Matt Damon: Interview

Interview by Clint Morris

Interview with actor Matt Damon
Starring in the movie The Bourne Supremacy.

Matt Damon looking sharp

His on-screen character might never seem to run out of energy, but Matt Damon, the actor, most certainly does.

Though he's only been in Australia for a few days, Damon's essentially been doing non-stop interviews from the moment he stepped off the plane.

There's not a television show, magazine, or newspaper that hasn't chatted to Hollywood's favourite it-boy about his new film in this period, and Damon says it's started to take its toll.

"It's staring to get to me now", smiles the overtly-polite actor, sipping on a cup of well-deserved coffee. "But no worse than the states. Sometimes I'm doing like 94 interviews a day there."

Damon's in town promoting The Bourne Supremacy (reviewed here), a sequel to his 2002 hit The Bourne Identity, in which he reprises his role as an ex-secret agent with a lethal dose of amnesia.

Yes, sequel - something that Damon's publicly detested in recent years, saying he's not too fond of follow-ups. "A lot of the stuff that worked about the first one, the little details, ways he [Jason Bourne] handled certain situations or thought his way out of certain situations, was something we definitely wanted to do again. But I didn't want to do a shitty sequel," he states.

"I didn't want to make something that was conventional, predictable, derivative, or cynically made. I didn't want to do just a money-grab. I was really leery of doing it for that reason."

What changed Damon's mind was the combination of a compelling script and intriguing choice of director. "There were three tentpole moments in this pitch that kinda just jumped out at me. In act one, it was that she died. I thought that was very bold. That's not something that would normally happen in a conventional Hollywood movie.

"And then in act two it's that I shoot that woman in the face. She was completely innocent and that's not something a protagonist of a Hollywood movie do generally. And the third thing is that it looks like this classic revenge story on then it takes this left turn to the tune where he goes and apologises to the girl at the end of the movie," says Damon.

A promotional poster for 'The Bourne Supremacy'

"With the pitch, it was starting to get interesting. Then Paul Greengrass came on [as director] and that's what did it for me. Bloody Sunday was one of my favourite movies of the last decade, so sitting and talking to him - and watching his enthusiasm - about his vision and what he wanted the movie to be, I suddenly went 'Ok, now I've gotta do this'. I always felt like he had the appropriate take on this movie and he was really good at articulating it."

Damon says if one of the big Hollywood-action blockbuster directors - be it Michael Bay or McG - had been hired to do either Bourne film, he wouldn't have been interested in doing it. "I wouldn't have been interested. Nor would they have probably given me the job. I was kind of an unlikely choice to play the character in the first place.

"I think Doug [Liman], on the first one, was pretty much an unlikely director, and Paul is an unlikely director, and that's what's worked for the films. It's taken people that aren't well known for working in the genre and putting them in there. These guys are more out to bend the rules a little bit or try things out and be a little bolder with their storytelling than someone who is a little more conventional, and that's appealing."

Damon says he found out early on that Bourne wasn't going to be doing anything other than kicking ass in the sequel, which surprised him, considering the huge amounts of dialogue he usually has in his other films. "The writer Tony Gilroy called us on a studio conference call, outlining all the details, as well as some of the plot points I discovered before.

"Anyway, he calls me back straight after on my phone and says 'You know what this means man…I don't want a f**king phone call from the set with you going 'Hey Man, Where are my f**kin' lines'! He said 'This means, you're not going to be talking for most of this movie'. I said 'Yeah, I know. That's what I like about it; I thought it was a fun little challenge," laughs Damon.

Speaking of challenges, Damon says he had to become quite a proficient boxer and martial-artist for the sequel. He learnt both for the first movie, but says it's not something he's kept up - so had to hit the gym and Kali studio again. "I definitely wasn't continually doing it after the first film," he says "But I started to do it again, about three months before we started on the film. I had to get in shape again.

"The boxing was really helpful. It was Doug's idea for me to do it on the first one, so that we could make this guy more believable, as obviously I don't look like the kind of guy that has this past where he's a killer and all this stuff. It was a way to win over the audience.

