From Jeannie Williams column in USA TODAY: Openings: Will Smith, Matt Damon and Charlize Theron are going all out to boost their new movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance, on screens Friday.
Smith turned up at Sunday's New York premiere in a costume of sorts, a handsome gray tweed suit with watch chain and '30s-style slouch hat with what he called "a modern touch," a do-rag underneath. "I always like to come in the vibe!" he said. The golf tale of his title character takes place during the Depression.
Meanwhile, Theron made for eye-stopping photos in a long mauve chiffon Dolce & Gabbana gown. She said she "hated" golf before she read the script but got into it on location, and now she's a player.
Damon went the furthest during shooting. He'd never lifted a club, but he plays a Southern golden boy who has lost his swing, so Damon had to put in eight-hour practice days with a Hilton Head pro. He injured himself one day: "I separated my rib, just by driving the club into the ground and twisting my body without following through. They kept having to pop (my rib) back in before I swung." He's still "aware" of the injury, "but I'm all right."
Damon enjoyed working with Smith: "He's easy and fun to be around." Suave Smith plays a mystical caddie: "We wanted to create a character who was really folksy and human, and the spiritual element is left to the individual viewer to decide."
But he can't resist giving it away a bit by quipping, "I thought it was really cool that the entire cast was white and the one black dude got to play God!"
Director Robert Redford wasn't in a chatty mood at this benefit for the National Resources Defense Council, which he has backed for 25 years. He did tell me his movie "gets to the heart of what golf is about as a metaphor for life. Any golfer is going to recognize it, and people who don't play golf are going to recognize it anyway."
He has golfed since he was 11.
Bruce McGill plays fun-loving golf legend Walter Hagen: �He�s not just a golfer, he�s an entertainer. He was the first to put his finger on that, and the modern pro golfers know he paved the way for them to be playing for millions of dollars. �Cause in those days, you had to have a club job to make a living. There was no money to win these tournaments.�
Joel Gretsch makes a splash in his first major film as handsome Bobby Jones: �I was just in awe of this guy,� he said, but Gretsch is no slouch, with about a five handicap. He also says, �It�s not really about golf, but visually, being on the course and with the sense of competition.. I think everyone�s going to relate to it.�
Here's a tip: Jack Lemmon has an important, unbilled part in Bagger Vance.
Fans at the premiere included Redford pal Tom Brokaw: �Lovely to see a film that didn�t have car chases and artificial fireworks, just a wonderful period piece.� Bobby Kennedy: �A beautiful movie about self-will, very spiritual.� Sigourney Weaver: �I loved it and I�m not even a golfer.� Maury Povich, who excels on the green, with Connie Chung: �I�m a scratch, no handicap. I just played in the U.S. Senior Amateur (tourney),� in Charlotte, N.C. �I didn�t win but I played pretty well.�

From TV GUIDE.COM:
Damon Seeks The Write Stuff
Tuesday, October 31, 2000
In 1997, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck sneaked up on the film world with their screenwriting debut Good Will Hunting, which, after netting nine Academy Award nods, went on to elicit Oscar wins for themselves (for original screenplay) as well as supporting actor Robin Williams. So where stands the dynamic duo's follow-up?
"We actually [recently] started kicking around some ideas," says Damon, who notes that he and his writing partner are all too aware of the scrutiny under which their next screenplay will fall. "We want it to evolve organically, because we are going to get crushed with the next thing we write, no matter what. So we just want to make sure that we think it's good."
Screenplay evaluation is a major theme these days in the lives of Damon and Affleck, who, in conjunction with HBO and Miramax, are hosting an online screenplay competition called Project Greenlight. They also will serve as two of the three executive producers of an accompanying reality series (to air on HBO) chronicling the production of the winning film.
While Damon hopes that the contest's 29 runners-up will "either sign a movie deal somewhere or get agents," the actor/screenwriter concedes to TV Guide Online that none of those competing will be able to elude the Writers Guild of America strike which is threatening to hit in May.
"Anybody who sells their scripts is going to immediately be in the WGA, so they'll just join the strike," he acknowledges. "While I'm optimistic that it will get resolved, to me it looks like the strike is going to either be averted at the last moment, or be really bad, and go on for a while."
So, while he awaits his and Ben's next big thing, and prepares for Greenlight to bear some fruit, Damon has kept busy by adding Robert Redford, who cast him in this Friday's The Legend Of Bagger Vance, to the impressive list of directors under which he has worked � a roster which includes Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan) and Gus Van Sant Good Will Hunting).
