Matt Damon Passed on 'Daredevil' Role That Went to Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck in 2003’s ‘Daredevil’ (Photo: 20th Century Fox)

By Jacob Bryant

Matt Damon doesn’t envision himself playing a superhero in the near future, but came close to fighting crime in Hell’s Kitchen.

Damon told the Daily News that as children, he and best friend Ben Affleck dreamt of playing Daredevil.

“For us, it was always Daredevil” — that’s the comic we read when we were kids,” Damon said. “But when that one came along (in 2003) I chickened out, because I couldn’t tell. I hadn’t seen the director (Mark Steven Johnson’s) work and I didn’t know. So I just said, ‘No,’ Ben was like, ‘I gotta do it.'”

“And the movie ended up doing very well, even though I don’t think Ben was ultimately very proud of it,” Damon added.

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In fact, Affleck told Playboy last year that Daredevil was the only movie he regretted.

“It just kills me. I love that story, that character. And the fact that it got f—ed up the way it did stays with me,” he said. “Maybe that’s part of the motivation to do Batman.” (Affleck will star in next year’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.”)

However, Damon said he would don those tights if a certain director pitched him the role. “If Chris Nolan came up to me and said, ‘I want to do Daredevil,’ I would be in,” Damon insisted.

Charlie Cox is currently playing the blind, crime-fighting lawyer on the Netflix series of the same name.

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