‘I was meant to play Mandela’ (From The Northern Echo)

‘I was meant to play Mandela’

1:12pm Thursday 4th February 2010 in

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Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon talk about their meetings with Nelson Mandela during the making of Invictus. Steve Pratt reports.

MORGAN Freeman likes to tell the story of when Nelson Mandela first saw Invictus, the film about how the South African leader used the 1995 rugby world cup championship to unite that country’s people.

“He smiled a lot and nodded,”

says the actor of Mandela’s reaction in the cinema. “When he first came on screen he leaned across and said ‘I know this fella’. I get the impression that he wasn’t embarrassed by the film.

Oscar-winner Freeman, whose credits include Driving Miss Daisy, Million Dollar Baby and The Shawshank Redemption, had been trying to make a film of Mandela’s autobiography, A Long Walk To Freedom. Then came the script of the film of John Carlin’s book, Playing The Enemy, about how sport was used to ease the situation in the wake of apartheid.

Freeman says he doesn’t known Mandela that well but “I would run into him in different places in the world”.

The most challenging aspect of playing such a well-known figure was getting the voice. “The accent if you will,” he says. “Everything else was easy. I’ve been watching him for years. I had the notion that one of these days I would be playing him on screen. It became paying close attention to him every chance I got, whenever I was in his company or see him on screen, anywhere, television or whatever.”

He plays down the idea of portraying a friend on screen, saying “It feels rather terrific. It’s a situation that was meant to be, meant to happen.”

Damon also had the chance to meet Mandela while filming Invictus in South Africa.

“I’d met him one time before when he’d come to America about five years ago,” says Damon.

“I had ten minutes with him and I asked to bring my kids. So my wife and I brought our three kids and spent the time just watching him bounce the baby on his knee, “He was absolutely wonderful with them and we have wonderful pictures to prove it. It was a wonderful moment for our family.

The kids will obviously grow up knowing who he is and some day have a picture of them being bounced on his knee, so it was a really special thing.”

Damon, star of the Bourne franchise, had a different sort of problem playing Francois Pienaar, captain of South Africa’s rugby team.

“The real physical challenge for me was getting ready for the role, just because I was playing a very famous man whom everybody knows. So it’s like any job, it’s a magic trick.

“I look at it, think what can get me into trouble here, what can really take people out of the movie?

Because if somebody doesn’t believe you, even for a moment, you’ve failed your job and taken them out of the story.

“So you have to troubleshoot when you’re a year away from doing the film – and ask what can land me in trouble here and what do I have to solve?.

“Francois, you know, is a big guy and I’m an average-size guy. People know what I look like and people know what he looks like, how are we going to get around this?. Clint said maybe you won’t look six-four, but maybe people won’t say ‘oh, he’s five-ten’. I think maybe we can make people not ask the question.

“There are little tricks of putting the camera higher and framing a little larger in the foreground. A little insole in my shoe to give me another inch of height. Little things like that and a lot of work in the gym and on the accent and stuff like that.”

And no, the others in the teams – mainly real life rugby players – didn’t hold back just because they had a Hollywood star in their midst, although Damon acknowledges the input from his stunt double.

“This game is really tough to choreograph, a bit more uncontrolled. So a lot of the stuff we filmed was freeplay – just nail each other and Clint captured that,”

he adds.

■ Invictus opens in cinemas tomorrow.