For the second time in as many years, Matt Damon will be starring in a sci-fi film as an astronaut stranded all alone on a planet. In Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Damon played Dr. Mann, whose mental health went a bit wackadoo after he was left alone in space. In Ridley Scott’s The Martian, Damon plays Mark Watney, an astronaut stranded on Mars and struggling to survive. To further invite comparisons, both films star Jessica Chastain. But Matt Damon would like to assure you that these films are very different.

For those who were left cold by Nolan’s Interstellar, it might be reassuring to hear that The Martian will be completely different from that film, regardless of a couple of similarities. In a new interview with Yahoo!, Damon explains that he was also initially hesitant, but Scott was very convincing:

I went in to meet [Ridley Scott], then I signed on really quickly. I went in and I said, I really love this script, but my only hesitation is I’ve just done ‘Interstellar’, in which I played a dude stranded on a planet, it might be weird if, after taking a year and a half off, I played another dude stranded on a planet. I explained ‘Interstellar’ to him, and he said ‘The movies are totally f—ing different, this is going to be f—ing fun. Let’s do this!’ He was so infectious, I couldn’t really say no to him.

Was Scott’s explanation that his movie “is going to be f—ing fun” a slight diss to Interstellar? Could be — Nolan’s film (like most of his films) was seriously lacking in the joy department, and while Scott’s film looks fairly serious, there are also elements of humor throughout the first previews we’ve seen; in particular, the way Damon says he’ll have to “science the s—t” out of his surroundings.

That could be thanks in part to a script by Drew Goddard, Joss Whedon’s longtime pal and the director of The Cabin in the Woods. Damon went on to explain the differences between Interstellar and The Martian in a bit more detail:

One of the biggest differences is it’s primarily me on my own for a lot of it. That’s the big challenge. It has all the bells and whistles of NASA and the b-side of the story, the rest of the world trying to get this guy back. But the other half of the movie is me and Ridley on Mars, so that part’s different. You start there, there’s that mystery-what happened, how did he get left there? The mission part is the b-side, trying to figure out how to get back. So, structurally it’s different to [anything] that’s ever been done.

The Martian also stars Kristen Wiig, Sebastian Stan, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, Sean Bean and Chiwetel Ejiofor, and hits theaters on October 2.

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