Matt Damon and David Letterman made brief cameos in the fourth-season premiere of HBO drama The Gilded Age, appearing as background actors in a scene lasting just six seconds.
The pair can be seen walking across a New York street at about eight minutes and 33 seconds into the episode, which aired on Sunday night. Neither has any dialogue, although both were dressed to match the period setting.
Damon, 56, was disguised with sideburns and a bushy moustache, while Letterman, 79, appeared with his full beard. The cameo was arranged as part of research for Damon’s forthcoming appearance on Letterman’s Netflix programme, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.
How the The Gilded Age cameo came together
Isabel Richardson, the showrunner of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, said the production team discovered that Damon had begun his career as a background actor. They believed the opportunity could give Letterman a chance to fulfil a long-held ambition.
Letterman had wanted to work as a background actor since seeing his friend Gary Mule Deer appear in Annie Hall in 1977. Richardson said Damon immediately favoured the idea when it was presented to him as one of several possible field segments.
“It’d be really fun for Dave to do this with Academy Award–winner Matt Damon, and it tied into his origin story really well,” Richardson said. She added that Damon “unequivocally chose this idea as his favorite” because it was “by far the silliest, most ridiculous idea”.
The team looked at productions filming in New York while My Next Guest was being made and identified The Gilded Age. A line producer also had a connection to someone working on the HBO series, allowing the request to reach executive producer Kate Churchill.
Churchill said she was initially amused when the possibility was raised on set. She then took the idea to creator and showrunner Julian Fellowes, HBO’s head of drama Francesca Orsi and chief executive Casey Bloys, who also found it funny.
There were, however, practical difficulties. Churchill wanted the appearance filmed on a closed set and in a tightly controlled shot to ensure it would not distract viewers. The schedules of both actors also had to align, while Damon had to be paid as a background performer through his own company.
“I have to really give credit to our studios because a simple idea was actually quite complicated,” Churchill said. “There were a lot of emails going around, but people really locked arms, and both studios saw that it was a fun collaboration where we could help each other.”
Churchill recalled that Letterman was “like a kid in a candy shop” on the day of filming, describing him as excited and curious about the production. Richardson said Damon laughed so much that he had to hold on to his moustache to stop it coming loose.
Churchill said the cameo created “one of those rare moments in our business where everyone’s having a lot of fun doing something special”, bringing together the worlds of The Gilded Age and My Next Guest.
