Clint Eastwood refused to do retakes with Matt Damon on Invictus.

The 55-year-old actor played former South African rugby captain Francois Pienaar in the 2009 docudrama sports film, and Matt has now opened up about his experience working with Eastwood, who helmed the movie.

Speaking on the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast, Matt shared: "I was playing a South African rugby player, and that's a really tough accent to do. [The coach] would come in from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. It was a lot of work."

Matt relished the experience of working with Eastwood, describing the 95-year-old director as "one of [his] heroes".

However, he was surprised by Eastwood's approach to filmmaking.

He explained: "I showed up [on set] and I am ready and it's my chance to work with one of my heroes.

"The very first take, I did it … There are a number of ways I'm thinking of doing the scene and he just goes, 'Cut, print, move on.' I go, 'Hang on, hang on, hang on, boss. I want to, you know, I want to do another one. That was the first one!' He goes, 'Why? You wanna waste everybody's time?' And I went, 'No, I guess we're moving on.'"

Despite this, the Hollywood star stressed that there was a "kindness" to the legendary director.

Matt added: "His whole mentality was … your crew will go to the ends of the Earth for you if as long as you're not taxing them on every shot."

Meanwhile, Matt previously claimed that cinemagoers aren't aware "of how much power they have".

The actor and Ben Affleck, his childhood friend, helped to finance the drama movie, Small Things Like These, through their Artists Equity company, and Matt suggested that it represented a sea change in the context of modern cinema.

Speaking to Extra in 2024, Matt said: "In the '90s there would've been a number of films of this scale. There would've been a number of these every year, and they've been decreasing, obviously, over the years.

"The only way to remedy that is to make these films and to put them in theatres and for moviegoers to go support them. I think people might not be aware of how much power they have as moviegoers. If people go and see it, we can make more of them."

Matt appeared in the movie alongside Cillian Murphy, and he relished working with his former Oppenheimer co-star.

He said: "We were just getting Artist Equity off the ground, I asked [Cillian] if he had anything and he says, 'I happen to have this really wonderful script…'. I'm like, 'Oh, my God, this is exactly what we are looking for.'

"I read the script and immediately sent it to Ben … It was a very embarrassingly easy decision for us to finance this film. We all knew each other, and we know the quality of work these people do."