"[Co-stars] Will [Smith] and Charlize [Theron], all of us were really happy to work with each other, but the chance to work with Redford, I think, is what got all of our attention," Damon, who underwent a 30-day crash course to learn to play golf for his role, suggests. "Tonally, Bagger Vance is different from other stuff that's out there � it's this old-fashioned fairy tale-style fable. So it was not up to me or Will or Charlize to set that tone. It was up to Redford. In that regard, it was really his movie." � Matt Webb Mitovich

• Anyone catch Matt on the TODAY show this morning? What I remember:
  1. VERY different look than in BAGGER VANCE. Dark, chestnut brown hair (it has to be dyed) cut very short. Matt looking quite lean, even a little haggard.
  2. Matt Lauer noted that many are making comparisons between Redford and Matt in that both have proven that they're more than just a pretty face. Matt kind of rolled his eyes and laughed, saying he didn't know how to answer that. However, he said, "Thank you," and said something to the effect that he'd worked really hard.
  3. Lauer mentioned that he'd once said that he didn't want to be an "over paid sensation." He asked Matt if his perspective had changed, to which Matt replied, "Well, I'm definitely overpaid!"
  4. Matt said that he'd almost turned down BAGGER VANCE because of his apprehension about playing a credible golfer.
  5. When asked about what he looked for in a project, he said it was the director first, and then the script, because even if it wasn't a success, "at the very least you walk away with an education.
• If any of you had a chance to see the VH-1 or E! specials, you'll note that Matt does deliver. It's interesting, though. Seeing Matt in 30's garb really does invite comparisons to Redford, though Matt's character seems to have an insecurity and vulnerability that you rarely see in Redford's films.
  The specials have some interesting moments, such as footage of Matt bouncing a golf ball on a club and knocking it into the distance, Tiger Woods style. Will expressed amazement that Matt picked up golf so quickly, and Charlize said something to the effect that aside from "being one of the best actors we have," he was a solid, decent human being, "warm and funny," and that you were guaranteed to have a good experience working with him.
  Redford said that he chose Matt because he wanted an actor who looked "unmarked" and "All-American." (He also reiterated that Matt was a smart guy and a good actor.) It's an intriguing comment, because later, I saw A&E's 2 hour Biography of him, and many of the same adjectives were being applied to Redford himself. That special had about five minutes on BAGGER VANCE at the end, with many of the same interview clips from the VH-1 special. (Basically, Matt and others talking about how "tuned-in" Redford was as director.)
• Matt's in the new US Weekly. There's a brief blurb about his 30th birthday with mention of the attendees--Gwyneth, Ben, Will, Puffy, Jennifer, etc. -- and Gerry Speca, who according to the article, had the only camera at the event. (The accompanying photo has Matt wearing a Gore button--looks like an older photo from one of the campaign events.)
• And From People.com: a Matt puzzle

• Photos of the premiere are on excite.com and jamshowbiz.com (so far). Charlize looking very photogenic, Matt's hair looking very short (as usual). Also to note: an item in the Liz Smith column about how Will Smith was upset that Matt got too much of the focus in the trailer, and that Smith's role was then boosted in the press advertisements.
• From Roger Friedman's Fox News column:
  Monday, October 30, 2000
  Will Smith Snubs Robert Redford's Legend
  The dismal get-together for Robert Redford's new movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance, would have been a total nonstarter if not for Will Smith. The costar of this movie, with Matt Damon and Charlize Theron, decided to skip the premiere party entirely and have his own fete at the nearby Hudson Hotel. So while Redford, Damon, Theron, Sigourney Weaver (who came just as a friend) and a host of talent agents, not to mention Robert Kennedy Jr., all chowed down at the cavernous Guastavino's, Smith made his feelings clear.
  Maybe it's because Bagger Vance, while lyrical and lovely to watch, was basically met with yawns from the charity audience. Smith hasn't been in a film that hasn't earned $100 million at the box office in some time. This, I fear, will be it and he knows. Call it A Golf Cart Runs Through It.
  "I loved it," Weaver told me at the party. "I just went with it." And some others voiced the same opinion.
  But Redford, who flew in from London � where he's shooting a movie with Brad Pitt � must have sensed the overall reaction. Even though he'd talked earlier in the day with the junket "press" (read: publicity disseminators), he declined the chance to speak to any real reporters who came to the party.
  One publicist was even overheard saying to one reporter (not me, don't worry): "If I found out you went around me, I'll be very mad." Oh gee, who cares anyway? � that's what I though when this was reported back to me.
  But Redford � dressed in an open white tuxedo shirt and black tuxedo suit � looked every bit the Gigantic Movie Star and Legend. His blond hair was impossibly tousled. His grin was infectious. Maybe if he'd starred in Bagger Vance instead of directed it, the film would have a chance.
