Ben Affleck and Matt Damon nearly shared an on-screen kiss in the upcoming historical epic The Last Duel.
One sequence in the medieval drama sees Damon’s Jean de Carrouges, a French knight, kneeling before Affleck’s Count Pierre d’Alençon, a French nobleman. “In the original actual version of that scene — the way that ceremony actually took place was that you kissed everybody on the mouth,” Affleck told Entertainment Tonight. “And we had that in the script.” Damon added, “That would’ve been our first on-screen kiss,” but Affleck joked, “It’s going to have to wait.”
Affleck, who co-wrote the film with Damon and Nicole Holofcener, added that the kissing scene never made it into the final script because director Ridley Scott “thought it would be distracting” and “his instincts are pretty good.” Damon continued, “Yeah, the two characters really hate each other, and that was really fun. In fact, the scene where I kneel before him, Ben just improvised this thing where I started to say my line and he just interrupted me and goes, ‘Closer.’ And I have to kind of get up and kneel again in front of him. And he just did that and just kind of blurted that out, and it wasn’t in the script.”
Set in 14th century France against the backdrop of the Hundred Years War, The Last Duel follows the true story of Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer), who accused Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) of raping her. The allegation leads to the last sanctioned duel in French history — a fight to the death between Le Gris and Damon’s Jean, Marguerite’s husband. The film is based on the 2004 novel The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jager, which explores the events in rich detail. A trailer for The Last Duel was released in July.
The Last Duel reunites Damon and Affleck as co-writers for the first time since penning 1997’s Good Will Hunting, which won them the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The longtime friends and collaborators have appeared together on screen in films such as School Ties, Chasing Amy, Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. They also co-produced several movies for HBO’s filmmaking competition series Project Greenlight and serve as executive producers on the Showtime series City on a Hill.
Originally scheduled to open in December 2020, The Last Duel was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s now set to hit theaters on Oct. 15.
Source: ET
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