Matt Damon has shared his verdict on Netflix’s recent adaptation of Ripley starring Andrew Scott . The actor, 53, admitted to having “trouble” watching the latest adaptation of Patricia Highsmith ’s 1955 novel. Damon previously starred as the titular con-man in the Oscar-nominated 1999 adaptation directed by Anthony Minghella.
Also in the film were Jude Law , Gwyneth Paltrow , Cate Blanchett, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Earlier this year, Highsmith’s novel was once again brought to life by Netflix in an eight-episode series starring Fleabag ’s Scott as Tom Ripley. Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning also starred.
The series – shot in black-and-white – earned critical acclaim, with Scott mostly praised for his portrayal. During a new interview with IndieWire , Damon was asked whether he would ever return to the role. In his answer to the question the Bourne Identity star revealed his feelings toward the latest iteration.
“I don’t know. You know, I associate the one that we did so much with Anthony Minghella, who’s passed away now, that I don’t know,” he said. “I even had trouble watching the new one, as beautiful as it was and as great as everybody was.
It was hard at first for me to sink back into it just because I have so many great memories, but they’re all wrapped up in these personal feelings about the experience.” Minghella died in 2008 in London of a haemorrhage following an operation to remove cancer of the tonsils and neck. It is not the first time Damon has shared his views on the Netflix interpretation.
In an interview with Associated Press in May, the actor said he “loved” Ripley based on the first episode. Damon said that watching it had brought back a “flood of memories”. “The experience is so embedded in our younger lives.
To hear those same names, same characters...
it was just a flood [of memories]. It’s overwhelming,” he said. Damon went on to explain that he had been hesitant to start episode two because “the first one was like a religious experience”.
He called it “beautifully directed” and “impeccably acted”. Ripley earned mostly positive reviews from critics, however, the series failed to impress The Independent ’s critic Adam White who said Scott was “all wrong for this otherwise decent Netflix adaptation”. “Where Highsmith envisaged Ripley as an eerily calm social climber, who is charming and naive when he’s not beating people around the head with the oar of a boat, Scott plays him as more of an overt ghoul – someone oozing sociopathic menace in the corners of fancy ballrooms,” White wrote in a three-star review of the series .
All eight episodes of Ripley are available to watch on Netflix now..