  As an unrepentant fan of much of his directorial work (Quiz Show was really a masterpiece), I know that Redford tends to go for the Big Metaphor. Unfortunately, golf is too slow a swing for metaphors. Maybe he should have tried similes.
  Matt Damon Needs a Handicap and a Caddy
  Even if Redford wasn't talking at his own premiere, Matt Damon was there and he was every bit the gentleman, as usual. You can't not like Damon. One day he and Ben Affleck will run for some office they can time-share, like Governor of Massachusetts, and win on charisma.
  Damon brought his family, of course, and was dressed in a sharp designer suit, knotted silver tie, all shined and spiffed up. He did not seem to have much public affection for Redford, but, hey, they made that movie during a bunch of hurricanes in North Carolina.
  So how's Matt's golf after all that work?
  "I suck," he said. "That's how much I learned. I learned that I suck and always will. Will Smith is a real player. Me?..." his voice trailed off.
  Damon told me he's sorry he hasn't been available for the Al Gore and Hillary Clinton fund-raisers that his buddy Affleck has participated in. "It's so important to vote for Gore. Especially when it comes to the Supreme Court. There could be three or four changes and they will affect our lives forever."
  Damon's next movie release is All the Pretty Horses, scheduled for December, and then he starts shooting Robert Ludlum's thriller The Bourne Identity, with Doug Liman � of Go fame � directing.
  How is a 30-year-old Harvard grad so focused? Wasn't he ever a slacker? "Are you kidding?" said his dad, Kent Damon. "He was always this way. Since he was that high," he said, with his palm about three feet off the floor. "He always wanted to be the best. He never had a doubt. Him and Ben."
• Nice interview. For more on Matt and father Kent, here's an article from the Toronto Globe and Mail:
  'I want a couch'
  Matt Damon, fresh from his latest film, has just moved his duffel bags into a new, $2-million-plus, N.Y. apartment. So he can relax. If he ever finds time. SIMON HOUPT
  Saturday, October 28, 2000
  
  NEW YORK -- A little while ago, Matt Damon's father sat him down for a talk. Damon, of course, is the wunderkind who has ridden one screenplay and a couple of movies into a lofty position as one of the most popular movie actors around, including a starring role in the new Robert Redford-directed film, The Legend of Bagger Vance. He is so in demand, he has been living out of duffel bags for the past five years, shunting from one movie set to another, without a place to call his own. And in his father's eyes, Damon's success brings significant responsibility.
  "He said, 'I just want you to know, it's great, everything you've done, and I couldn't be happier for you, but if you don't use this [popularity] to help the world, then you are absolutely, fucking irresponsible.' "
  That might help explain Damon's presence in the news pages, where he found himself this year supporting a variety of causes. In the spring, he and best buddy Ben Affleck returned to Boston to speak at a rally protesting against Harvard's poor payment of its janitors. More recently, the two turned up at a $5-million (U.S.) fundraiser in support of U.S. presidential candidate Al Gore. Damon sees the current election as a choice about the future of the U.S. Supreme Court -- the next president could name up to three judges -- and Damon knows that, "a lot of good stuff can be done with a name," like his.
  Damon is like the living embodiment of that ad for the army, the one that talks about doing more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day. Earlier this month, he celebrated his 30th birthday, secure in the knowledge that he achieved more before that milestone than most Hollywood players accomplish in their entire lives. The night before his birthday, he carried his duffel bags into a new, $2-million-plus apartment, which has been undergoing renovations since he bought it last year. Finally, he has a place to call his own.
  "I've been a real workaholic for a long time," he said, sucking on one of many Camel lights he'll work his way through. He is dressed in a light olive T-shirt, dark green pants and Caterpillar boots, looking nothing like the scrawny pale presence from last year's The Talented Mr. Ripley. His arms are beefed up and bear a farmer's tan from his time spent down in Texas and New Mexico on All The Pretty Horses, which comes out Christmas Day.
  "For the last five years I've had no attachment to anything material at all," he volunteers. "I don't have any stuff, and that's a good feeling for a while. Now I want a couch. I want a coffee table. It has been fun, but I'd like to have the image of a place where I can go to relax, because there's no kind of place for me on earth where I can unwind."
  A Damon in low gear is an unusual image, and though he swears he's going to take some time off in the spring after his next film to go mountain climbing with his father, it's difficult to figure out where he's going to get time. He and Affleck are principals in Pearl Street Productions, an unusually busy film and television production company. Recently, Pearl Street announced deals to produce shows for ABC-TV and HBO. Speaking about the shows gets Damon more excited than discussing any of his acting work.
