Ben Affleck, Matt Damon Include X-Rated Robin Williams Scene in Movie

Sometimes, it’s all about nostalgia, and I took a trip down memory lane while watching the 1997 blockbuster, award-winning Good Will Hunting. This film, often considered one of the best movies of all time, centers around a gifted janitor working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Like many viewers, I found myself googling trivia about the movie. During this virtual deep dive, I stumbled upon a hilarious and little-known fact about this Ben Affleck and Matt Damon classic.

Matt Damon began writing Good Will Hunting as a final assignment for a playwriting class at Harvard University. He enlisted his best friend, Ben Affleck, to help with the writing. According to Mental Floss, after a bidding war, they were set to sell the script to Castle Rock but hesitated when they sensed something was amiss.

The deal-making was put on hold when they suspected that no one at the studio had actually read the script. It’s not uncommon for studios to purchase scripts without reading them, but this leaves room for potentially unwanted changes during filming and production.

To test their theory, Damon and Affleck inserted a nonsensical, X-rated scene into their script. This scene involved Robin Williams’ character, a therapist named Sean, and Matt Damon’s character, Will.

On page 60, they included this explicit scene and continued shopping the script to various studios. The Digital Fix describes this outrageous scene as one where Williams’ character initiates a graphic sexual encounter with Damon’s character.

As one might expect, most studios failed to notice the absurd scene. However, one studio finally called it out, asking, “What the hell is that?” This clarity led Damon and Affleck to abandon Castle Rock and instead sell Good Will Hunting to the smaller, then up-and-coming, Miramax Films.

This fun fact certainly stands out as one of the most amusing stories from the film industry.

Source: Mental Floss, Boston Magazine, The Digital Fix