The Filthy Joke That Scored Matt Damon A Part In The Deadpool Sequel

The list of Matt Damon's cameo appearances over the years is long and distinguished, from play-acting the Tom Hiddleston iteration of Loki in "Thor: Ragnarok" and "Thor: Love and Thunder" to appearing as a heightened version of himself — opposite a heightened version of Ben Affleck — in "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back."

However, perhaps none of Damon's cameos measure up to his turn in "Deadpool 2," at least in terms of disgusting dialogue. The scene — in which Damon and Alan Tudyk appear in prosthetics as a pair of rednecks drinking beer on the tailgate of a pickup truck — mostly consists of Damon's beer-bellied character talking about the limitations of dry toilet paper. Tudyk's redneck spends most of the scene reacting in horror to what Damon's character is vividly describing about human feces and how the standard bathroom product simply doesn't do what it's supposed to.

In a featurette on the "Deadpool 2" Blu-ray release, Rhett Reese, who co-wrote the film's script with Paul Wernick and Ryan Reynolds, said the idea for the scene originated with a joke that he often repeats with friends. "I do this bit about the inadequacy of toilet paper to create the appropriate hygiene for a human being," Reese said in the segment. "So, I did it for Ryan at one point and we just all looked at each other and said, 'Well, this has to go into the movie somehow.'"

The writers, however, needed to resolve who was going to actually cite the dirty dialogue. And Damon seemed like the perfect candidate.

Ryan Reynolds is not afraid to improvise dialogue to shocking degrees when playing "Deadpool," but for some reason, he and Rhett Reese thought the toilet paper schtick should be told by a high-profile actor. As such, they decided on Matt Damon. "We thought, 'Well, what caliber actor would we need to do a scene where two rednecks talk about wiping themselves after spending some time on the toilet?'" Reese recalled in the "Deadpool 2" Blu-ray extra. "Of course, you have to have somebody Oscar-caliber doing that kind of bit. Matt was very receptive, so Ryan ended up sending him the pages. Matt called him back and said, 'I'm in.'"

While Damon's toilet paper rant to Alan Tudyk's fellow redneck character lasted less than two minutes, it was a memorable cameo, nonetheless. The scene ends when time-traveler Cable (Josh Brolin) appears in the scene and neutralizes both rednecks with a shock before taking their beer.

Of course, the first two "Deadpool" movies were made by 20th Century Fox and were both rated R, which allowed for such filthy lines as Damon uttered. Only time will tell, however, how much Disney's "Deadpool 3" will tone things down since the family-friendly film studio completed its $71.3 billion acquisition of Fox in 2019.