  The Runner, for ABC, is a reality-based game show that follows a contestant trying to elude capture, while hiding out somewhere in the United States. Managing to avoid seizure for 30 days nets a $1-million prize. That million-dollar sum also figures in HBO's Greenlight, which invites first-time, writer-directors to submit screenplays. Thirty of the most promising will be posted on the Internet, and then, one writer-director will be selected and given a $1-million budget to actully make the film. Greenlight will follow the ups and downs of the process.
  "Our hope, and our belief really, is that every single person in that group of 30, their life is going to change," he explains. "Even if you're not the person selected to make the movie, you're going to get an agent, you're going to get a studio that's interested in your stuff. Our hope is that we generate this kind of influx of new writers who deserve to be there. It's a meritocracy. It's not like that anywhere else in Hollywood.
  "That one reality show and one game show did well on TV does not mean that suddenly programming is going to change. It just won't happen. It goes back to Homer. Everyone wants a story."
  He should hope so, because The Legend of Bagger Vance is at the opposite end of the spectrum from reality television. It is a lush, proudly old-fashioned schmaltz-fest, a classic story of redemption set on the unlikely domain of a Savannah, Ga., golf course. Damon plays Rannulph Junuh, a former golfing golden boy, who comes back from the First World War a shattered shell of his former self. When his former love, the alluring Adele Invergordon (played by the alluring Charlize Theron) organizes a major golf tournament to forestall the Depression-era shutdown of her country club, Junuh is reluctantly pulled back into the spotlight.
  "There's no shortage of cynics, so I'm sure a lot of people will bash it, but it was a great chance to work with a great director," he says.
  "I really liked the tone of it and thought it was a contrast with a lot of stuff that's out there right now."
• Usual reminder for reviews: don't forget to check the Internet Movie Database - www.imdb.com There are both user comments on the film, and ratings. Interesting to see that BV is tracking both well (plenty of 8/10 ratings) and many low ratings, making an average of about 7.0, from about the 35 people who have voted so far.
• Here's another familiar story, but another scary report on the rib injury, from the Arizona Republic:
  Damon is a demon for work
  Bill Muller
  The Arizona Republic
  Oct. 27, 2000 18:24
  NEW YORK - You gotta play hurt.
  Matt Damon learned that lesson while getting ready for the upcoming Legend of Bagger Vance, which called for him to play a 1930s-era golfer. Before he got the part, Damon had never golfed a day in his life.
  He learned in just 30 days - some more painful than others.
  "I always figured hitting a baseball was the hardest thing to do, but hitting a golf ball - unbelievable," Damon says. "The golf ball just sits there and doesn't do anything until you hit it. It becomes this deep emotional struggle."
  Damon pounded balls at a range in Hilton Head, S.C., for eight hours a day, working with a pro. He got better, but he also got plenty of blisters.
  "I couldn't play with a glove, because they didn't have gloves back then," says Damon, who now shoots in the 90s. "So we used medical tape. I looked like a defensive lineman, there was all this tape on my hands."
  He also separated a rib when he hit the ground with an overenthusiastic hack, making it tough to complete a big dramatic swing near the end of the movie, which opens Friday.
  "The joke was, how far could I get through and hold it and kind of nobly stand there before I literally fell over and writhed," Damon says. "And this guy would come running over and like crack my back and put the rib back in."
  But Damon's not complaining.
  "For a movie like this, there's a lot of money riding on it - the stuff that you can physically do, you've got to try and do," he says. "It wasn't the most horrible thing ever to have to swing a golf club. We're pretty pampered. Swinging a golf club with a bad rib isn't that bad."
  That blue-collar attitude has prompted one of Hollywood's hottest young actors to keep taking roles - in Saving Private Ryan, Rounders, Dogma, The Talented Mr. Ripley - even when it seemed he might need a rest.
  "I've just been doing these movies that I can't say no to,'' Damon says. "After I did All the Pretty Horses (to be released in December), I thought I was going to wait and not work for awhile, and they said, 'Robert Redford's doing a movie (Redford directed Bagger Vance) and here's the script,' and I said, 'Oh my God, I've got to do that.' "To a certain extent, it's less an issue of saying yes, I think, and more of an issue of not being able to say no."
  He says he still looks at things from the perspective of a struggling actor, seeing jobs as a matter of necessity, not convenience.
  "Like, how can I turn this down?" Damon says. "Five years ago, the guy I was would have beat the crap out of me if I turned this thing down. I'm going to turn it down because I'm tired? Give me a break. I'll sleep on my day off."
  Damon keeps working because he fears what will happen if he stops:
  "John Gielgud said he was afraid if he went home, the phone would stop ringing - and that's Sir John Gielgud - so obviously, the fear is alive and well with me, too."
