Matt Damon Says He Was Super “Bummed” After People Accused His New Movie Of Whitewashing
"It was a fucking bummer."
Matt Damon would really appreciate it if people would stopped pre-judging his latest movie, thank you very much. Reacting to the controversy surrounding the upcoming fantasy-action film The Great Wall, which drew accusations of whitewashing, the actor told reporters at New York Comic Con over the weekend that the online response to the initial trailer was, quote, “a fucking bummer.”
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“I was really surprised,” said Damon. “It wasn’t even a full trailer, let alone the movie.”
Describing himself as “a progressive person,” Damon said that audiences should wait until they had seen the film before levelling accusations. “If people watch the movie and still believe there’s whitewashing involved in it, in a creature feature that we made up, then I will listen to it with my whole heart,” he said. “And I will think about that and I will try to learn from it. I will be surprised if people watch it and have that reaction. I will be genuinely shocked.”
“Ultimately I feel like you are undermining your own credibility when you attack something without seeing it. You have to educate yourself and then make your attack so that it’s easier to listen from both sides.”
I like him a lot as an actor, but it may be time to accept that Matt Damon is a very stupid man: https://t.co/jYf6NWESaJ
— alex but spooky (@euchrid) October 9, 2016
The actor also defended the film on the grounds that it was a fantasy, saying that his co-star Pedro Pascal had spoken to him about the controversy after the teaser was released. “Pedro called me and he goes, ‘You know we’re all guilty of whitewashing. We all know that only the Chinese defended the wall against the monsters when they attacked.'”
Director Zhang Yimou has previously spoken out against the whitewashing charges, saying that “there are five major heroes in our story and [Damon] is one of them — the other four are all Chinese.”
A second trailer for The Great Wall was unveiled at the convention. Once again it focuses almost exclusively on the heroics of Damon, who as far as I can tell is still definitely a white guy.
The Great Wall hits cinemas in Australia on January 12.
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h/t Cinemablend