Transcript

This Star Turned Down The Biggest Paycheck In Acting History · Direct From Hollywood with Ryan Seacrest

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Speaker 1: Direct from Hoodcrest. Every successful actor has to make big
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Speaker 1: decisions about their career. Some roles they're happy they took
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Speaker 1: in retrospect, and in some they wish they had said
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Speaker 1: no to him. Matt Damon just admitted he passed up
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Speaker 1: on an opportunity that would have, in all likelihood landed
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Speaker 1: him the single biggest acting paid a in cinematic history.
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Speaker 1: Matt tells British g Q, James Cameron offered me the
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Speaker 1: lead role in Avatar, and when he offered it to me,
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Speaker 1: he said, I don't need a big name for this.
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Speaker 1: If you don't take this, I'm gonna find an unknown
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Speaker 1: actor and give it to him. But if you take
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Speaker 1: the part, I'll give you ten percent of the film's profit.
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Speaker 1: Matt passed in. Sam Worthington landed the job. Avatar went
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Speaker 1: on to rake in a mind blowing two point seven
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Speaker 1: eight billion dollars, a record at the time, which meant
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Speaker 1: Matt passed on theoretically two seventy eight million dollars. Matt's
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Speaker 1: biggest regret, however, is in the cash. He says, it's
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Speaker 1: the opportunity to have worked with James Cameron, who rarely
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Speaker 1: makes a movie direct from Hollywood,