  Damon's career took off in 1996 with his haunting performance as a drug-addicted medic in Courage Under Fire, and really exploded after he and friend Ben Affleck wrote and starred in 1997's Good Will Hunting, which won an Oscar for Best Screenplay.
  In Bagger Vance, Damon plays Rannulph Junuh, a hero golfer from Savannah, Ga., whose nerve is shattered during trench warfare in World War I. Junuh is dragged out of retirement by his former sweetheart, Adele Invergordon (Charlize Theron), who organizes an exhibition match between Junuh and famous golfers Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen.
  As Junuh struggles to rediscover his swing, he meets Bagger Vance (Will Smith), a mystical caddie who seems to speak in riddles.
  As he practiced for the role, Damon says, he nearly became addicted to golf.
  "It's deep in the sense that the ball doesn't move, it just sits there and waits for you to do something,'' says Damon, who's finally taking some time off after working four years straight.
  "And when you hit a bad shot, there's no one to blame."
• A discussion on hairstyles with Redford from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
  And it's movie hair that we don't see much on guys anymore --- until Redford directs a movie. Say, "A River Runs Through It," with Brad Pitt's shortened blond locks fluffed into a soft, Redfordesque pillow. Or the new "Bagger Vance," with Matt Damon's healthy hair undergoing a constant metamorphosis. One moment it's slicked back (a seemingly flawless hair double for Redford in "The Sting"); the next, it's a perfectly puffed mop top, parted on the side with a swoop of fine strands dangling like heaven over the forehead (pick any Redford flick, from "Barefoot in the Park" to "Indecent Proposal"). And when the sun comes out, darned if Damon's hair isn't glowing. Just like Redford's.
  So the hair question amounts to this: Since Pitt and Damon play basically the kind of roles Redford used to play, is there something subliminal going on in his direction, making them look like him? Are they stand-ins for a Redford who, at 63, is now too old to play the part?
  "I have not intentionally projected myself into those roles," Redford replies by telephone from his New York office after the laughter stops. "But . . . probably so. I have to believe that the work I do I take personally. You do better work if you make it personal. There's probably stuff that's subtle that I'm not aware of."
• Here's a funny one from a few years back. Think how much things have changed... From the Detroit Free Press: Out-of-work Matt Damon took a big chance and got his big break
  December 21, 1997
  BY BARRY KOLTNOW
  Orange County Register
  LOS ANGELES -- You can't blame the hostess. Even in Los Angeles, where the restaurant and hotel employees are trained to spot Hollywood stars, legends and newcomers alike, mistakes are made. Celebrities are occasionally overlooked.
  In this case, the dining room hostess at the tony Four Seasons hotel did not recognize Matt Damon, one of the hottest young actors in town.
  That's his face on the cover of the current Vanity Fair magazine. That's him starring in Francis Ford Coppola's new film based on John Grisham's "The Rainmaker." That's him starring in Gus Van Sant's "Good Will Hunting," which opens Christmas Day in Detroit. That's him in the title role in Steven Spielberg's next film, the World War II drama "Saving Private Ryan."
  But at the time of this breakfast interview, none of the films had hit the theaters, and the magazine had just been delivered to newsstands.
  Give him a few weeks.
  "It's not like anybody recognizes me yet," Damon said when the hostess is mentioned. "This whole stardom thing is all just speculation at this point.... Those films could make a buck and a quarter, and it would all go away. To anticipate anything in town is dangerous. Even if something happens, it won't last. This wave will rise and fall, like they all do."
  So far, the Coppola film has made considerably more than a buck and a quarter -- and the early word on "Good Will Hunting" is strong. Spielberg's films always make more than a buck and a quarter.
  Given those financial considerations and that these heavyweight directors have cast their vote on the kid from Massachusetts, Damon's status as a superstar-in-the-making is pretty secure.
  "I still have trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that anyone would want to know anything about me," he said. Raised by his college professor mom -- his parents divorced when he was 2 -- young Matt Damon grew up in Cambridge between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But he had his sights on Columbia University in New York City.
  He said he wanted to go to Columbia to get a "good liberal arts education" so that he could get into the Yale Graduate School of Drama. That was the plan he and Ben Affleck, his best friend since the third grade, devised when they were still in high school.
  "We knew we wanted to be actors, and we thought the best way to go about being actors was to go to Yale," Damon said. "And the best way to get to Yale, I figured, was to go to Columbia. In the end ...I wound up accepting Harvard."
  More changes
  But Damon's master plan was deflected shortly after he began college as an English major. He left school after the first year to appear in a TNT movie called "The Rising Son." He returned to college for his sophomore year, but left a second time to appear in "School Ties," in which he played a spoiled prep school student who terrorizes a Jewish student (Brendan Fraser). Again, he returned to school, only to leave a third time to star with Jason Patric in the 1993 film "Geronimo: An American Legend."
