More than 25 years after starring together in Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon It is Casey Affleck are once again sharing the screen on Apple TV+ The Instigators.
The upcoming action comedy follows struggling father Rory (Damon) and ex-con Cobby (Affleck), two unlikely partners who team up to steal from a corrupt politician. The job goes awry, however, and as the duo is pursued by police, bureaucrats and crime bosses, they enlist the help of Rory’s therapist (Hong Chau) to evade capture.
The Doug Liman-directed film also stars Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina and Toby Jones, with appearances by Jack Harlow, Ron Perlman and the NFL legend. Rob Gronkowski.
Damon and Affleck couldn’t help but gush about the former football player’s appearance in the upcoming film, telling ET’s Rachel Smith that Gronk was Affleck’s first choice for his unnamed role. Unsurprisingly, the actors are big fans of the retired athlete who played nine seasons for his beloved New England Patriots.
“Devin Walsh, our producer, called him and brought him here,” Affleck, who co-wrote the film with Chuck MacLean, tells ET. “He really thought he would be more present.”
“He was just there for, you know, a while,” Affleck adds. “Everybody loves (Gronk).”
Gronk seemed like the perfect choice for the comedy film, which Damon says he signed up in the hopes of giving viewers something to watch that will make them laugh “all the time.”
“It’s a lot of fun, that’s what we tried to do,” Damon adds. “We wanted to make a really fun movie and hopefully you’ll laugh the whole time.”
Affleck says Damon was also his first choice for the role of ex-Marine Rory.
“Whenever I’m writing something or trying to put something together, I think about Matt. He just says no to everything! At a certain point, you have to have backups in mind. If I sent it to his wife, Lucy, I’d have a better chance of getting a yes,” he jokes about Damon’s longtime love Luciana Bozán, who also serves as a producer on the action film.
The Instigators Boston Scenery takes Damon and Affleck back to their old stomping grounds, which the actors admit was a welcome perk of working together again.
“We were able to come back a few times to work; it started with Good Will Hunting It is Those who left It is Gone, darling, gone. It’s really fun to come home and kind of fall into that because the whole culture, the whole attitude… there’s this kind of cynical, sarcastic Boston thing that comes naturally to us, I think,” Damon says, adding that this new project also serves as a “love letter” to Boston.
Affleck notes that “it’s hard not to come[to Boston]and not plan some scene at Fenway Park. The whole city feels like home.”
The heist film, filled with car chases and hostage situations, presents a crucial theme that most viewers wouldn’t expect from a high-octane drama: the importance of mental health.
Chau serves as a rare voice of reason in the comedy, though this proves futile when Dr. Donna Rivera is “taken hostage” by Rory and Cobby amidst the heist gone wrong.
The on-screen dynamic echoed the cast’s vibes behind the scenes, which Chau says was like “being invited to a family barbecue.”
“You get to go there and experience the whole story and see them gently teasing each other. It was so much fun,” she said of working alongside Damon and Affleck.
And when it comes to her character’s role in the misguided adventure, Chau shares that Dr. Rivera’s scenes with Rory provide a “nice” balance to the film’s comedic nature.
“I haven’t been to therapy, but I imagine most[sessions]are more open and vulnerable than[some]marriages. So I think with those scenes with Dr. Rivera and Rory[are]a very sensitive environment,” she tells ET. “And then you juxtapose[them]with the car chases and everything else going on,[and it’s]a really cool thing to balance and have it fit into this action movie.”
While Rory and Cobby’s relationship is quite different from that of Damon and Affleck — who have known each other for a long time, even living together in their early days in Hollywood — playing their roles has been a lot of fun for the actors.
“It’s a good comedic setup for these guys who are kind of an odd couple in a way,” Damon explains. “Casey’s character really just wants to make friends (but) he never comes right out and says that. And my character is in this desperate situation and doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Damon sums up the film with one more thought: “If you can’t get Team A, Team B or Team C, you get us. That’s how we thought.”
The Instigators will premiere in select theaters on August 2. It will arrive on Apple TV+ on August 9.
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