Blayne Weaver, Actor/Screenwriter/Producer/Director: I mean
he probably will never know the effect that short time in West Texas had on me.
Film Courage: Do you remember the first time you met Matt Damon?
Blayne: Oh wow! The first time I met him yeah so I did a movie. I was 18 years old it was
the first movie that I the first job that I'd been able to do without my mom traveling with
me right so I went by myself to West Texas to Alpine Texas which is a small town now but in
1994 was a much smaller smaller town apparently and I was staying in a Motel 6 and I met the guy
who was going to play my older brother who was Matt Damon who I didn't know from anything like I
he wasn't famous to me he was just a guy and he was very kind to me and like he was 26 I
think 25 26 but what it's like when you're 26 and you have to hang out with this 18 year old
but he did he was very cool and the the other the movie is called the good old boys and it
was directed by Tom Lee Jones and it started Frances McDormand and Terry Kinney and Sam
Shepard and Wilford Brimley and like all of these big huge names and Matt was kind enough
to kind of let me tag along with him through his conversations with these people because I was a
neophyte at the very least but I remember one of the things that really stands out to me as
we were at dinner with Sam Shepard and I knew Sam Shepard from the right stuff or the Pelican Brief
really is more accurate from what I knew him from at the time but Matt was like wow so I saw your
new show on Broadway and it just amazing and I was like oh you write plays and man it was
like just shut up and you might learn something okay these are amazing people that were around
so he was great and he actually was kind of the inspiration for me starting to write because
he and Ben were working on Goodwill Hunting at the time and they were faxing back and forth note
to each other that's how long ago was and I expressed interest and it's like well you can
read it if you want I'm like yeah I would love that and I read an early draft of the script
and I'm like you're going to write this for you to star in and he's like yeah I'm like that's a
million dollar idea because that's what I want to do I want to be a movie star and blah blah blah so
I got back to LA and I kind of did the same thing I wrote a movie with my roommate and somehow that
movie ended up getting financed and made and I had to take a smaller part but to Joseph Gordon-Levitt
who played the lead as a movie called manic but that only happened because I had worked with Matt
and I saw him writing and trying to expand his skill set and do other things other than just
wait for the phone to ring and I found that really inspiring how many days were you on set for that
first one for good old boys well it was I mean it was just a great great job it was one of those
things where it's like I feel like Matt has talked later about how he it was the lowest point of his
young career because he was he had been up for a lot of giant things and Leo DiCaprio kept beating
him out on it was like he was in this point where he was like at the lowest right before he was able
to break through with mostly some of his own work but also rainmaker and stuff like that
but for me it was a pinnacle right so it's so funny for me to be in this situation where all
the actors except for Frances McDormand and Tommy Lee Jones were basically in a Motel 6 and they
were all kind of like begrudgingly there for Tommy Lee Jones because he's great and people will do a
lot of things to be in a Tommy Lee Jones movie but for me I was like I felt like I won the lottery
so I was there the whole time which was very cool it was like I said it was in West Texas
and it was all horses and cowboy stuff so I got to go out two weeks early and ride horses and work on
roping and like do all this stuff that is just kind of a dream scenario it was like Camp and
then afterwards I would get to hang out and listen to Amazing Stories from Sam Shepard or Matt Damon
or Francis McDormand who's amazing and was so kind to me that I just I kind of look back on
it I'm like wow what a so surreal and what a great break into the business really because I've done
a TV movie before then but this was absolutely the biggest thing and it meant when I left there
and moved to Los Angeles that I would have an agent that I would be in the union that I would
all these things that I didn't even know to worry about or taken care of because of this great job
yeah but I was there probably probably eight weeks all told
do you remember what scene he showed you from the the did you touch the fax paper or no this
was like oh no I read the whole thing it gave me the whole thing and it used to be a spy movie and
it's kind of crazy but I always talk about it when I'm talking about screenwriting about how
things change how the the process is so organic right but the original version of Goodwill Hunting
that I read at least was kind of a spy movie about and there's a scene in Goodwill Hunting where
will is interviewing with the CIA and they're like why are you reluctant to sign with us and
he was like why because what if I crack a code and this happens and this place gets bombed and
that whole spiel that was the plot of the movie the original movie and the story that Matt has
told I don't think he told me this I think he said this on TV or something but I was very interested
about how that became the Goodwill Hunting that we know and he said that Rob Reiner read the script
and was like this is good I like all of it but what you should do is focus on the friendship and
they were like well we already sold this movie though and he's like yeah nobody cares anymore
though they own it and they want to make it so make it something that they're excited to make
I mean that's not really my story that's match but yeah the the version that I read was absolutely a
spy movie and then I saw the trailer and I'm like well this is this has gone through some
changes and that taught you about the business too I obviously I'm sure or maybe you didn't
realize it at the time but there will be so many iterations of something absolutely and like things
change on a dime and like that is something that keeps I keep learning I keep relearning this fact
of like you write a script with a certain person in mind and then that person can't do it so then
you have another person who's also a very talented person but very different than that person are
okay script is now different the story is now different right there's no version where these
two or three or five actors that you've thought about are going to do it the same right you have
to acknowledge who they are as well as what the script says in order to make it happen I mean we
did six month rules ages ago and it was originally we were speaking to Rachel Lee Cook about the lead
role and she's around my age and it was like that was kind of what the script was and then that
didn't work out and we went and we I just done a TV show with Natalie Morales who's amazing and
great and I was like we'd be lucky to get her and so we made this offer and we got her and
then I realized throughout the next couple of days because you get really frantic about casting right
it's like we have to do it we have to we we don't want to do too much research anyways I find out
that she's much younger than me she's at least 10 years younger than me and I was like oh well that
kind of changes so many things in the movie and so we had to acknowledge it we can't just pretend
