Ben Affleck and Matt Damon say Good Will Hunting put them off writing together

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our The Life Cinematic email for free

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have revealed why they did not write together for a long time after Good Will Hunting.

Appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon with fellow co-writer Nicole Holofcener, the longtime friends and collaborators revealed why there was such a big time gap between Good Will Hunting and The Last Duel.

Damon said: “Good Will Hunting took us so long. We were like unemployed, broke guys. It took us forever to write that screenplay. I think we wrote thousands and thousands of pages.”

He continued: “We didn’t really know what we were doing and I think that kind of put us off writing again because we never thought we’d have the time.”

Damon said he thought he and Affleck were better writers than they were on their debut: “I think we found writing [The Last Duel] that we actually kind of picked up structure over the last 25 years of making movies so it went a lot faster.”

He also praised the contribution of Holofcener: “We also made the really good decision of getting a great writer to come with us.”

Affleck and Damon won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Good Will Hunting which also starred the pair, as well as Robin Williams and Minnie Driver.

They were the first and second youngest people to ever win the award.

Affleck went on to joke: “You wouldn’t imagine that those two idiots would still be around.”

The Last Duel, which is directed by Ridley Scott, also stars Affleck and Damon, as well as Adam Driver and Jodie Comer.