The Best of Matt Damon | Our Funniest & Most Memorable Interviews

So, Matt, 25 years ago, you played a Private. You are so old. It's really harshly worded, isn't it? You are old as dirt. 25, quarter of a century. So you played a Private back then in Saving Private Ryan. Now you are Lieutenant General in Oppenheimer. Yes. You've really made it, Matt. I went through the ranks. You have, exactly. And when you're looking around at your castmates, Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy, do you feel a veteran of Hollywood? Oh, these are all very old questions, I think. I do. I don't know when it happened, but I suddenly became, you know, I have no idea how or when it happened, but it happened at one point. It did. Yeah. Excellent. Emily, you've worked with Cillian Murphy before. Yes. You've gone from working on A Quiet Place, a really quiet film, to now Oppenheimer, a deafening experience at some points. My question is, do you feel old? I do. Next to you. If we were to pitch... Your oldness is rubbing off on me. If we were to pitch a third instalment in the Blunt-Murphy trilogy, what would you want it to be? A sort of tepid thing, something quite tepid, sort of in the middle. Something with Matt Damon. Yeah. There you go. My sort of cameo for Matt Damon. Oh, my God. Perfect. Brilliant. Because when I was watching Oppenheimer, it was the horses, the desert. I was thinking like a western might be quite cool. See, I love a western. Yeah. Chuck a couple of Europeans in a western. That makes sense. Oh, wow. I played an English woman in a western, though. I wasn't sort of assuming to be a, you know, someone from the south. So, some compliments. Let's throw around. Yeah. So, apart from yourselves, whose performance in Oppenheimer were you so impressed by? Cillian. Murphy. Cillian, yeah, of course. I mean, should we leave Cillian out of it because that's the obvious answer? Sort of the obvious, like, game-changing, extraordinary performance. Yeah, yeah. RDJ. We've got to give some love to Robert. RDJ was obviously amazing. Absolutely. Was that obvious, too? Should we leave him out? Should we leave him out of it? Everyone talks about him too much as well. But you just go down the line, like all the way. I mean, everybody's just fantastic. I should have seen Ken Brennan when he came in that day. Oh, he's so good. Just incredible. How about Casey? Incredible. Casey, fantastic. Rami. Rami, yeah. Everyone. Lawrence, just crashing it. She's amazing. Compliments all around. I know. Incredible work. Love fest. Absolutely, yeah. Gary Oldman, not so much. Not so much, yeah. I don't believe him enough. The great Gary Oldman. Kitty Oppenheimer, Leslie Groves. It's fair to say there's a little bit of animosity towards Robert Oppenheimer, but what was your on-set relationship like with Cillian? I mean, love fest. It was great. I adore him. Is he okay? It's like an intense film. There's a lot of intense stares. He is now, with a few more calories in him. I think he's had a Mars bar since this movie, so I think he's feeling better. We went out to dinner the other night on the press tour, and it was the first time I'd ever seen Cillian eat. Or drink. Yeah. Or smile. Or smile, yeah. Yeah, it's wonderful to see him back, you know? And it was such a monumental take on this whole thing for him, so he did not join us with our cast dinners during the shoot because he had too much to do, frankly, and too little to eat. So I think he just... It was just this marathon for him, and he's extraordinary. The most focused, prepared guy and a sweet pea. He was just in the zone the entire time. Like, just very, very focused. I have to say, it pays off massively. I love the film. And I have to say, personally, growing up watching your films, to be sat here talking to you is quite incredible. Do you hear that growing up? We are so f***ing old. Were we friends again, Matt? I pulled it back around. You pulled it back around. Clearly, you're talking about the Adjustment Bureau, which... Oh, I'd love to see you guys back together on a junket tour. I know, I'm serious. There's a sequel coming. That's why I wore the wardrobe. Yeah, the fedora's back, guys. If you'd worn a fedora today, I would have been so... Oh, God, you wouldn't be able to get it from me. ...so cool. I wish I could claim him as a son. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah, he's way cooler than my dad. Don't let him see that. Oh, please let him see that clip. So, Matt, this is the second time in your career you're playing someone who's trying to get home from the Martian to the Odyssey. I was wondering, is this something you're drawn to, or does Hollywood keep stranding you places? They can strand me as long as they want, if those are the outcomes. You know, Interstellar, I'm also stranded, so those are some good... Saving Private Ryan, you're a little stranded. Saving Private Ryan. So those are, you know, I'll take those jobs if I can get them. I mean, if they make as good films as those, keep them coming. Yeah, that's exactly... That's a good list, though. That's a good list. That's a great list. That's going to be a great clip. And, Tom, I was wondering if there was lessons you took from doing Romeo and Juliet on stage, bringing into this, and if so, what were they? I tell you what, the most valuable lesson I learned from doing a play was I found my focus improved greatly, because you'll be doing these complicated lines and someone might be coughing or someone's phone might go off, and you can't allow one person to disrupt the experience for a thousand people. And, you know, I used to find myself struggling on set if, you know, sets are busy places, they're noisy, there's lots of movement happening behind the camera. I used to find it really difficult to stay focused, and after doing that play and exercising that every single night, I definitely have found much more focus. That's a great observation, actually, because you're making me think that there are film actors I've encountered who are more fragile, you