that that's not a thing right and so suddenly Natalie becomes this role of Sophie and then we
have to figure out what the movie is now right we can't just keep going on the same path that
we were on does that make sense it yep but it's always changing it's always has to stay organic
and Alive because the moment that you start saying No this is what I decided to do in my bedroom when
I was writing it or when I was meeting with the DP this is what we decided that's when the movie
stops being alive and starts being a little stale I think when you looked at the script for Goodwill
Hunting which at that time was a spy film right right what feedback did you provide Matt Damon oh
I wasn't I wasn't anywhere near a point where I could do something like that I think about
my youth and coming up and I deal with a lot of young actors now I do some teaching
at a university and so I interact with 18 19 20 year olds all the time and I'm constantly like I
can't believe I was working on my own without any parental guidance or whatever at that age
I was so dumb I was so dumb and it's like you just don't know what you don't know right and
I certainly wouldn't have ever thought to give a note or anything I mean he asked for them
and I'm like I don't know like this is great like this is the first movie script I've ever
read that was written by somebody I know if you think about it that way I grew up doing theater
I would audition for TV and movies all the time but like the writer was something that I never
thought I could be because it was so special and you had to be a genius to do something like that
so when I read that first script it was the first thing that made it a attainable and something that
wasn't The Wizard of Oz kind of stuff pay no attention to the man behind the curtain
it was the first chance I saw him like Matt's a regular guy he's a smart guy he's an articular guy
but I also don't feel like he's some genius that dropped out from heaven and he's just
a guy and that made it kind of attainable for me of like wanting to re to write more and and
chasing that dream but yeah I didn't offer him any notes I was just like awesome this is great
really good can I audition for it how long after that did you see him have success with the film
well I got a good story about that actually because I ended up I was going to acting school
right before I did the the Western and I did the Western and then I was surrounded by Again Sam
Shepard Matt Damon what since he's basic Tommy Lee Jones who went to Harvard all these people
who knew all about all kinds of stuff like not just acting they knew like everything they were
having these intellectual discussions at dinner that I was totally lost by and I was like all
right I don't want to just study acting I'm going to study everything I'm going to you know Matt was
going to Harvard and I'm like I want to do that I want to be one of the smart people at the table so
I left New York which is where the acting school was and I came to LA and I signed up for Santa
Monica College and I did a couple years there and I ended up transferring to UCLA and I got
a degree in English and political science and like something completely different than acting because
I wanted to expand my life I wanted to know about more stuff than just stanislavski and my Meisner
and all that jazz which is very important and I love but I just wanted to have a deeper well to
pull from but I'm at UCLA I'm there in Westwood Village and me and my roommate had gone up there
to run some errands and play some video games so I had a bag of Tide that I had just purchased and
we saw that the premiere of Goodwill Hunting was happening and they were about to let out and I
turned to my buddy Mike I'm like I know that guy I know Matt like we're friends we did this movie
together like two or three years ago and he's like whoa we should hang out and so they the
movie let out and we're like behind the security guys and looking around and Robin Williams walks
by and I'm like wow so cool and then I kind of took one too many steps towards the door and the
security guy kind of pushed me back and I'm like I hate that I'm like I'm embarrassed now let's
just leave and my buddy's like no no no we should stay so we stayed a few more minutes and then Matt
came out and I was behind probably seven people stacked pretty deep and I did one of these things
and he caught my eye and he was on top of the world and he was like hey little
brother and he pulled me in and he's like gave me a hug he's like are you going to this party
I'm like no man I'm just I literally was just he's like you're going to this party
so he puts he drags me into the limousine with himself and his mom and Minnie Driver and they're
just all like talking about how great the movie is they had not seen the movie yet and they were very
excited about it and I'm sitting there I've got a bag of Tide under my feet so the whole limousine
smells like Tide detergent and I've got like ripped jeans on and I'm like don't know what to
say I'm just like the trailer looks really good man yeah I bet it's good I bet it's good anyway
if we drove around the corner to this very very fancy wrap party that the studio had thrown for
them and I didn't want to be a hanger on I didn't want to like infringe on him anymore than I had I
would but so I was just like I'm not going in just thank you for inviting me like that's so
cool such a great guy so unnecessary and I just went back and I played video games at night and
my buddy's like why didn't you go like I feel like the story is that he wanted me to go what I
mean as opposed to me wandering around not knowing anybody at a premier party and with my bag of Tide
but it was great it was a a great moment for me but yeah and since then I've been one Super
Fan. I love everything that he does I think he's incredibly talented and smart and also you saw
that writing your own project and yeah trying to get it made I mean he probably you'll never know
the effect that that short time in West Texas had on me but I think that's when you in this business
it's always these short amount of times in West Texas or LA or location wherever right and you can
really I I've learned that the effect that you can have on other people is dramatic dramatic because
a lot of people don't get to make movies it's pretty rare for most people to be on a movie set
and just because it's our kind of bread and butter and we do it a lot it doesn't mean that that's how
it is for the entire cast and crew and I always think about the effect that those people had on
me they made me want to be smarter they made me want to be more educated they made me want to
take my craft more seriously and this is all just because we would get together for dinner and they
were kind to me and they would sit and talk and I would listen and I would be like wow that's who I
want to be I thought I wanted to be whatever the movie star was and 1992 five or whatever and but
instead I'm like I want to be the person who goes from Broadway stage to deep Indie drama to cowboy
movie to which is the kind of stuff that Frances McDormand was doing like right after that right
after that Fargo came out and she'd already done it and I was like this is amazing you have already
done an Oscar winning performance and then you came in you did this small low budget Western
and then you go and accept your award for Fargo in it but they're all kind of heroes to me.