In stark contrast to how the live action superhero movie landscape looked decades ago, the genre is fortunately no longer anathema when it comes to attracting A-list actors. Sure, Tim Burton’s Batman – and, to an extent, Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie – helped to shift the paradigm, but now that comic book-inspired flicks are among the highest grossing around, studios never need look far for big name directors and actors to enlist. Sometimes it takes baby steps, but at least we eventually got here, right?
Obviously, the highly lucrative Marvel Cinematic Universe has done a fine job when it comes to attracting top talent. In addition to returning fan favorites who are now household names such as Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki), we saw veteran actors like Jeff Goldblum (the Grandmaster) and Cate Blanchett (Hela) welcomed to the fold, effectively giving Thor: Ragnarok more gravitas.
But what came as a welcome – and hilarious – surprise was seeing none other than Matt Damon playing a stage actor inhabiting the role of the God of Mischief in an Asgardian production of “A Loki for All Seasons.” Sure, it wasn’t called that, but it might as well have been.
Anyway, we normally expect for Damon to be a leading man, so that’s why most moviegoers were caught off guard when he showed up here. As he explained to Collider, though, he just thought it would be “hysterical” to take on the role:
“No, no, no. Chris just called me up, and Taika called me up, and I’m friends with those guys. They pitched me the idea and I just thought it was hysterical, the idea of basically an intergalactic community theater actor kind of living out Tom Hiddleston’s character’s fantasy. I just thought it was just a great, funny bit, and very easy to do. Those guys were a lot of fun, and Taika runs a really fun set. It was a light lift for me.”
Naturally, one would think this bit part in Thor: Ragnarok would disqualify Damon from one day playing a larger role in the MCU, but that’s actually not the case. After all, we’ve learned to never say never in the movie industry, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