Matt plays a rocker in a cameo role for the movie 'Euro Trip'

"Doug says there's a certain way a boxer walks and handles himself, and I started doing it for that reason. I guess one of the benefits of doing a sequel is that because I'd already done all the stuff once, all the training kind of came back to me. I knew what was really helpful to me - and the boxing was something that was the most helpful."

Damon says he had the same trainer for boxing and martial arts training, adding that although he enjoyed learning kali-style martial arts, he enjoyed boxing more. "I really liked the boxing a lot. It's not hard to like boxing when no one's allowed to hit you back," he chuckles.

Damon says he looks forward to kicking and punching his way through a third round - called The Bourne Ultimatum - if all the elements come together. "They [the studio] definitely want one now. It's a great place to be in, because now we can kind of just stick back and listen to people's different ideas on what the third one should be. And if there is a third one…I'm going to have to do it."

Paul Greengrass is keen to helm the next chapter too, says Damon, which pleases him greatly. "He and I talked about it and he's open to the idea. The one fear with this movie [Bourne Supremacy] is that the director has such success that they get offered everything under the sun and want have time to come back and do the next sequel."

Damon's got quite a busy year or two ahead of him. His next gig is producing Feast, a horror film conceived by the winners of Damon and Ben Affleck's 'be a filmmaker' TV series "Project Greenlight".

Damon laughs when asked how much decision he had in deciding which movie the winner gets to make. "You'll see on one of the first episodes of "Project Greenlight" me having this big argument - a total meltdown actually - with the guys from [studio] Dimension. They walked in and basically chose that movie Feast for us. It was supposed to be a community decision. I was like 'what the f**k is going on'?" he chuckles.

Acting wise, we'll see Damon next in Oceans Twelve, another sequel, this one a follow-up to Oceans Eleven. "I really like those Oceans movies. I'm proud to be a part of them. I haven't seen it yet, but yeah, I like playing the guy who's kind of hiding in the corner."

A younger Matt Damon poses with his mother

Damon says the cast - which also includes George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts - are keen to make a third Oceans movie. "I know all the actors would keep going with it. Carl Reiner said to me the other day 'Tell me if we're doing a third one, because I'll stay alive for it'," he laughs. "It's a lot of heavy lifting for Steven [Soderbergh, the director], but if he wants to do it, everyone will do it."

We'll also see Damon starring opposite our own Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam's Brothers Grimm, which has postponed for release until sometime next year, in the near future.

"Terry doesn't have the final cut yet and they've also got to do the special effects - and it's a pretty effects-heavy movie. In the second and third acts there's a bunch of effects stuff. I've seen the film, it's good. It's going to be a really good movie; I just think they're holding it until next Spring."

He's also about to start work on two new films, one that will reunite him with Oceans Eleven co-star George Clooney called Syriana, and another called The Departed, a U.S remake of the Hong Kong hit Infernal Affairs that'll co-star Leonardo Di Caprio.

"Syriana, that's what I'm about to do now. It's not a role that keeps me up at night wondering how I'm going to pull it off, but I think it does have a chance to be a good movie. Steve Gaghan wrote it, he's the guy that directed Traffic, and he's directing this. Steve's really ready for this one. It's like Traffic but it's about oil, instead of drugs. It should be pretty cool," he says.

"Clooney's in it, Amanda Peet plays my wife, Geoffrey Wright is in it, Chris Cooper's got a little part…it's like Traffic, the stories are all interwoven, and swim around one topic. I have one scene with George for instance; we have very limited interaction with one another. We're kind of in our own storylines," he explains.

"[The Departed] is one we're going to shoot in Boston next Summer, so I'm really excited about that. Scorsese hadn't even seen Infernal Affairs, believe it or not he knew what he needed from the screenplay and I don't think he wants it to affect his own thinking," says Damon, adding that the film will mark the first time he's shot something in Boston since his breakthrough hit Good Will Hunting.

The Bourne Supremacy is now showing.
Click here for the movie review.

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