  This time, he decided not to return, even though he was just a year from graduation. "Everybody was telling me that 'Geronimo' was going to be a big hit and that I would have plenty of work.... By the time I figured out I had made the wrong decision, it was too late. I was living out here with a bunch of actors, and we were all scrambling to make ends meet."
  But while still at Harvard, Damon started to write a movie script called "Good Will Hunting." Later, when acting prospects were at their bleakest, he dredged up that partial screenplay and, with Affleck, began writing a story about a tough street kid from Boston who happens to be a math genius and has to learn to come to terms with his life with the help of a brilliant therapist (played in the movie by Robin Williams).
  "We were totally frustrated as actors," Damon said. "We couldn't find work. We couldn't get arrested. That frustration built and built, until we decided to write. We had no intention of becoming writers. We were always actors, but we were writing ourselves a movie to be in."
  By November 1994, the script was completed and in the hands of an agent. Damon was living with another actor in a small house in West Hollywood. Affleck was living on their living room couch.
  A hot script
  Then, in a single week, the lives of both Damon and Affleck were turned upside down.
  A bidding war erupted among a number of studios for the rights to "Good Will Hunting." Everybody wanted the script. Nobody wanted the two unknown actors in the lead.
  The bidding got fierce, and one studio offered more than $1 million for the script, without the actors.
  "We never considered that offer, not for a second," Damon said. "It didn't matter that we were completely broke. We kept thinking of Sylvester Stallone and how he turned down $30,000 for the 'Rocky' script, even though he had a family and $103 in the bank. We used him as our code word whenever the bids got too high.
  "When you don't have any money," he said, "you have nothing to lose. It was very easy to say no. We had no family to support, no mortgage to pay, no children to feed. The bids only confirmed everything we believed about ourselves."
  Finally, one studio did make an offer they couldn't refuse, and they even got one of their favorite directors to turn the script into a movie.
  Damon had to earn a living in the meantime, and he got a role in "Courage Under Fire," in which he played a junkie and former Army medic. He lost 40 pounds for the role.
  Coppola said he saw something in that performance that made him cast Damon as the idealistic young lawyer in "The Rainmaker." Spielberg also saw something and cast Damon in "Saving Private Ryan."
  'I'm going to have fun'
  "This has all been very heady for me," the actor said. "My friends and I used to hang out at home and watch 'The Godfather' over and over again, and then suddenly I'm standing in front of Francis Ford Coppola and he knows my name. I kept thinking it was a mistake, that another young actor would walk in and I'd realize that I was just the understudy.
  "Then I'm standing in front of Steven Spielberg, and I don't know if I ever heard a single word of direction from him. I was just happy he knew who I was.
  "I don't know if I'm good enough for all this attention. I hope I am. Whatever happens, I'm going to have fun with it. I just want to continue to act."
• From the Seattle Times:
  Brad Pitt was briefly considered, but the role went to Matt Damon. Will Smith was cast as Bagger Vance, and Charlize Theron took the expanded role of Adele.
  "Matt carries with him a lot of elements: he's athletically inclined, all-American, he doesn't have a mark on him and you can mark him up with his tragedy," said Redford.

Matt Damon, Hollywood Power
NY POST/By MEGAN TURNER
----------------------------------
It may seem that Hollywood golden boy Matt Damon has it all - fame, fortune, a stellar love life, an Oscar - but the actor is not entirely satisfied. In fact, Damon is now taking on a rather risky new role: that of Tinseltown power broker.
Damon, along with best buddy and fellow Oscar winner Ben Affleck and hot-shot Hollywood producers Chris Moore and Sean Bailey, recently launched LivePlanet, an ambitious new-media company.
Yes, he's still acting - his "The Legend of Bagger Vance" is coming out Friday and "All the Pretty Horses" is due at Christmas. r
But increasingly Damon - who, with Affleck, came in at 55 this year on Entertainment Weekly's annual ranking of the most powerful people in the industry - is putting his energy into LivePlanet, which is off to a good start, having already sold its screenwriting-competition concept, Project Greenlight, to HBO and Miramax, and a reality TV show, “The Runner,” to ABC.
But Damon is not naive: he knows that the new-media field is littered with failed efforts, even among well-financed ventures like Pop.com and DEN (Digital Entertainment Network).
"The standard model right now is that people put a lot of money into something. They build it and hope people come," he says. "Whereas we get money from traditional media, movies or TV, and then we make the idea only as big as the amount of money we're getting. We're really making sure there's a market for it, and then we pursue it."
