46 Fun Facts About Good Will Hunting

Who wrote the screenplay for Good Will Hunting?

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon wrote the script themselves and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in March 1998.

Who directed Good Will Hunting?

Gus Van Sant, whom Affleck and Damon wanted from the start, directed it and was nominated for the Best Director Oscar.

Who plays Billy McBride, one of Will's South Boston friends?

Cole Hauser plays Billy McBride, one of Will's three South Boston friends; he had appeared with Damon and Affleck in 1992's School Ties.

What was Will Hunting's job at MIT?

Janitor is Will's job: he mops MIT's corridors, where he solves Lambeau's blackboard problem anonymously; Affleck's father had worked as a janitor at Harvard.

Which star plays the therapist Sean Maguire, in what many consider his finest dramatic role?

Robin Williams plays Sean Maguire, the widowed South Boston therapist whose sessions finally get through to Will.

Where does Sean Maguire teach psychology?

Bunker Hill Community College is where Sean teaches psychology, a far cry from the MIT career of his old college roommate Lambeau.

Who plays MIT professor Gerald Lambeau?

Stellan Skarsgård plays Gerald Lambeau, the Fields Medal-winning MIT professor who discovers Will's gift and pushes him toward Sean.

Who plays Skylar, the Harvard student Will falls for?

Minnie Driver plays Skylar and earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination; she and Damon were a couple during filming.

Where is Skylar planning to go to medical school?

Stanford is where Skylar is headed for medical school; Will's refusal to go to California with her triggers their breakup and, eventually, his final drive west 'to see about a girl'.

What was the script originally about, before the thriller plot was cut?

A physics genius chased by NSA agents was the original thriller premise; Rob Reiner and William Goldman both urged the writers to drop it and focus on Will and Sean.

Which studio first bought the Good Will Hunting script, in 1994?

Castle Rock, Rob Reiner's company, bought the script in 1994 in a bidding war; the writers later took it into turnaround after disagreements over how it would be made.

How did the writers test whether their first studio's executives were still reading the rewrites?

They inserted a scene of Will and Sean having oral sex, and nobody at the first studio mentioned it; Harvey Weinstein asked them to remove it, proving he had read the script.

Which director brought the script to Harvey Weinstein at Miramax and served as executive producer?

Kevin Smith, who had directed Affleck in Mallrats, passed the script to Miramax and took a co-executive producer credit; he declined to direct it himself.

How much did Miramax pay to buy the script out of turnaround in 1995?

$1 million is what Miramax paid to take the script out of turnaround, matching what the first studio demanded to recoup its costs.

Which actor-director developed the film for months before Damon asked him to step aside?

Mel Gibson was attached to direct but kept delaying for other projects; Damon feared he and Affleck would be too old for the roles by the time he was free.

Where did the writers get the title Good Will Hunting?

A script by high-school friend Derrick Bridgeman supplied the title; the writers paid him $10,000 for it, and he has a small cameo in the film.

What was the film's approximate budget and worldwide gross?

$10 million and $226 million are the rough figures: shot cheaply for Miramax in the spring of 1997, it went on to earn more than twenty times its budget worldwide.

How did Good Will Hunting fare at the 70th Academy Awards?

Nine nods, two wins: it was nominated for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, Editing, Score and Song, winning Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay.

At what age did the film's co-writer become the youngest person ever to win a screenwriting Oscar?

25 was Affleck's age when he collected the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in March 1998; Damon, at 27, was the second youngest winner.

Which singer-songwriter wrote 'Miss Misery' for the film and performed it at the Oscars?

Elliott Smith, whose songs Van Sant had used throughout the film, wrote 'Miss Misery' and reluctantly performed it in a white suit at the March 1998 ceremony.

Which song beat 'Miss Misery' to the Best Original Song Oscar?

My Heart Will Go On, Celine Dion's theme from James Cameron's blockbuster, took the award; presenter Madonna read the winner with a sarcastic 'What a shocker!'.

Who composed the film's score?

Danny Elfman composed the score, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Original Dramatic Score, and arranged the orchestral version of 'Between the Bars' on the soundtrack.

Which sporting event did Sean give up tickets to on the night he met his wife?

Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, with Carlton Fisk's famous 12th-inning home run, is the game Sean skipped, telling his friends he had to go 'see about a girl'.

What are the last words of the film, improvised on set by the actor playing Sean?

Son of a bitch stole my line is what Sean says on reading Will's note, an improvised closing line by the actor; the film then ends with Will driving west.

