Matt Damon and Letterman were extras in The Gilded Age

About eight minutes into the fourth season premiere of The Gilded Age, Matt Damon and David Letterman appear in the background wearing elegant period costumes, neither of them speaking.The unexpected appearance began with Letterman's years-long desire to be an extra.

Isabel Richardson, who runs Letterman's talk show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, told Vulture how it all started: Letterman recognized his friend, comedian Gary Moore Deere, who was standing in the background on Annie Hall.Since then, he has been obsessed with the fact that I know this person, but most viewers may not recognize him.Thanks to his friendship with Richard Ayoade and Bill Murray, he once had the opportunity to be a background actor in Wes Anderson's "The Phoenician Scheme", but in the end he was unable to make the trip due to schedule.

While preparing for an episode in which Damon would be interviewed, Richardson's team was reminded of this wish.They discovered that Damon's acting career also started as a background performance, so they proposed that he accompany Letterman as an extra, and the talk show would record the experience of returning to the starting point.Damon clearly selected this proposal as his favorite.Richardson said it was the stupidest, most ridiculous idea of ​​all.

The next step was to find a work that was filmed at the same time as the interview and was willing to accept the two of them.The opportunity fell on HBO's The Gilded Age, a show created by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes.Production executive Leah Baker came to executive producer Kate Churchill and asked her if she would like Letterman and Damon to come to the set as background actors for a day.Churchill recalled that he laughed after hearing this.

After HBO management agreed, Churchill arranged to shoot on a main street on the Long Island studio backlot, where the Russell family and the Van Rhine family face each other across the street in the play.The location was not open to the public, allowing her to control the shooting range; she also deliberately selected shots that were needed to increase the chance that their performances would be retained in the film.

The schedule was very tight and a lot of procedures had to be completed, but the cameo was successfully completed in the end.Letterman even wore his own custom bowler hat, which the costume department confirmed was period-correct.The chat show's cameras captured the process of the two men's fittings. Richardson said the fittings were very joyful and both Damon and Letterman suddenly became energetic.