Matt Damon initially refused The Martian and Sir Ridley Scott had to convince him to do it

Sir Ridley Scott had to convince Matt Damon to star in The Martian.

The 55-year-old actor initially rejected playing lead Mark Watney, an astronaut stranded on Mars who tries to survive on the planet after a space mission goes wrong, in 88-year-old Scott's 2015 sci-fi adventure as he felt it was too similar to his role of Mann in 55-year-old Sir Christopher Nolan's 2014 film, Interstellar.

Speaking alongside his The Odyssey co-star Anne Hathaway, 43, Damon told Harper's Bazaar: "I actually once went to meet Sir Ridley Scott to turn down The Martian because I had just done that part in Interstellar.

"I got so in my head, I said, 'Well, I just played a guy stranded on a planet, I can’t then go play a guy stranded on a planet [again].'"

Damon told Scott his concern, and the latter did not think that was a good enough excuse to rule himself out of The Martian.

Damon remembered: "I said that out loud to Ridley and without missing a beat, he goes, 'Oh, no one gives a s***.'

"And I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll do it.'"

Damon - whose performance in The Martian bagged him a Best Actor Oscar nomination - declared it "one of the great decisions I've made in my life".

He added: "It was a great role with Ridley, and I had a ball doing it."

Hathaway admitted regret over not meeting with a director to explain why she had decided to reject a role that was similar to a previous project.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 star added: "What I know now is that you always meet with the director, you just get a feel for each other.

"The director of that project is somebody that I have wanted to work with since, and I don’t know that I’m gonna get the opportunity because he really wanted me for this part, and there’s something about it that didn’t resonate with me.

"And so I thought I was being respectful by giving them a bunch of quick nos, but he came back a bunch of times.

"And then in hindsight, I should’ve sat down with him, should’ve looked him eye to eye, explained what was going on for me and given him a chance to plead his case.”

Hathaway has no regrets over not doing the project, but added having "regret not having that moment to sit down and have my Ridley Scott be like, 'No one gives a s***.' Because truly, no one gives a s***."