CNN’s Chris Wallace Puts Oppenheimer Star Matt Damon On The Spot About Dropping Bomb on Hiroshima: ‘What Would You Have Done?’
CNN anchor Chris Wallace put actor and producer Matt Damon on the spot about the U.S. decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, asking the Oppenheimer star “what would you have done?”
On this week’s episodes of Wallace’s Max/CNN series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, Wallace interviewed Damon and film star Laura Linney. The Damon interview was conducted prior to the SAG/AFTRA strike, which prompted Damon and his castmates to walk out of the Oppenheimer premier.
In a preview clip that has not aired, Wallace asked Damon about a central question from the film, which depicts the Dr. Robert Oppenheimer-led U.S. effort to build an atomic bomb and use it to end World War II:
WALLACE: Your latest movie is just out, Oppenheimer, about the scientist who led the effort to create the first atomic bomb. You play, General Lesley Groves, who is the military leader of the Manhattan Project. Why did you want to play this role?
DAMON: The director, Chris Nolan, is one of the best directors to ever live. And he makes extraordinary movies. It plays like a thriller, like you’re on the edge of your seat the entire time
WALLACE: Anyone who deals with this subject, and I wrote a book and you’re now in this movie, I think ends up having to deal with the central question. Was the US right or wrong to drop the bomb on Hiroshima? Where do you come down on that?
DAMON: That’s such an impossible question. I remember talking to Ben Affleck’s grandfather who was a Marine. And he said I, when we heard about the bomb dropped, we cheered and he said I you know this is 50 years later, he’s telling you this (Right) and he goes, I you know, I live with the fact that I cheered, because but this is what they were telling us, you know, that they were going to fight to the last man and that we and that we were going to you know, you cover in your book they said between 250,000 and a million Americans…
WALLACE: Man, you read my book. (I did read it, it was fantastic) Which we should say it’s called “Countdown 1945.” And it’s available on Amazon.
DAMON: It actually is, not to be shamelessly pumping your book but it really is great.
WALLACE: So what would you have done?
DAMON: Boy, I, I probably, I probably would, would have had a head of gray hair, but you know what I mean, it’s like, those presidents that their hair goes white. Like, you know. It’s funny because when you look at it you think there’s really only one choice to make, and yet you’ve looked at the people who made that choice. I mean, I don’t think Groves for instance, ever lost a night of sleep about it. He was, he fulfilled his mission. (Right.) But you know, but, but Oppenheimer and a lot of the other scientists…once they went through the test, you know, they started going oh my god, and they and you know, it was like it was like a shockwave going through them.
Watch above via Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace.
