Cannes: Hollywood star Matt Damon says that being back at Cannes Film Festival after two years of watching TV rather than movies in the theater, is an overwhelming experience. "Just that feeling of after watching things on television for, you know, two years, just about - to be in a room with a thousand other people who are strangers but who are part of the same community because we all love the same thing. Like, it just it was such a great reminder of why we do this and why we get together like this. And so I was really I was just, you know, I never would have appreciated it in that way had we not just gone through what we went through.
Damon's latest character, Bill Baker, is also feeling out of his depth in France. He plays a father from Oklahoma who travels to Marseille, France to visit his daughter (Abigail Breslin) where she is in prison for murder.
Writer-director Tom McCarthy confirms that the Amanda Knox murder case was his starting point for the script. "I was pretty fascinated with the Amanda Knox case back a long time ago and did a pretty deep dove into it and tracking it and just keeping up to speed. But, you know, it was really just served as inspiration at that point. I started thinking of the relationship between a father and I just had a daughter. And you know what that would be like for a man to travel and try to connect. And the story sprang from there."
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Damon says his rough and ready character was based on men who work on oil rigs in Oklahoma, people he met while researching his role. "Their bodies are all similar. They all have the goatee and the hat and the glasses and they're strong guys because that stuff is heavy that they're lifting and but they're not six pack guys with their abs. Right? They're big, but they're strong. And so that kind of informed every little detail about the physicality of it."
Set and filmed in Marseille, Bill also faces cultural barriers and a complex legal system, far away from the world he knows. He's helped by Call My Agent (Dix Per Cent) actor Camille Cottin and newcomer Lilou Siauvaud – who plays Cottin's daughter.
McCarthy, an Oscar winner for Spotlight, is presenting Stillwater out of competition at Cannes Film Festival, which runs until Saturday 17 July.