He's also well aware there are plenty of people who would be happy to see him stumble. That's partly why he and Affleck have held off on writing another script, despite the acclaim that greeted their Oscar-winning debut effort, "Good Will Hunting."
"We're talking about writing something again," he says. "We started kicking ideas around the other night.
"But we really want the next one to kind of evolve organically. We want to make it good, keeping in mind we're going to get slaughtered no matter what we do."
Slaughtered?
"I mean, I would," he laughs. "I'd be like, "�Screw these guys.'"
If you're jealous of Damon's success, you're certainly not alone. His startling rise, his millions, his all-American good looks - frequently lit up by a traffic-stopping Cheshire Cat grin - have made Damon a target for envious types.
"I can see how on the surface it would appear I have it all," he says, lighting up the first of a string of Camel Lights (a vice!). "There's kind of the idea that if people know who you are, then you're really living."
But that's not why Damon - who, ironically, stars as a top-notch golfer whose perfect life unravels in the Robert Redford-directed "Bagger Vance" - considers himself lucky.
"I think the myth is that the people who are held up in society as having it all are happy," he says. "Material stuff doesn't bring happiness. I met so many miserable kids at Harvard (where he dropped out just shy of a B.A. in English) who had all the money in the world, and I wouldn't have traded places with them for anything."
Surely, the 30-year-old actor is not going to prove to be grounded and decent as well as handsome, rich and famous?
Yep.
"In the sense that I have an incredible family and the same friends I've always had, it's a true embarrassment of riches," he says, before adding that starting his own family is the one thing he's anticipating will make his apparently flawless life complete.
Meanwhile, the work continues apace. Damon is currently filming "The Bourne Identity" for Doug ("Go") Liman. And LivePlanet is producing the romantic comedy "The Third Wheel," in which he and Affleck will star.
Since their fairy-tale Oscar win put them on the map, the movie careers of the two childhood buddies have headed in vastly different directions. Affleck has shown a fondness for mainstream actioners - "Reindeer Games" and "Armageddon" - while Damon has flexed his acting chops in more complex films such as "Rounders" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley."
Although Damon and Affleck teamed up for Kevin Smith's tongue-in-cheek film "Dogma," Damon is wary of being seen as merely half of an entity he describes as "Frick and Frack."
"We love hanging out together and working together, but we don't want to be The Team," he says.

Sat 28  10:30 AM  Behind the Movie: The Legend of Bagger Vance  VH1
Sat 28    2:00 PM  Behind the Scenes: The Legend of Bagger Vance  E!
Sat 28    6:00 PM  Rising Son  76  TNN
Sun 29    2:00 AM  Behind the Scenes: The Legend of Bagger Vance  E!
Sun 29    2:00 PM  Making of `The Legend of Bagger Vance'   HBO
Mon 30    3:30 AM  Behind the Scenes: The Legend of Bagger Vance  E!
Mon 30    7:00 AM  Today  4  KNBC
Mon 30  10:30 AM  Behind the Movie: The Legend of Bagger Vance  VH1
Thu 2    7:30 PM  Behind the Movie: The Legend of Bagger Vance   VH1
Fri 3    2:00 PM  Behind the Movie: The Legend of Bagger Vance  VH1
Fri 3    2:00 PM  Making of `The Legend of Bagger Vance' HBO
Fri 3    2:00 PM  Behind the Movie: The Legend of Bagger Vance  VH1
Fri 3    3:00 PM  Rosie O'Donnell  4  KNBC
Fri 3    6:00 PM  Behind the Scenes: The Legend of Bagger Vance  E!
Fri 3    9:45 PM  Making of `The Legend of Bagger Vance'  23  HBO
Sat 4    1:40 AM  Saving Private Ryan   MAX

• From IMDB a few days back (Entertainment news wire):
  Matt Damon Denied Free Time
  Movie star Matt Damon is so completely inundated with his hectic lifestyle between making movies and promoting them that he never gets the chance to explore the beautiful cities that his movies are shot in. While making Legend of Bagger Vance, The (2000) in Savannah, Georgia, Matt's free time was taken up by Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein who cracked the whip for him to do press. He explains, "I actually lamented the fact that I didn't have more days off because when we were shooting this Dogma (1999) came out and then Talented Mr. Ripley, The (1999) came out so on the weekends as you can imagine every free moment was accounted for by Harvey!" He mimics the movie mogul. "Matt listen I'm gonna need you again on Saturday and Sunday I'm very sorry but don't worry I'll get you back by three in the morning and you'll be there for your five A.M. call!" However he did get the opportunity to show off the city of Venice, Italy to his family when they came to visit during the making of Talented Mr. Ripley, The (1999). He recalls, "The cool thing even when I don't have free time is when my family comes. For `Ripley' they came to Venice and my brother and his wife came and they brought their son. They get a few days to walk around Venice. It certainly beats working in ahh... substitute your own nasty city!"
