'The Martian' release date & cast news: Matt Damon talks about filming; movie release set on Oct 2

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Sep 14, 2015 06:00 AM EDT

The Toronto International Film Festival is currently underway and "The Martian" stars Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain dropped by the People, InStyle and Entertainment Weekly’s photo studio to talk about the film, Entertainment Weekly reports.

Directed by the famed Ridley Scott and written by "The Cabin in the Woods'" Drew Goddard, The Martian is based on the novel of the same title by Andy Weir, and follows astronaut Mark Watney (played by Damon) as he gets left behind by his crew in a mission to Mars, and fights to stay alive in the harsh outer space environment.

This is the second film in which Damon and Chastain star in an intergalactic adventure, as they both previously appeared in Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar."

"We're just gonna keep leaving him in planets," Chastain joked.

"Each time I get to do a few more scenes with Jessica. We got 10 minutes in this one," Damon bantered back. "Then hopefully a full film next time."

When asked about how Damon played the role mostly in isolation, he said, "You just fill it up with your real feelings, real life, and real stuff, and it comes across as long as the dynamics in the script was good--and these were really good, the script was beautifully written."

Admittedly, Damon loved the script, because he agreed to sign on to the movie just less than 24 hours after receiving it, the Collider reported in June. His hesitations came when Drew Goddard, who wrote the script, stepped down as director, and Ridley Scott took his place. Damon admitted that he had never worked with Scott before, but it was ultimately Scott's enthusiasm that got him on board.

"I couldn’t really say no to him," the actor admitted. Damon also told Collider, "[Scott] reminds me already of [Steven] Soderbergh or [Steven] Spielberg in the way that they’re cutting the movie as they go. So if you ask a question, he goes 'no no, I’m going to be on your face at this point', so you can’t get lost as an actor. You know exactly the movie that you’re in at all times...He’ll tell you exactly what this shot is and what the next shot is gonna be, and what two shots after it are gonna be. He gives you the storyboards so you can actually flip through it like a comic book. In terms of graphing where you’re at it makes your job a lot easier."

Damon also shared to EW what it was like working with Goddard, as he recalled, "When I met the screenwriter, Drew Goddard, he said he wanted the movie to be a love-letter to science. I think that it is. But I think something both Drew and Andy in the book do really a really good job of is making the science understandable."

The Martian opens in theaters on Oct. 2, and also stars Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, and Sebastian Stan.

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