Celebrity Interview - Matt Damon - Comments
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Matt Damon
Poster: Peter Leonard 18/10/2007
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Laughing at the chaotic spectacle that is synonymous with the Cannes Film Festival, this 36-year old Oscar-winning, happily married man and new father of daughter Isabella, who turned one in June, is having the time of his life. "It doesn't get much better than this," he agrees, revealing a large grin of perfect movie star teeth, and pours a much-needed glass of Vittel.
Wearing a pale blue, short-sleeved shirt and khaki trousers, Damon is clean-shaven and his demeanour likeable and down-to-earth. Without taking away from his memorable performances last year in The Departed, or The Good Shepherd, being in his company is more like sitting with an old acquaintance than feeling as though you're in the presence of a “movie star.” In contrast to his co-stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney in the upcoming Ocean's Thirteen, Damon's low-key star wattage isn't quite as blinding. His evident “everyman” appeal, which has landed him starring roles in movies including The Bourne Ultimatum, is not forced or unnatural. Pouring me a glass of water, he lets a yawn slip.
You must be tired doing all this press and you were probably up last night baby-sitting!
Well, it's not babysitting if it's your own kid (laughs).
How is it going with the sleepless nights?
Good. With all these years of doing movies I'm used to not getting enough sleep. My wife is great so she takes her if I have a day like today where I need to work and the baby woke up at five, so I can sleep a couple extra hours.
Do you bring her with you?
We stay together, yeah.
Did you get advice from Ben (Affleck) about babies?
No, but he gave us a plaything. He marched into our house one day and plopped it down and said, 'This works.' And he turned around and walked out. It's a thing you can sit the baby in and it surrounds them with little activities. It's a good place to put her down if you need five minutes to change or something like that.
Are you enjoying this phase of your life?
Yeah, it's great. There are great moments and it just keeps getting better too as she gets older and she's engaging more.
Did it change your perspective on life?
Yeah, it did. A lot of people told me my whole life was going to change and that's true in the sense that you find this feeling that you've really never had before.
You're known for being calm and thoughtful. You have so many famous friends yet you never show up in the tabloids?
I would say that's part of a strategy, but I have friends who end up in there who don't encourage that stuff either. Brad and Angie don't go out of the way to be in the tabloids and they are constantly harassed, so that has to do with lack of interest from the public, I think.
So, you're boring?
(laughs) Yeah, exactly! And that's a good thing! But you don't have to be boring for people to think you are boring (laughs).
How do you pretend to be boring?If you are of marginal interest and you don't do anything, they can take a picture and try to harass you, but as long as you don't do anything they can't get another picture. They can keep taking the same picture, but they can't sell that picture. Edward Norton taught me that because Edward is very good at this. When we were doing Rounders we were shooting in Chinatown and it was the first time I had ever been on a set where paparazzi had come. They came and they were taking pictures of us all day and we were shooting out on the street and it was really getting to me. And he was very calm about it. The next day they were there and I said, "Geez, these people are here again! What the f..k?” And Edward said, “Just don't worry about it. Don't do anything. They already have that picture. Don't do anything and they'll leave.” Sure enough, they sat there for about 20 minutes taking pictures and then they split.
Does it help that you married a non-famous person?
That helps a lot too! Because if you married a famous partner it doesn't double, it explodes exponentially if there are two famous people.
But your friends all married actors?
Well, you fall in love with who you are going to fall in love with.
What about Latin women? Are they passionate?
(laughs) Yes, very. In my experience.
You must have had your share of women trying to pick you up. Does any one particular event come to mind?
The funniest one I had was when I was having a meeting about The Bourne Supremacy, and I was talking to the writer-producer. We were sitting at lunch and this girl walked up and she said, "Are you Matt Damon?" I said, "Yes." She said, "You know, I was never in to you. I never thought you were hot at all. You just never did it for me." I said, "Oh, okay." She said, "But I saw that Bourne Identity and I touched myself for a month." (laughs] I like that story only because there were two witnesses. I just turned to her and said, "Well, this is the producer and this is the writer." She turned to the writer and said, "You wrote that movie?" She immediately went beet red.
Where do you keep your Oscar?
