1998 TNT Roughcut interview

Back from the Academy Last fall, Matt Damon became the man of the moment with the release of The Rainmaker and Good Will Hunting within a month of each other. He wrote GWH with his best friend, Ben Affleck, and, together, they took home an Academy Award for its screenplay. Little did anyone know when Steven Spielberg cast Damon in Saving Private Ryan at the last minute before shooting that he would end up becoming a major movie star when the film was released. In fact, Damon was barely mentioned in the initial trailer. It's been quite a year for Damon, and in Saving Private Ryan he found the topper of all toppers. roughcut.com caught up with Damon in Los Angeles. Matt Damon roughcut.com's David Poland

So, it's still a Tom Hanks movie and not a Matt Damon movie?

When I got the role, it was before The Rainmaker and Good Will Hunting had come out. So, yeah, it was never intended to be my movie. Actually, if you look at the shot where you meet my character, it's a really complicated continuous shot. And then three people emerge and the camera kind of lets everyone introduce themselves. The camera kind of goes back and it's kind of supposed to reveal and it's kind of shown in a haphazard way. So, [with my newfound fame] it's kind of spoiled.

Is it a relief to have a crew around you where you're not the center of attention?

Oh, yeah. I'm like along for the ride. Definitely. I've had enough with shameless self-promotion.

What did you learn from Tom Hanks?

Oh, man. With Tom, my theory on acting, for whatever it's worth, was always that it was like a trade, and just like carpentry, the best way to get good at it is to apprentice yourself to the master carpenter. So every role that I've taken has always been a chance to work with a master. In this case it was a chance to work with Hanks. So, as an actor, I got to get the insight of watching how a guy creates his role and watch his work habits. But, I learned a lot more from him actually, in terms of just watching how he is with everybody around him. It's pretty exceptional because he's like the biggest star in the world, you know. It doesn't get any bigger than that. But there are obviously stories about certain people who use that as an excuse to sh-- on everybody around them. And he's the most generous, accessible and a really stand-up guy. There are eight young actors who just looked at this guy already as their leader, just by the fact that he's Tom Hanks. But we all discovered that he was this incredibly nice guy. In terms of Spielberg, it was a chance to go to film school, basically, and watch him set up these shots. And when I was watching him design those shots, in that battle at the end, there's a shot where the camera goes up the stairs, comes through and there's the hole [where] you see the Germans. The camera moves outside the building and then comes up, it's just these shots that take hours to set up and then they go off without a hitch and I can sit there and ask, "Why do you put the camera there?" Just because I was there, to ask him why he was doing that and get a little insight into how he's trying to tell the story. You know, that's basically what it comes down to. Where he decides to put the camera is everything. And instead of going to film school where you're speculating on why he did it, you know, it's a chance to just say, "Why'd you do it?" I found him to be so accessible. And believe me, I was just one of a bunch of character actors showing up to fill in the ensemble. He didn't have to tell me. So, it was pretty amazing to get access to that.

Could you get any real sense of being in war? As an actor?

Well, I'd like to say, "Yes," but I would think that that would be so wrong. The short answer is, "No." In the sense that -- even starting with Courage Under Fire, where I talked to some of the other actors about it -- we were trying to create that idea of fear and the actual fear, and to live at that level of fear constantly is so debilitating. So, no, I couldn't imagine, especially when there's a chair and a tent and catering, you know, half a mile away. No, it's probably nothing like it. But, also there's so much attention to safety with each shot you know the amazing thing about the way he puts it together. It creates this chaotic feeling. But when you're there, each shot is so planned out. You know which rifle is firing and how many rounds it's firing and where the explosions are going to go off. So, that sense of terror isn't there. You have to kind of create that. I mean, I was never afraid that I was going to explode.

But you got to go to boot camp, right?

No, I was excused from boot camp.

How'd you manage that?

Actually, I kind of balked at that notion at first that I wasn't invited. But then I realized why when I got there. I mean, it was pretty clear that it was about these eight guys who were going to rescue this one guy, and you know, the resentment that spread within those guys for having to risk their necks for this one guy and the senselessness of that the fact that they got to go and have this experience and to just tighten this handpicked group that goes, you know. So they all have this bonding experience, and meanwhile, I'm in a bubble bath in the United States and then I get to come over after they've been lying down in the puddles of rain and mud and whatever. And I say, "How's the war going?" So that resentment kind of gets infused. That the dynamic gets mirrored a little bit and goes up on the screen. So, I think it was actually a pretty good idea that I got excused from that.

Who were your acting influences?

