Ben Stiller for Good Will Hunting
本?斯蒂勒《心靈捕手》

While Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Robin Williams were always set as the leads of Good Will Hunting, it wasn't always Gus Van Sant in the director's chair. In fact, the film was initially offered to Ben Stiller to direct. Coming off of directing Reality Bites and The Cable Guy, Stiller was building up quite a repertoire for cult era-defining fair. But Stiller turned it down, primarily because he didn't know who the budding actors-turned-screenwriters were.
雖然本?阿弗萊克、馬特?達(dá)蒙和羅賓?威廉姆斯一開(kāi)始就被確定為《心靈捕手》的主演，但導(dǎo)演的第一人選卻不是格斯?范?桑特。事實(shí)上，這部電影最初邀請(qǐng)了本?斯蒂勒?qǐng)?zhí)導(dǎo)。斯蒂勒成功執(zhí)導(dǎo)了《四個(gè)畢業(yè)生》和《王牌特派員》，他逐漸積累了很多人氣很高的劃時(shí)代作品。但是斯蒂勒拒絕了《心靈捕手》，主要是因?yàn)樗徽J(rèn)識(shí)那幾個(gè)演員轉(zhuǎn)行的新人編劇。

"I remember my agent sent me the script for Good Will Hunting to direct," he recalled to Vulture in 2014. "I was like, 'Who are these guys, Affleck and Damon? And why are they attached to this project? No, thank you!' Maybe I'd change that (in hindsight)."
2014年，斯蒂勒對(duì)娛樂(lè)新聞網(wǎng)站Vulture回憶道：“我記得我的經(jīng)紀(jì)人把需要執(zhí)導(dǎo)的劇本發(fā)給我時(shí)，我想的是，‘這些家伙是誰(shuí)？阿弗萊克和達(dá)蒙？他們?yōu)槭裁醇尤脒@個(gè)項(xiàng)目？算了吧，謝謝！’事后看來(lái)，我可能想改變主意。”

Gus Van Sant ended up scoring an Oscar nomination for his work.
格斯?范?桑特最終憑借《心靈捕手》獲得了奧斯卡提名。