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?達蒙和羅賓?威廉姆斯一開始就被確定為《心靈捕手》的主演，但導演的第一人選卻不是格斯?范?桑特。事實上，這部電影最初邀請了本?斯蒂勒執導。斯蒂勒成功執導了《四個畢業生》和《王牌特派員》，他逐漸積累了很多人氣很高的劃時代作品。但是斯蒂勒拒絕了《心靈捕手》，主要是因為他不認識那幾個演員轉行的新人編劇。

"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，斯蒂勒對娛樂新聞網站Vulture回憶道：“我記得我的經紀人把需要執導的劇本發給我時，我想的是，‘這些家伙是誰？阿弗萊克和達蒙？他們為什么加入這個項目？算了吧，謝謝！’事后看來，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。