- The golden age featured two all-star celebrity cameos in the season 4 premiere.
- David Letterman and Matt Damon appeared on the streets of 1880s Manhattan during the episode.
- The cast will give a behind-the-scenes look in a field segment for Letterman’s show. My next guest.
Amidst a near-birth experience, a wedding to Van Rhijn, and a secret tryst between exes, a blink-and-you-miss-it all-star cameo snuck in The golden age season 4 premiere.
Matt Damon and David Letterman were spotted during the HBO series’ return on Sunday, November 1 in a six-second appearance just minutes into the episode. The background actors played two businessmen in 1880s Manhattan, crossing the street in front of George Russell’s (Morgan Spector) house on Fifth Avenue and 61st Street.
And apparently, this brief moment was a well-planned ordeal.
According to Vulturethe passage is part of Damon’s appearance in the upcoming season 7 of the Letterman show, My next guest needs no introduction. Letterman always wanted to be a background actor, and Damon started out as one, so My next guest the producers thought this would be a great plot segment for Damon’s episode which is scheduled to air later this year.
“We thought, ‘Okay, this could be the perfect opportunity,'” said Isabel Richardson, Letterman’s showrunner. Vulture. “It would be really fun for Dave to do this with Oscar winner Matt Damon, and it fits his origin story really well.” Damon was in play and “unequivocally chose this idea as his favorite. And it was by far the stupidest, most ridiculous idea.”
To make the cameo actually happen, a few twists and turns ensued. A delegate producer on My next guest knew someone who worked on The golden age, and she pitched the idea to executive producer Kate Churchill.
“It was kind of a hysterical moment when our production supervisor, Leah Baker, came up to me on set and said, ‘Well, I have a fun and interesting question: Would you like Dave Letterman and Matt Damon to be in the background on our set someday?'” Churchill recalled. Vulture. “I just started laughing.”
Karolina Wojtasik/HBO
Churchill obtained the approval of Golden Age Showrunner and creator Julian Fellowes, along with HBO drama head Francesca Orsi and CEO Casey Bloys, then concocted a way the cameo could work without distracting the audience too much.
For Damon and Letterman to make it to the Old Bethpage background on Long Island, there had to be an organic need for background actors. Churchill decided that a photo in the “street of heroes” – the neighborhood of Russell and Van Rhijn – was a good location.
“There’s a very specific number of days it can happen, and our schedule is set. I went back to Isabel and said, ‘These are your choices of days, and it has to work for these two guys,'” Churchill explained. “I really have to give credit to our studios because a simple idea was actually quite complicated. Things like, Matt had to get paid as a background guy, but of course he works for his own company. There were a lot of emails going around, but people really stuck together, and both studios saw that it was a fun collaboration where we could help each other out. ”
Richardson agreed, saying Vulture“It would have been really easy for them to say, ‘This is way too complicated, it’s creating too many headaches for us. Fun idea, but no thanks.’ And they did the opposite.
Churchill worked with The golden age‘s hair and makeup team made sure Letterman and Damon were period-appropriate. Letterman’s beard came in handy, while the department made a freshly shaved Damon’s facial hair. Then the show’s costume designer, Kasia Walicka-Maimone, took them through a fitting like any other extra would do – a behind-the-scenes look that will appear on My next guest.
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On the day of filming, Churchill said, “Dave was like a kid in a candy store on set. He was so excited and curious about everything.”
Richardson added, “Matt Damon was laughing so hard all day, and he had this mustache, so every time he laughed he had to hold on to his mustache to make sure it didn’t come off.”
The men got their own trailer, which of course isn’t the norm for background actors, but Churchill said Vulture“It really was one of those rare moments in our business where everyone is having a lot of fun doing something special, and there was this great authenticity that felt very specific to those two shows.”
As for the end credits, HBO confirmed that Letterman and Damon were not mentioned. But they really had a wonderful time.
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