invictus

I thought the film was good, for whatever that's worth. It benefited from being about 1995, which was the last World Cup before rugby became properly professional and international players stopped looking like normal people. And Mandela, who comes over as almost too good to be real, really was the real deal, and maybe if I had suspected too much airbrushing (rather than perfectly reasonable storytelling-smoothing-over) I would have been more resistant.

All of which is beside the point. Ever since I first heard about the film, I've been obsessed with what the meeting was like when the excited studio execs started chatting to brilliant Clint Eastwood about whatever winner he was lining up next, and he said, 'No worries: rugby.' and then, when they looked around nervously, he added, 'I can see you're worried. Let me put your minds at rest, it's set in South Africa and for the heroic central player, I've got the perfect guy: Matt Damon.' It must have been like a reverse Orange advert.