Matt Damon: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

2. Mark Watney - The Martian

In 2014 we saw Damon play an incredibly super-serious astronaut who lets isolation drive him insane in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. Just a year later, Ridley Scott, a director who’d not hit out of the park since 2000, flipped it; The Martian saw Damon isolated on a planet, but get through it thanks to the power of comedy. It was a surprise mega-hit, and so much of that was thanks to its incredibly relatable hero.

Contrary to other sci-fi protagonists where you tend to feel for them because of whatever crazy situation they’re in, you actually like Mark Watney. He has a delightful mix of scientific aptitude and aware, self-deprecating humour that made The Martian a surprisingly refreshing movie at a time when everything else in the genre was incredibly dour.

Not that that’s enough to class the film as a comedy though.