What phrase does Sean repeat to Will in the film's emotional climax?

It's not your fault is repeated by Sean until Will breaks down, after they compare the abuse each suffered as boys.

Where were most of the film's interiors shot?

Toronto hosted most of the interior shooting, with University of Toronto buildings such as Knox College standing in for MIT and Harvard; exteriors were shot around Boston.

Where was the famous bench scene between Will and Sean filmed?

Boston Public Garden holds the bench where Sean's long speech to Will about life and love was shot; the bench became a fan memorial after the actor's death in 2014.

Which South Boston bar was used for the scenes of Will and his friends drinking?

L Street Tavern, a real South Boston bar, appears as the local where Will, Chuckie, Morgan and Billy drink; it became a tourist stop after the film.

Who plays Judge Malone in the courtroom scene?

Jimmy Flynn, the head teamster on Boston film shoots, plays the judge; he had himself once stood trial for murder in Boston and been acquitted.

Which Nobel-winning physicist told the writers that Will should be a mathematician, not a physicist?

Sheldon Glashow, the Harvard Nobel laureate, told them a physics prodigy was implausible and sent them to his brother-in-law, an MIT mathematician who became the film's consultant.

Which director suggested the ending in which Will drives off after Skylar?

Terrence Malick, a family friend whom the writers showed the script, suggested that Will should leave Boston to go after Skylar rather than stay.

Which character does Ben Affleck play in Good Will Hunting?

Chuckie Sullivan, Will's best friend, is played by Ben Affleck; his speech telling Will it would be an insult to waste his gift is the film's turning point.

Who plays Morgan O'Mally, the loudest of Will's friends?

Casey Affleck plays Morgan O'Mally, the foul-mouthed friend of Will and Chuckie; the part was written with him in mind by his older brother and Damon.

Which actor's self-written star vehicle did Damon cite as the model for their project?

Sylvester Stallone, who wrote Rocky and insisted on starring in it, was the precedent Damon kept citing to executives who wanted the leads recast.

Which 2012 film, directed by one of the writers, has a scene inspired by a humiliating Good Will Hunting meeting?

Argo, Affleck's Best Picture winner, includes a scene in which a producer takes a meeting only to say no, which Affleck based on a studio executive doing the same to him and Damon.

Which film held the number-one spot when Good Will Hunting went wide in January 1998?

Titanic topped the box office for 15 straight weekends from December 1997, so the film's wide opening on 9 January 1998 came in second behind it.

Which real-life mathematician appears as Lambeau's assistant Tom?

John Mighton, a Canadian mathematician and playwright who also founded the JUMP Math charity, plays Tom and advised on the maths shown on screen.

What real prank inspired Will's anonymous blackboard proof?

Damon's brother writing a bogus equation at MIT is the real prank: his older brother Kyle scrawled a fake formula on an MIT blackboard and it stayed up for months.

Which two real local eateries appear in the film?

The Tasty and Kelly's Roast Beef both appear: Will and Skylar eat at the Harvard Square diner, and the friends grab sandwiches at the Revere Beach roast-beef stand.

Stellan Skarsgård received the Good Will Hunting script while shooting which Spielberg film?

Amistad, in which Skarsgård played abolitionist Lewis Tappan, was shooting in 1997 when the Good Will Hunting script reached him.

The actor playing Sean first heard of Good Will Hunting from which director?

Francis Ford Coppola, who was directing Damon in The Rainmaker and had directed Williams in Jack, tipped him off to the script.

Which earlier film did Good Will Hunting surpass as Miramax's most successful US release?

Pulp Fiction's $108 million domestic take had been Miramax's record until Good Will Hunting earned about $138 million in North America.

Sean tells Will he cannot say what it smells like inside which building?

The Sistine Chapel is Sean's example: Will may know every book about Michelangelo, but he has never stood there and cannot say what it smells like.

Affleck and Damon next wrote a screenplay together for which 2021 Ridley Scott film?

The Last Duel, co-written with Nicole Holofcener, was their first shared screenplay since Good Will Hunting; Damon played Jean de Carrouges and Affleck Count Pierre d'Alençon.

How long was the script Damon turned in for his Harvard playwriting class instead of a one-act play?

Around 40 pages was the length of the 1992 class assignment, which Damon later showed Affleck; together they expanded it into a full screenplay.

Which historian's book does Will recommend to Sean as 'a real history book'?

Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States is the book Will urges on Sean; Zinn, a Boston University professor, was a neighbour and friend of the Damon family.