Matt Damon and David Letterman Slipped Into ‘The Gilded Age’ Premiere Like Two Ghosts From the Wrong Century

‘The Gilded Age’ has never been shy about cramming its premieres with weddings, scandals and social warfare. The Season 4 opener, “Ring the Bells,” aired on HBO and HBO Max on Nov 1. It delivered a wedding, a birth and a secret hotel dalliance.

All of that drama gave viewers plenty to chew on. It also made it very easy to miss the strangest thing in the episode.

Two of the most recognizable faces in American entertainment strolled through the background of 1880s New York, and most people never clocked them. Matt Damon and David Letterman made a cameo in ‘The Gilded Age’ Season 4 premiere, and it is over almost before it begins.

The pair appears for just 6 seconds, starting around the 8:33 mark of the episode. They are dressed head to toe in period finery and simply walk across the street. There are no lines, no reaction shots and no credit.

The placement adds to the comedy. The scene arrives right after a harrowing stretch in England in which Gladys Russell’s life hangs in the balance. Then the show cuts to two gentlemen in bowler-era outerwear crossing the road.

Damon wears a period-appropriate mustache that makes him easy to overlook. Letterman, now 79, looks like the 19th century came to him. He kept his famously bushy white beard, freshly trimmed, which is why some viewers took him for just another well-groomed gentleman of the Gilded Age.

David Letterman and Matt Damon made a cameo in ‘THE GILDED AGE’ Season 4 premiere. (Source: https://t.co/vz7oMCEx71) https://t.co/77y1qc8uDO

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The cameo started with Letterman’s Netflix series, ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.’ Showrunner Isabel Richardson says the team was researching Damon, 56, for an upcoming episode. They discovered he started out as a background actor, working alongside Ben Affleck.

That gave the team an idea. Letterman, who has long wanted to be a background actor, could join Damon for a field segment. Richardson says Damon picked the idea as his favorite when he was shown a list of options.

Letterman had tried this before without luck. According to Richardson, he angled for background roles in Wes Anderson’s ‘The Phoenician Scheme,’ Michael B. Jordan’s upcoming ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ and Netflix’s ‘Black Rabbit.’ None of them came together.

The request eventually reached ‘The Gilded Age’ executive producer Kate Churchill. She says HBO executives thought the idea was hysterical, and creator Julian Fellowes signed off too.

The logistics were harder than the joke suggests. Scheduling two famous people was a challenge, and the production needed a controlled environment. The shoot took place on the show’s “hero street” in Old Bethpage on Long Island, on a closed set where the public had no access.

Even the paperwork played along with the bit. Damon had to be paid as a background performer, though he works through his own company.

By all accounts, the day was a good time. Churchill described Letterman as a kid in a candy shop who was excited and curious about everything on set.

Damon, meanwhile, could barely keep it together. Richardson says he laughed so hard throughout the day that he had to keep holding his mustache to stop it coming loose.

First trailer for ‘THE GILDED AGE’ Season 4. Premieres on HBO Max on November 1. https://t.co/DkFnWdGDom

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Anyone hoping for a second glimpse is out of luck. Neither star turns up at the wedding after-party at Webster Hall, where Marion and Larry dance the night away. The cameo is a one-off.

It does fit an old Hollywood tradition of stars sneaking into period dramas for fun. Damon has said he still wants to make his Broadway debut, and this isn’t that. For a few seconds on a Long Island street, though, he got to walk through a Julian Fellowes production in a fake mustache.

The ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction’ episode that grew out of the research is still to come. New episodes of ‘The Gilded Age’ air Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.

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