The Changing Roles of Matt Damon (page 2)

by Helen Earnshaw | 9 February 2011

From one big named director to another Damon teamed up with Martin Scorsese and an all star ensemble cast that including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen for he re-make of Infernal Affairs.

Two men from opposite sides of the law are undercover within the Massachusetts State Police and the Irish mafia, but violence and bloodshed boil when discoveries are made, and the moles are dispatched to find out their enemy's identities.

The movie was a huge critical hit and went on to win the Best Picture Oscar, totally deserving I might add, as well as allowing Scorsese to finally get his hands on a Best Director gong.

The Departed was the best crime/cop movie of 2007 with great performances from all of the cast, it's really well worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

- Invictus

And the great actor/director collaborations kept on coming as Damon teamed up with Clint Eastwood for Invictus last year, which told the story of Nelson Mandela and how he tried to unite his country with sport.

Damon took on the role of South African rugby star François Pienaar opposite Morgan Freeman as Mandela.

Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid.

Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.

It was another great performance from Damon - who went on to be nominated at the Oscars for Best Supporting Actor; losing out to Christoph Waltz.

- True Grit

And this week sees him return to the big screen as he joins Jeff Bridges and Josh Brolin in the remake of the 1969 movie.

Fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross's father has been shot in cold blood by the coward Tom Chaney, and she is determined to bring him to justice.

Enlisting the help of a trigger-happy, drunken U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, she sets out with him -- over his objections -- to hunt down Chaney.

Her father's blood demands that she pursue the criminal into Indian territory and find him before a Texas Ranger named LeBoeuf catches him and brings him back to Texas for the murder of another man.