Matt Damon and Marlon Wayans share a laugh over a blistering-hot moment with Ben Affleck on the set of "Air," their new film about Nike's first shoe deal with Michael Jordan. They also joked with Narcity's Josh Elliott about the perfect way to make a parody of their movie.
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00:00 And I look over and Ben's just sweating and he has like sweat in his chest.
00:05 I was like, this dude's serious.
00:07 Hi guys, how are you?
00:09 What's up? How you doing man?
00:10 Good. Matt, I want to start with you. You know, obviously you and Ben go way back,
00:16 but here you get to work with him as your director.
00:18 I'm willing to bet my career on Michael Jordan.
00:21 Come on, man.
00:22 You ask me what I do here, this is what I do.
00:24 I find you players and I f***ing feel it this time.
00:29 I'm curious, did you learn anything new about him from going through that experience?
00:33 I don't think so. I mean, I knew he was a great director,
00:38 so that news wasn't surprising to me.
00:40 And you know, we've worked so much together over the years in various capacities that
00:47 this felt like a natural progression, you know, it didn't...
00:50 You know, plus when I act opposite him, he gives me notes anyway, so you know, that wasn't a change.
00:56 No, it felt very natural to be directed by him, but boy, he is really good at it.
01:05 I thought he was the real deal and you know, as an actor, as a director, he was really good,
01:09 but I'll tell you what messed me up. When he actually picked up a 90-pound camera
01:15 and held it like this and was literally getting...
01:19 And we was doing a long take. It must have been like an eight-minute take,
01:22 and I look over and Ben's just sweating and he has like sweat in his chest.
01:28 I was like, "This dude's serious."
01:30 With Marlon, you remember how hot it was in that room? Because it was the middle of summer
01:35 and it was, you know, in those scenes, whenever you have a scene like that,
01:38 you know, they turn the air conditioners off, right? Because it's no good for sound.
01:43 And so it was cooking in this scene. Ben's trying to shoot the scene and,
01:47 you know, and he's like, "Okay, start again."
01:49 So Marlon and I are doing a bunch of them on repeat.
01:51 By the end of it, Ben was just like soaking wet.
01:54 Halfway through, you just see the camera go...
01:56 Well, Marlon, maybe you can tell me, like, what was it about joining this that made you say yes?
02:03 Like I heard you jumped at it and obviously it's such a good time with everybody on set.
02:07 You know, if I had to equate this movie to a basketball team, it's the 92 Bulls.
02:14 I gotta, I gotta jump on the 92 Bulls. It's just, you know, you got Ben,
02:18 you got Matt, you got Tucker, you got, you know, Chris with this such amazing job,
02:24 Bateman, I'm a big fan of his, and then Viola Davis. I'd be a fool to say no. So, I mean...
02:31 Yeah, that's how I felt too. That's literally how I felt, Josh. I couldn't, this was one of the,
02:36 I mean, and I've said, I have not, I've never had a better time in terms of like,
02:41 just completely all encompassing, like, because the work was so fun,
02:45 but the people were just so great.
02:47 Well, yeah, you basically had a front row seat for everybody, right? Like,
02:50 everyone gets to work off of you and it's just, like, yeah.
02:53 I showed up and I was opposite, like, Muhammad Ali every day. Nobody was like,
02:58 I had a great heavyweight across from me no matter, no matter what day it was. It was,
03:02 it was unbelievable.
03:02 Well, I gotta ask you, I know you prepare a lot for your roles. I'm curious how much
03:07 research went into this versus how much getting used to that, that belly?
03:12 Well, it was a lot of, it was really about, you know, capturing the, the spirit of these guys.
03:18 Like, Ben didn't want impersonations. He didn't want, you know, and he talked to all of us about
03:23 that, you know, he's like, it's more about what this time meant to them. And, you know, I spoke
03:28 to Sonny a good deal about it and, and, and, and his nostalgia for this time and how much he loved
03:33 these guys and how, how they were like, you know, they were friends. They were kind of a misfit,
03:38 but you know, they're a band of kind of renegades and, and they did this incredible thing that
03:42 totally bucked conventional wisdom and it changed the world. And so that's what we were trying to
03:47 capture that spirit.
03:48 Oh, absolutely. And Marlon, I want to ask you, uh, if someone were to come to you and pitch
03:53 you another shoe story, maybe about those big red boots, then I hear you like those.
03:57 Would you be into that?
03:58 I'm going to do the big red boots as a parody to this movie. I'm,
04:06 I'm going to do that story. That, that is definitely the story I would do as a filmmaker.
04:12 If you do that parody, you know, you have to cast all of us. We all have to come in.