know, if a phone goes off or if a thing, you know, and when you do a play, you have no choice but to, like, the lights are on and you make your entrance and you have to keep going, and you're right, it does really improve your concentration. There you go, recommend it to every actor. Get it done. You recently said, Matt, that filming this was more like an expedition. Yeah. And I was wondering, was there any situations during either being out in the ocean, in the storms and stuff, that you actually feared for your life? No, no, no, no, no, never. Chris is super safety conscious. Yeah, yeah, he's obsessive about safety, and the trick is to, and what's hard is to make something look dangerous but not have it actually be dangerous, and so there was a lot of that, but that takes a lot of work and, but no, there was never any fear. Even when he was waterboarding me at the end, at the universal back lot, I knew I was still going to make it to lunch. What's the story behind that? Well, we had to get some close-ups on the raft, and it was the last day of shooting, and so I'm lying on this raft, because we'd done stuff in the open ocean, but we needed a controlled environment to shoot these very, these tight shots, and so I just, water started getting poured on my head, and I just heard him giggling, and I'm like, I haven't heard you laugh while we're working for 100 days, and this is the one, I'm like, you're waterboarding me on the last day of work, so. Obviously, you two play a father and son in the film. Did that relationship naturally carry behind the scenes? I know you didn't get to have loads of scenes together. I actually see him a lot more as a colleague than as a son figure, you know? I may be an older brother, or maybe I just don't want to get old, but no, he's incredible, and reminds me a lot of me at that age, you know? He's accomplished more than I had by that time, I think, but just great choices, just unbelievably professional and kind to everybody, and just, you know, I wish I could claim him as a son. Would you claim him back? Oh, God, yeah. Yeah, he's way cooler than my dad. Don't let him see that clip. Oh, please let him see that clip. No, I remember my dad. One of the most memorable moments I have with my dad is sitting down, we were on a family holiday in Portugal, and he finally decided I was old enough to watch The Bourne Identity. That franchise is one of, I've spoken to Matt about this ad nauseum, it's one of my favourite franchises going, and I remember sitting down with my dad in Portugal watching that movie for the first time, so working with Matt was very special for me and for my dad. Thanks again for talking to us today. Going into the movie, I didn't really know what to expect, but then it kind of got straight in with the action and your kind of romance. If you were stood outside a cinema and people came up to you and said, hey, Matt Damon, why should we go and see The Great War? How would you explain it to them? Well, I would call it a historical fantasy. Like, you know, it's supposed to take place in 1100 AD, but there are monsters in the movie, so it's kind of like a creature feature from when I was a kid, but a big, big scale and directed by one of the best directors on the planet. And that's really why I did it. Zhang Yimou, I've just been following him for so long and he normally works in China, so I didn't think I'd ever really get a chance to work with him and suddenly he offered me this, so I jumped on it. Great, yeah, I was surprised how quickly the monsters came into it. I was just like, whoa. Yeah, it's a monster movie. You got to get on with it, you know? So I love General Lin. I thought she was great. She's cool. Was it refreshing to work with a woman who was such a strong lead role and not have like a kind of big kiss at the end or not have any kind of relationship part? You know, he's really known for his female characters are always very strong and, you know, he had the idea to divide this army into different colors, the divisions of the different colors and to have one of the colors just be all female division and, you know, which is a very progressive idea in 1100 AD to have a female general. And I think, you know, people would have expected it to be a love story and I think that's why we didn't want to do that. I think it's nice that it's like the woman isn't there to be the object of desire for the man. She's like, you know, she's a badass woman. I was so worried at the end you guys were going to kiss and I was like, no, don't do it. Yeah, I know. It's like and in the end they just have this like great respect for each other and it means the world when she sees him for who he really is. And it's like, you know, that's a big deal for him. He wants her approval just as a friend. Yeah, it was all about trust as well. I think right. I can't believe the women army as well having to jump because I want to call it the crane crane. No, but I think it's so that's my one of my favorite moments in the movie when because William is this barbarian and he's going like what? He's like, they're all women. What is going on? It's like, what do they do? You know, and then you see what they do. And yeah, it's pretty spectacular. It's awesome. So do you think we can draw any analogies from what's going on in the movie into like the present day? I don't know. I mean, I think it's a pretty classic kind of hero's tale where you've got all, you know, the definition of a hero in this movie and you see it kind of expressed by by most of the characters. I mean, I mean, Willem and Pedro. No, but you know, I among the Europeans, I kind of expressed this and then and then really all the Chinese like commanders express this this kind of idea of sacrifice, this idea of putting something else ahead of your own your own safety or your own life. And and, you know, these characters, that's kind of a consistent theme. They they, you know, they're willing to to to give themselves up for something that's that's important. Yeah, because I've had lots of people be