Hollywood as a small repertory theatre

I had the idea flash into my head about a month ago, to write a screenplay for Matt Damon. I've been carrying around the idea of writing the sequel to Good Will Hunting, feeling for where those characters would be ten years later -- when yesterday it hit me:

It's already BEEN happening.

Matt's and Ben's careers have played it out. Matt's character, Will, BECOMES the uber-NSA-guy he so scorned and feared in Good Will Hunting -- his Bourne Conspiracy character. Ben's character, Chuckie, has Ben's life -- he plays a bunch of affable leads, has a thing with J-Lo, and goes home.

It gave me the image of our Hollywood movies being a small local repertory theatre -- new actors come & go, but there's always a core of familiar faces, playing several roles. That's why I see echoes of Will Hunting in Jason Bourne. And, like a repertory theatre, I am usually watching the actors in the same place -- usually the Bella Botega.

One of the things I like about being a season subscriber to the Intiman Theatre is that they, too, have a core of actors they work with again and again. There is some deep pleasure in seeing a human wear mask after mask, over several years. You get two layers of resonance to play with -- their current character, and all their past characters, shimmering together. "Sufficient complexity," Jim Rapson would say.