It ended up at my apartment in New York, but then my apartment was flooded. A sprinkler broke while we were out of town. It was really weird. It was about two weeks after my daughter was born and I'm sure it was like one of those deals you make with God. We had a pretty hard
labour and I'm sure at one point in that labour I said, "You can take everything in the world away from me, but please don't take my wife or my daughter." And two weeks later I got a phone call and they said, "Oh my God, I'm in your apartment! Everything you have in the world is gone!" And I was holding my daughter, and I said, "Okay, don't worry about it. We'll fix it." And I'm sure on some level there was some kind of cosmic deal I made for it. So all the stuff is in storage so I don't know.
Do you believe in instant karma?
I believe in karma, and I guess if you believe in karma sometimes it's instant karma. But it was very weird that literally my friend was driving by and saw the fire department outside my apartment and went running in and called me from his cell phone and he was standing up to his knees in water.
You couldn't save anything?
Actually I had a couple of first edition books that I cared about that were spared somehow. It was really weird.
You have a romantic interest in Ocean's 13 with Ellen Barkin but in your last movie, The Good Shepherd, you had to kiss Angelina? How did your wife, Luciana, deal with that?
I think it was a lot easier for her and for Brad than it was for me and Angie because we are old friends so it was like kissing your sister or something. It was awkward.
Are you the only man in the world who hated kissing Angelina?
(laughs) I probably am one of a handful of people.
Why do you wear baseball hats so much?
I stopped wearing baseball hats recently. I went to shoot in Tangiers and a friend of mine said, “No one would come out and say it, but in northern Africa they didn't like people wearing baseball hats.” They thought it was a little disrespectful. So I stopped and I haven't worn a baseball hat since. Before I wore a baseball hat everywhere because I'd just wake up and put the hat on. It was just fast and easier. There is stuff in my hair right now, but if there isn't stuff
in it I don't like the way it looks so I just put a hat on.
So you are done?
No, I just got in the habit of not wearing it. I was in the habit of wearing them, but now I'm in the habit of not wearing them.
Now that you're a father, what do traditional events like Christmas and New Year’s, etc., mean to you?
It's changing because I'm going from being the son to being the father. So I'm starting a new tradition.
What do you miss about your bachelor days?
I'm not missing anything right now. It's been one year. I don't know when we are not newlyweds anymore, but it's been a year and a half and it's been great. I'm not supposed to get an itch for six years, right?
No, they've proven it's actually four years biologically speaking…
It's a four-year itch with the multi-tasking generation now!? (laughs)
That's what they say…
(laughs) Thanks for warning me!
You were in a play, This Is Our Youth, on the West End a few years ago. How was that experience in London?
I loved it. I lived on the corner of Dean and Shaftsbury in Soho, which is the middle of the madness. So at 4 am it sounded like a Rolling Stones concert. It was just so noisy so you pretty much had to go out and drink. Even if you were trying to sleep you were basically out drinking with the guys anyway because you could hear them singing. There were some great late-night clubs there and some great jazz clubs. But the pubs shut down at 11 pm so I had to join these club-like places. They are pretty nice about actors that are there visiting; they give you temporary membership.
Many memorable drinking nights?
I never had to suffer the indignity of a shoulder carry (laughs). But we had some pretty good nights. The thing about theatre, it's a tough lifestyle because you finish at 11 pm and you're wired. I mean there is no way you are going to go to sleep after having this kind of experience in a closed room with 800 other people. You have such a rush of adrenaline. You really have to unwind. You can see why a lot of those old timers ended up as boozers. You got to do something to relax.
What about endorsements? Are you open to things like that?
(laughs) I was laughing about this today just seeing George (Clooney) promoting his espresso all over Europe. To me, he looks hung-over with a cup of coffee (laughs). But I don't know about doing that myself. I'm certainly not against it.
So, you're the king of the sequels this year: Ocean's 13 and The Bourne Ultimatum…(laughs) Yeah, I feel like a bit like a prostitute putting out two number three (sequels) this year. I hope we do another one with this group (Ocean's 13). I don't know. I'm leaving all my options open but the Bourne thing I'm definitely done with. We've ridden that horse as far as we can.
You have a reputation for being very down to earth. How do you think you've stayed that why while most actors in your league become obnoxious?
I hope being down-to-earth is what I put out. I always hear these horror stories about prima donnas and stuff like that. That has not been my experience at all. Maybe I have just been lucky. There hasn't been someone I have worked with where I go, "That guy's a f…..g
a……e, I really want to knock that guy out." By and large, my experience has been really positive. I have worked with some notoriously nice people like Tom Hanks, Robin Williams and Danny DeVito, and they are just great guys. I can't think of anyone that I have worked with that has been a p...k (pause) − other than the Ocean's 13 guys! (laughs).
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