He only had one line of dialogue, but without this film we wouldn’t know Matt Damon today.

This year, Matt Damon is on everyone’s list to win the Oscar for The Odyssey. It’s, without a doubt, one of the best performances of the year, and it proves Trey Parker and Matt Stone wrong in their portrayal of him in the absurdity that was Team America. It’s only natural that at first they had a bit of a grudge against him: he seemed to come out of nowhere with Good Will Hunting and his meteoric career soon included roles in films like Saving Private Ryan, Dogma, The Talented Mr. Ripley, or The Bourne Identity. And yet, before he tasted fame and success and became a recurring joke on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, Damon debuted in one of the most important films in late-80s American cinema. He only had one line, but it was more than enough to convince him that this was his destiny.

A Damoniac Pizza

In 1988, a teen comedy caught the interest of a whole generation that felt that, somehow, it knew how to speak their language. To pull it off, its director, Donald Petrie, teamed up with up-and-coming actors whom no one had given a serious chance. Names that might ring a bell, like Julia Roberts, Vincent D’Onofrio or, of course, Matt Damon. At the time, none of these faces meant anything to the average audience, who went to see the film about three waitresses in a pizzeria out of curiosity. That’s right: this little gem just waiting to be discovered was Mystic Pizza.

At the time, Damon wasn’t even a professional actor. Sure, he’d done a few roles in high school plays alongside his buddy Ben Affleck, but he still didn’t know what he wanted to do. In fact, he stayed at Harvard until 1992, when he was already already becoming well known. Luckily for him, he never needed to pick up the degree he never received. And it all started with a simple line in Mystic Pizza at 18: when his lobster arrived for dinner, his character said “Mom, do you want the green stuff?”. And that was it. Enough to change his life.

Interestingly, he wasn’t even the one chosen: the director preferred his friend Affleck, but since he was only 15 he couldn’t shoot at night, and child labor laws meant the role went to Damon. In the end they’ve both become superstars, so I don’t think Affleck is losing sleep over not getting this tiny role.

As Damon later admitted, it took three nights to shoot, because it was one big dinner scene with everyone sitting at the table: “I only remember being very excited, feeling like I couldn’t believe I was there. All the lights, the crew… I knew it was where I wanted to be”. It wasn’t easy, of course, because the first things that came his way were background roles in films like Field of Dreams before he landed a more substantial role in Geronimo. A lot of time has passed, sure enough, and now he can choose everything he does, but back then any job was enough… even if he couldn’t even turn in a good performance (honestly, he can do better than in Mystic Pizza).

From 1997 on, Damon could do what he wanted with his career. That’s more than the director of Mystic Pizza can say, who, although he can point to the success of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or Miss Congeniality, the truth is that he’s ended up directing Filipino romantic movies (literally) with Daisy Ridley and Tia Carrere. From launching careers to ruining others: the hero’s journey in reverse.