"The Messenger" - Affairs that work out

"Matt Damon and Heath Ledger were furious about the casting of Lena Headey in “The Brothers Grimm”, but a producer stuck with her because he felt that the actress Damon and Ledger wanted wasn’t sexy enough.Damon, Ledger, director Terry Gilliam and many other people connected with the film were passionately vying for talented and quirky actress Samantha Morton to get the role, according to a behind-the-scenes account of the flick that’s been published in the U.K., but Harvey Weinstein, co-head of Miramax which was a producer on the film, put the kibosh on her. “Samantha Morton! You must be kidding me!” Weinstein said, director Gilliam told Bob McCabe, author of the book "Dreams and Nightmares", which has just been published in the U.K. “You think Matt or Heath would want to [bleep] that?”After Headey was cast, “Matt, Heath, myself, Sam [were at a restaurant] just getting pissed, and Heath sat on the phone to his agent screaming and shouting. And Matt’s going crazy too”, according to Gilliam. “Matt’s on the phone to Bob [Weinstein, Harvey’s partner and brother], pleading, saying, ‘Samantha’s the one’.
Once, according to Damon, Weinstein sent him a “form letter” apologizing. “It’s like a [bleeping] ‘Dear John’ letter and it shows up and it’s like “Dear Blank, I am terribly sorry for my behavior during the blank conversation that we had, it was inexcusable. . . . It was an absolute form letter.” Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as Jack Twist & Ennis Del Mar in "Brokeback Mountain" (2005).

"The F-test is a tricky thing, and while its previous application for these particular actors might have yielded awards-quality chemistry with Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain, it can just as easily doom the entire affair". Source: defamer.gawker.com

"The Six Feet Under actor stars in the film as a casualty notification officer in the Army, whose job it is to inform
families of their loss.Woody Harrelson co-stars and Foster tells the L.A. Times that after their experience working together, "He's my brother". Foster explains that all the notification scenes were done in one take and adds, "I've never cried or laughed in someone's arms so much as Woody Harrelson's".However, his connection with co-star, Samantha Morton might be a little stronger, but for much different reasons. The actor admits, "I've had a severe actor crush on her for years. So getting the opportunity to play with her--she's Samantha...Morton. A woman who's very easy to fall in love with".

Ben Foster and Emile Hirsch as the rival drug lords in "Alpha Dog" (2006).

Emile Hirsch at "The Messenger" Screening in L.A., on 1st November 2009. Source: socialitelife.celebuzz.com

"The Messenger" is a moving tale of friendship between two veterans of the Iraq war (Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson), united by the task of informing next of kin that their loved ones have been killed in action. It also spotlights the ethical dilemma and moral complications of a highly inappropriate love affair between one of the soldiers (Will Montgomery, played by Foster) and the widow of a dead soldier (Samantha Morton). Take, for example, Harrelson’s sublimely delivered response to the sight of a large group of women and children who are positioned just outside one of the houses they are about to visit: the two men glance nervously at one another before Harrelson declares wryly: "It could be worse (long pause); it could be Christmas".Aside from the scenes which deal with the soldiers at work, the rest of the film is about the private life of Will, both in the context of his burgeoning friendship with Harrelson and his highly inappropriate but nevertheless very touching attraction-cum-emotional attachment to Samantha Morton’s widow. Nevertheless, it is the friendship between Foster and Harrelson which provides the film’s main thrust, offering the best comedic moments (especially the scene in which the two of them, massively inebriated, crash the wedding of Foster’s ex-girlfriend) and also, arguably, its most emotionally charged scenes. Perhaps the most moving scene in the film is the exchange between the two men when they finally open up to one another about how the war has left its psychological mark upon each of them, finally acknowledging the depth of their internal scars. The Messenger is an intelligent and moving portrait of grief, love and loss which takes a very personal approach to the consequences of war, mixing warm observational comedy with compassionate drama, underpinned by excellent performances from the leads". Source: www.eyeforfilm.co.uk