BS: Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar?

Subject: BS: Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar?
From: CET
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 09:12 PM

I am currently reading "Playing the Enemy" the book about Nelson Mandela and the Rugby World Cup of 1995, and the inspiration for Clint Eastwood's upcoming film, "Invictus".

Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela, and he ought to be as perfect for the role as Leo McKern was for Rumpole. However, Matt Damon is playing Francois Pienaar, the captain of the Springboks. Now Matt Damon is a decent actor, and he was a convincing tough guy in the Bourne movies, but Pienaar? You've got to be kidding. Francois Pienaar is 6 foot 4, and in his prime was 240 pounds of rock hard muscle. Matt Damon is about 5'10" and probably not more than 180 lbs. He looks like a nice college kid who goes to the gym regularly. Given a good Welsh dialect coach and enough time, I could see him possibly starring in the Shane Williams Story.

Any thoughts?

Subject: RE: BS: Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar?
From: CLETUS HARDDINGER
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 10:53 PM

I think thet Matt Damon guy iz sum kinda fine actor an lezzen yur all in sum sorta tizzyshit cuz heeznot a dead ringer then Ide bet my grannies false teeth thet heel be fandamtastic.

Didja see thet Truman Capote movie whair thet guy Phillip Seymour Hoffman playd Capote? Well see, Hoffman izza pretty big guy an Truman Capote had ta stand on 3 bricks ta kick a duck in the ass but you reely beleeved Phil was Capote an thet aint no shit!

I saw me sum previews an it lookt purty good ta me. Probblee only about 1 in 50 will know the guy or the story at all so whut the hell.

CLETUS

Subject: RE: BS: Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar?
From: CET
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 05:30 AM

Well, I hope so. The movie's got a lot going for it with Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman, so I will try to keep an open mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar?
From: SINSULL
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 11:39 AM

Unfortunately, if they don't cast someone like Damon the young crowd (who make up 90% of the moviegoers) will avoid it like the plague.

Can't think of a single musclebound 240 pound heartthrob unless you look at professional wrestlers...and they can't act.

Subject: RE: BS: Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar?
From: CET
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 07:28 PM

Gerard Butler is a very big and very muscular, and can actually act (yes, I know about "300", but that's not his only film).

I think there's a distinction between Truman Capote/Philip Seymour Hoffman and Pienaar/Damon. Hoffman captured all the aspects of Capote that were important: the ambition, the ruthlessness, his status as an outsider, his sexuality, his attraction to the murderer he wrote about. His physical size wasn't important.

One of the important things about Pienaar was how he was such a perfect embodiment of the Afrikaner rugby ideal - not only a great player, but huge, blond and very, very tough - in fact, the very embodiment of everything that most black South Africans hated about rugby. Rugby is a hard, violent (though beautiful IMHO) sport and in South Africa it was the white man's sport. For black South Africans the size and strength and toughness admired by white rugby fans was very closely linked to the arrogance and sense of superiority displayed by whites. I will remember to the day I die the moment when Nelson Mandela, wearing a Springbok jersey, presented the World Cup to Francois Pienaar, who towered over him (and Mandela is a big man himself). I think it will be difficult to recreate the drama of that moment, and of the entire World Cup, without an actor who can at least approximate Pienaar's physical presence.

It's only fair to point out that Pienaar may have looked like the platonic ideal of an Afrikaner rugby man, but he was far from being a racist. His leadership had a lot to do with the Springboks becoming the symbol of national unity that Mandela wanted them to be. I remember a TV interview around the time of the 1995 World Cup in which he admitted that the rest of the world had been right to boycott the Springboks.