of being recast in a movie after having already performed the role.
The “Odyssey” star, 49, spoke with Josh Horowitz on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast about being replaced with Scarlett Johansson as the voice of the AI operating system Samantha in the Spike Jonze film “Her.”
“I was surprised, and a little sad would be an understatement,” she said on the Aug. 3 episode. “But again, I think the time I had on set with Joaquin [Phoenix] and working with Spike on the script, and finding Samantha, and all the work that we did was really special. We did some mad stuff, though.”
Phoenix starred in the 2013 science fiction movie as a lonely man who falls in love with an artificial intelligence operating system, voiced by Johansson in the final version of the movie.
But the role was originally Morton’s, and she even performed on set with Phoenix.
Speaking with Vulture in 2013, Jonze explained that Morton “was amazing,” but “it was only in post production, when we started editing, that we realized that what the character/movie needed was different from what Samantha and I had created together. So we recast and since then Scarlett has taken over that role.”
At the time, the filmmaker said that “unfortunately,” this is “pretty normal in terms of my not-quite-painless-for-everyone-involved ‘process’ of discovering what the movie is,” but he stressed that he loves Morton. “I’ve been friends with her forever and I hope we make lots of things together in the future,” Jonze told Vulture.
On “Happy Sad Confused,” Morton, who said it’s “every director’s prerogative” to recast a role, noted her version of Samantha was “very, very different” from the one that ended up in the movie. For one, hers was English.
“I got it, but I was sad,” Morton said, continuing, “It does hurt when you’re fired from something. What I’d have wished for was another chance in a booth to do an American accent. But Scarlett Johansson, come on!”
Though she wasn’t featured in the movie, Morton received an associate producer credit on “Her,” which earned critical acclaim and five Oscar nominations, including for best picture. Jonze won the Oscar for best original screenplay.
Morton has been making the rounds to discuss another movie that may clean up at the Academy Awards: “The Odyssey,” in which she has a scene-stealing role as Circe in a key sequence. Morton has already been earning Oscar buzz for the performance, which could land her a third Academy Award nomination after previous nods for “Sweet and Lowdown” and “In America.”
But Morton revealed on “Happy Sad Confused” that she hasn’t “worked for a year” since shooting “The Odyssey.”
“I’ve got really good agents and a manager, but at the end of the day, I’m 49,” she said. “And whilst I do believe I’m a good actor, there are other good actors out there.”