Oh, wow. The people that I worked with or the people that I watched? Well, the stock answer, probably is Marlon Brando. I think a lot of people would give that answer as an actor. You know, it's tough to watch him and not steal an acting lesson. I mean, the guy's constantly giving lessons. But you know, Duvall was always a guy that I really admired. I got to work with him on Geronimo, which was obviously not a financial success, but it was an amazing experience that I wouldn't trade for anything because it was three and a half months of wandering around behind one of the greatest actors in the world. But more importantly a guy who still shows up every time he gets a job and approaches it with the same tenacity and is actually looking to learn every time he works. That's the best coaching you can get. And he was really gracious. I mean, he knew that I was a few steps behind him at all times. I would show up on days that I wasn't supposed to work and just stare while he was preparing and stuff. But he let me tag along and stuff. So he was always somebody who I watched and then got a chance to actually work with.

Has fame sunk in yet or is it still kind of surreal?

It's still pretty surreal, because it's all based on perception. It's an unnatural dynamic, people know you who you don't know. I mean, that's a strange life. My brother always says to me, "You're weird," if we're somewhere and somebody comes up and says, "Hi, how are you?" After living with him for 27 years, that's about as much as it can be articulated because he kind of says it all. I don't know. That part's kind of silly. I mean, especially in light of a number of things. One, my brother is an artist. He paints and he sculpts and he's incredible. And he's done so much, he's done all the art history. He could talk to you about anything, but he doesn't. He's not a show off. He just sits there and he works 12 to 14 hours a day in his studio and makes beautiful art but nobody knows about it. And so, to be so kind of obscenely rewarded for doing what you were going to do anyway, I have to remind myself that it's not real. I mean, that it's fleeting and that it has nothing to do with creative growth, you know?

What about the oddness of having your sex life examined so constantly?

Yeah, that's partly my mistake. I mean, I shouldn't have ever talked about anything. And that's just the lesson I learned, you know?

So, you're being more secretive now?

Yeah. Just because it's weird. I don't want to go through my life guarded. But I think it's an occupational hazard to a certain extent and I'll talk about those things just because they are issues of interpersonal growth. I'll talk about them with people who are close to me, but not with everyone else, because I suddenly found out that people actually cared when I said something.

Do you get pressured to talk about your personal life by your publicist?

No. Although at this point, looking back on Good Will Hunting, Ben and I, we can't help but feel we kind of pimped out our friendship. And that makes us feel weird because it was such a good publicity hook, and Miramax keyed in on it because it was real. And so many times publicists can come up and say, "I can't believe it's real!" But now, we wouldn't want it to ever be weird. There's stuff that you just don't want to talk about at a certain point.

What was Oscar night like?

A total blur.

Really?

Yeah. I mean, because it was too quick. I literally went from last year watching it on television. We'd get a couple of beers, make bets on who was going to win. It was really kind of a standard tradition that we had with our friends. To go from there and it wasn't like we went into the tenth row and got to just watch the ceremony. It was like we got rushed right into it, which was great and exciting. But at the same time, it was just overload. You know, there was just a lot that, and the sheer number of faces when we presented an award before we won one and when we got up there we had to present two. We look down into the audience and the house lights are on so you can see everybody. There's Jack Nicholson, Robert Duvall, you know, all these guys, literally watching you. You're on a stage, and they're waiting for you to entertain them. It's like the nightmare that an actor has every night. I'm on stage, my favorite people in the world are watching and I don't know my lines. So, when we walked off stage, Ben said to me, "Thank God I didn't look out there until towards (sic) the end of our thing."

What about the ongoing rumors about your authorship of the script?

Oh, yeah. I heard that about Oscar time. I haven't heard it since, because the theory, you know, of all the behind-the-scenes people was that, a certain camp was trying to undermine us because they thought they'd get a better chance of winning it and so eventually, Variety ran a story, like just explaining how these accusations get started, I guess. I never read it. But they wanted a quote from me. And they were saying, "We're totally burying this. We're putting this to bed." And just I said, "I don't care. I'm not going to comment on that." Go ask Woody Allen if he wrote his script. It's offensive. Especially because it was so well-documented. While we were writing it, it was front page news in Variety. When we were developing it, we sold it to Miramax a year later and there were all these stories. Imagine sitting with something on your computer for five years that you're going to battle with every single night. And then having somebody say that it's not yours. It's like, "Were you in my house? Could you come to my house? Come into my room. It's there on the hard drive." So, I don't know. It was a bit offensive.

So, where do you keep your Oscar?

Well, right now I'm actually about to take it home and leave it with my mom. She's gonna get it until I have time to rent an apartment of my own.