like, oh, the Great Wall. And obviously, with what's going on with Trump and everything at the moment, but right, well, it's his favorite movie title of the year, no matter what. I think we're going to win that award. But, you know, it's a monster movie. Yeah, but it's interesting that like, you know, it's it's it, you know, the idea is that it would appeal to, you know, Chinese as well as American, as well as European audiences or English, I have to say now, I can't lump them all in together anymore. But those themes of heroism made me think about, yeah, it's interesting that those that that is one thing that I think goes across culture is this this concept that, you know, your life is not, you know, is is, you know, a true hero is somebody who will lay their life down for the greater good. And and that that's true in China, as it is in the UK, as it is in America. Like if you look at all our movies, that's when we're when we're talking about heroes, that's usually what we're talking about. And also the idea, I guess, of working together as well, despite differences, too, because also they kind of come together and you think they might like string you up or hang you or whatever. Right. They have to they have to find trust and come together and cooperate. Yeah. Which is the theme of today as well. Exactly. So I think as we've touched on, the monsters are pretty gruesome. Watching it on 3D, it's been I've spent most of the film like with them, like kind of like coming, coming towards me. Where do you think? I mean, to me, they're a little bit like, you know, the little creepy things in Jurassic Park that they keep like. Right, right, right. Where do you think they drew inspiration from for the monsters? Because they're pretty random, they're like eyes here. And well, they're based on Chinese mythology. So as the Tao Tei, are they actually kind of part? Yeah, they're known as like the ninth son of the dragon. And so they kind of got eclipsed by the dragon. And but but everyone in China knows, you know, what they are. There's a symbol for them. They're they're they're the beast of greed and kind of unchecked avarice. And they they they're symbolized just by their head. When you look at them and kind of, you know, the way they're normally drawn because they devour everything in front of them, including their own bodies until all that's left is a head. So they're this symbol of kind of rampant greed. I love when they were like dragging them back towards the queen. They just like chuck them off. Like chuck them off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're pretty horrendous. So you had impressive facial hair at the start. Did you have to grow that? And is that all like a wig or is that? No, it's a there's this great makeup artist named Yana Carboni, who is and the Italians lay beards better than anybody, which people always say, what are you talking about? This is actually true. This is like an objective fact, not an alternative fact. This is true. And they pass this down to one another. And and I first saw there's a Bobby Duvall's old makeup artist, this guy, Manlio. I first saw this 25 years ago for this movie, Geronimo. He laid a beard on him that so fast that was so perfect that you would. I mean, and I'm not afraid to lay a beard. Well, because it's hand laid. And then so you get real hair and you cut it and you and you and you and you hand lay it rather than rather than have one big piece and kind of hook it around the ears like a Tecumseh Sherman beard, you know, this is like a hand laid. And so and so the detail is and Ridley was the one who turned me on to Yana for the Martian because there's a sequence where I'm supposed to be all scraggly and I've been on the road and he said Christian for Exodus had, you know, because they shoot all out of order. There was some of the movie in which he had his beard, his actual beard. Yeah, and then somewhere they'd go pick up a shot and he was clean shaven and they would have to hand lay the beard and you cannot tell. And I saw Exodus on a massive screen in Hungary and sat there looking for it because Ridley had told me and and just couldn't tell. So it's a really it's an art form and she's a brilliant makeup artist. And so so, you know, so we would do one day we'd have that kind of barbarian look where I'd have a big beard and the next day would be the clean look. So I was clean all the time and then they would just go back and forth. So they said that you smelt like animals. Is that up there with one of the worst insults you've ever received? No, I mean, but I like that line because it you do kind of get this idea. These guys have been on the Silk Road for six or nine months. You know what I mean? Like they, you know, I love that they show up, you know, we start with them and they're they all look savage and filthy and then suddenly they get captured by this really, you know, meticulously clean. Yeah, everyone's like looking perfect. Everyone looks beautiful. So do you, I thought that the first the idea for someone's first job being a cleaner of the war battlefields. A cleaner. Yeah, was a cleaner. Yeah, it was pretty horrendous. Was, did you have a bad first job that could kind of compete with that, with a cleaner of the war field? I worked in a restaurant and you know, that can get a little nasty in the back, but Ben and I got a job one summer working at a movie theater and it was hard for a different reason, which was that we come really close on this movie called Dead Poets Society and we didn't get the parts, obviously, and to kind of illustrate the feast or famine nature of the movie business, we went from not getting the parts to working in the movie theater that showed the movie and so we had to tear tickets, you know, popcorn and what's that? That was the saddest Affleck there's ever been and the saddest Damon too. We just sat there all summer long and watch people weeping as they came out of this wonderful movie and we just went like that could have been us and you know, would you like a refill?