Matt Damon turned down Avatar role and lost out on big money

Matt Damon turned down the biggest pay cheque of his career by not appearing in ‘Avatar’.

The 50-year-old actor has revealed he was offered a part in James Cameron’s hit 2009 movie, and said the director offered him 10 percent of the film’s profits as his pay cheque for taking part.

Matt turned down the role, and as a result he missed out on banking around $240 million, as the film grossed a whopping $2.8 billion globally.

He told Deadline: “I was offered a little movie called ‘Avatar’, James Cameron offered me 10 percent of it. I will go down in history … you will never meet an actor who turned down more money.”

The actor was forced to turn down the role because of his commitments to the Jason Bourne movies, and the part eventually went to Sam Worthington.

Matt’s financial fail comes after his childhood friend and fellow actor Ben Affleck revealed last year that Matt was “so incredibly jealous” of his acting career growing up.

The two friends grew up together in Boston and later went on to have their big break in Hollywood at the same time with Oscar-winning film ‘Good Will Hunting’, but prior to the award-winning flick, Ben had already scored a role in a series called ‘The Voyage of Mimi’ when he was a kid.

And when he came back from shooting the project, Ben claims Matt was so envious of his friend that he decided to pursue a career in film himself.

Ben, 47, explained: “I was seven or eight, and ended up getting the part … Periodically, I would leave town, and go do this series, ‘The Voyage of the Mimi’. And it was cheesy, and I was embarrassed about it. It wasn’t like I was coming back home and being like, ‘You guys gotta see this! I’m so cool!’

“But I did like it, and it did two things. One it instilled in me a deep love and affection for this art and craft and line of work, and it made Matt Damon so incredibly jealous, it drove him into a career in cinema. So I really take credit for that.”