Donald Trump insists on film cameos if you shoot on his property: Matt Damon

The cost of filming on location at a property owned by Donald Trump includes wasted time shooting him in a cameo, actor Matt Damon told The Hollywood Reporter in a new interview published Friday.

While Mr. Damon, an outspoken liberal Democrat, admitted he’s never personally met the real-estate mogul turned U.S. president, he shared a story about the time Mr. Trump worked his way onto the set of the 1992 drama “Scent of a Woman.” 

“The deal was that if you wanted to shoot in one of his buildings, you had to write him in a part,” Mr. Damon said. “[Director] Martin Brest had to write something in Scent of a Woman — and the whole crew was in on it. You have to waste an hour of your day with a bulls— shot: Donald Trump walks in and Al Pacino’s like, “Hello, Mr. Trump!” — you had to call him by name — and then he exits.”

“You waste a little time so that you can get the permit, and then you can cut the scene out. But I guess in Home Alone 2 they left it in,” he added, referring to a scene in the 1992 comedy in which Mr. Trump gives directions to a lost Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin).

According to Mr. Trump’s Internet Movie Database profile, the president has 24 acting credits to his name, the earliest of which is a 1981 appearance on an episode of “The Jeffersons.” A fair number of his acting credits are cameos on sitcoms, including “The Nanny,” “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “Spin City.” 

Mr. Trump’s “Home Alone 2” cameo is a few steps up from his earliest feature-length film cameo, the 1989 B-movie dark comedy “Ghosts Can’t Do It,” starring Bo Derek.