Photograph and words by GREG WILLIAMS

Greg Williams takes pause to consider the bigger picture on images from his back catalogue. This issue: capturing a prescient moment on set with Matt Damon.

When we were choosing a picture for this issue, my editor, Jane, suggested focusing on Matt Damon because of his role in The Odyssey. I’ve shot Matt numerous times over the years: I did the advertising campaign for The Bourne Ultimatum, shot magazine editorials as well as at various awards and festivals. But I suddenly remembered this photograph from all these years ago, taken on the set of The Talented Mr Ripley, and it popped into my head that he was reading Homer’s The Odyssey – I have no idea how I remembered this.

This was taken in August 1998 in Piazza Navona, Rome, and shot on film, hence the grain. It happened because I’d met the late director Anthony Minghella, who lived at the end of my road and was very supportive of me, and someone I cared for very much. I was doing a Sunday Times commission celebrating British cinema – which I turned into my first book, Greg Williams On Set. These shots were part of that project. But it’s probably the closest I’ve ever got to taking one of the pictures that made me want to photograph Hollywood. It feels like Life magazine in the ’50s – it’s only the modern boom, lights and the clothing of a woman in the background that tells you that it’s not that era. There was a terrific rainstorm that day so they were waiting for it to pass, sheltering under a reflector that the crew turned into a giant umbrella to keep us dry. I’d met Matt’s co-star Cate Blanchett (sitting on the chair in the forefront) on Elizabeth, but it was my first time working with Matt. This was a moment when he was moving from co-star roles to lead; he was really dialled into the work. A quick Google revealed he was reading a 1954 Penguin edition of Homer’s classic, which is very much what Tom Ripley might have chosen to read. 

It’s a favourite photo of mine partly because it captures a quiet moment on a busy set so well, with the name of the project on the back of the chair – ‘it does what it says on the tin’. But I also like it because the lines of this photo all lead to Matt: the spokes of the umbrella, the building lines in the background, the turn of Cate’s head, even the line of her bra strap. It’s a picture I’ve loved for a long time but it now has added resonance. It’s amazing that a photo that is 30 years old now has more relevance than ever. It’s a picture that’s aged well. 

Shot on Kodak Tri-X film on a Leica M6, 1/250 sec, f/5.6, pushed to 800 ISO, 21 mm