MAKING OF Downsizing

How director Alexander Payne shrank Matt Damon down to size (and got him to drop out of Manchester by the Sea) to play a 5-inch-tall salesman in a $70 million satire Matt Damon had been waiting 15 years for a phone call from Alexander Payne. In Leisureland, he finds a job as a sales rep and befriends a Vietnamese dissident (Vietnamese-born actress Hong Chau, nominated for a Golden Globe and SAG Award for her breakout performance) who was forcibly miniaturized and lives in a tenement on the outskirts of town, where Paul is horrified to learn about the dark underbelly of Leisureland's economy. [...]Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures stepped up to finance the film at $70 million, later bringing Paramount along as a partner.