Openverse
Ben Affleck still thinks about Matt Damon on set – even when Damon’s nowhere near it. The actor and director just revealed that one of The Town‘s most quoted lines came from him imagining what his longtime friend and collaborator would say in that moment.
Affleck was out promoting his new film Animals, now streaming on Netflix, when he brought up the story. He explained how he landed on the dialogue he delivers to Jeremy Renner’s character right before they head out to settle a score.
“I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we’re gonna hurt some people,” Affleck’s character, Doug MacRay, says as he barges into Jem’s apartment – Jem being Renner’s character.
Jem doesn’t hesitate.
“Whose car are we gonna take?” he fires back.
That exchange has become one of the most recognizable moments from the 2010 heist drama, which Affleck both directed and starred in.
According to Affleck, he wanted the line to sound like something Damon would’ve come up with – sharp, a little understated, with that dry confidence Damon’s known for. So, right before filming, he sat outside the set and wrote it himself. He wasn’t convinced it would land.
“Maybe it’s too much. Maybe it won’t, you know, it’s like pushing it a little bit,” Affleck admitted.
Renner, though, was into it immediately. The two shot a handful of takes, and Affleck liked how the scene played out – so much that it stuck in the final cut.
Affleck went into more detail about the moment in a separate clip, breaking down exactly how it came together on set:
“I remember we were shooting that scene. I was just supposed to go in and get Jeremy, and we were going to get in the car. And I remember thinking, ‘Oh, I need one of the kind of Matt kind of lines.’ So I just wrote it outside the set.”
He continued, explaining how Renner’s improvised response ended up completing the exchange:
“I remember Jeremy was like, ‘Yeah, and then you just say, what car we going to take?’ Because all the rest of the stuff goes without saying. And he liked it. So I tried it, did a couple takes, and then it ended up like, yeah, it worked.”
The story was shared by Yonan (@yonann) on October 7, 2026, and quickly made the rounds among fans of the film.
A Career-Defining Scene
The Town hit theaters in 2010. Renner’s performance as Jem earned him an Academy Award nomination – one of the film’s standout achievements. Affleck’s follow-up project, Argo, went on to win Best Picture a few years later in 2014.
Still, despite that Oscar win, The Town remains – for a lot of fans and critics – the more beloved entry in Affleck’s directing career. It’s the kind of line that didn’t need elaborate setup or exposition; it just worked because it sounded real.
And according to Affleck, that’s exactly the kind of writing Damon’s been pulling off for years.