• This one's just scary - from Chicago Sun Times:
  FORE PLAY: Someone on the set of the golf film "The Legend of Bagger Vance" was not exactly up to par. Matt Damon managed a golf move that even Tiger Woods has never attempted: He wrecked a rib.
  "I know I sound like a moron, but it all has to do with baseball," Damon said. "In baseball, you want bat speed. I thought it might work with the same way with golf. So one day, I swung really hard, came in with the wrong angle and separated a rib."
  Those with queasy stomachs should skip ahead.
  "What really hurt is that later on, every time I swung in a scene, my rib would pop back out. So we had to hire a chiropractor named Tony, who would hang around the set. After I'd swing, Tony would come running over, grab my midsection and pop my rib back in there."
• There was an item in the NY Daily News a few days back - remember that I mentioned Ben's appearance on Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio? Apparently Matt attended and from the audience asked Ben a question - Ben apparently said with a smile "Sit down and you might learn something".
• There's a new Bagger Vance poster online - the same main image with inset photos of Matt (very weird shot), Will and Charlize. It can be found at www.movie-page.com or the Bagger Vance page at www.spielberg-dreamworks.com
• Matt supports Kevin Smith again - from newsaskew.com, from an article with Smith in www.wizardworld.com It's about his new project, View Askew 5.
  How�d casting go?
  Smith: It went well. We haven�t locked anyone yet, except for the people we all know are coming back. Jason Lee and Ben Affleck and Jason Mewes and myself will of course all be there. It looks like Matty Damon and Chris Rock are also coming back. But there are other roles to fill in, people we haven�t seen in the flick yet.
  So when are you gonna announce a title on this thing?
  Smith: Probably over the course of the next two months. I think once we lock the rest of the cast, we�ll say what it is. Trust me -- we�re trying to make it as painless as possible. Unlike a dentist appointment.
• Just a funny quote - the director of 'Requiem for a Dream', Darren Aronofsky, on his film: "I really, really want people to know they're going to see something really messed up when they go to see Requiem. I think audiences are going to really dig it or really hate it. The intention was to build a roller-coaster ride--like the clich� says--but one that crashes into a brick wall. People are going for a trip into hell. And if they're not...please, go see Bounce."
• And Bourne's back on for October/November - yeah! From msnbc.com �Bourne� again
  Last week Matt Damon tore himself away from his new-found New York pad and took off for Paris and Prague where he�ll run around with German actress Franka (�Run Lola Run�) Potente for Universal�s big-budget remake of �The Bourne Identity.�
  Indie prince Doug Liman (�Go,� �Swingers�) will direct. Robert Ludlum�s spy novel about an assassin-pursued amnesia case was previously filmed in 1988 as a television-movie with Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith. ...
• And for interest's sake - here's the progress on Greenlight, from a pop-up screen when you visit the site. Greenlight entries close Sunday. ATTENTION CONTESTANTS!!!
  Project Greenlight has been a huge success -- several thousand of you have entered the Contest and uploaded your screenplay to the Greenlight website.
  BUT....another several THOUSAND of you have registered to be Contestants and have yet to upload your screenplay! As most of you know, the Application Process can take a long time to complete, sometimes hours from start to finish, allowing for time to view and review your screenplay before final upload.
• Also scarily, from a poll on the Greenlight website:
  Romantic pairing you'd most like to see: [10/11/2000-10/11/2000]
  Natalie Portman & Heath Ledger 18%
  Catherine Zeta-Jones & Denise Richards 40%
  Matt Damon & Ben Affleck 42%

If a certain breathlessness attends these words, Matt Damon understands. Waiting in the chilly dark between shots, he says, "The first day on a movie set is the most exciting day of your life." Then, smiling: "And the most boring day of your life is the second day on a movie set." Damon rushed to sign up for "Bagger" because, by coincidence, the erstwhile baseball player had decided to try golf. "I called a buddy and said, 'Guess what, they're going to pay me lots of money--and they're going to teach me to play golf.'" A PGA Master Professional, Tim Moss, worked with Damon. "He'd never touched a golf club," the Hilton Head pro says. "I asked, 'You want to look like a player? Or do you want to be a player?' Matt said, 'I want to be good enough to beat my dad.'" Moss put Damon through a bleeding-hands regimen: five hours a day, six days a week, 31/2 weks. "First hole he plays, absolutely rips a 3-wood, knocks a wedge on, two-putted for par." Damon now says, "I'm hooked; I've got it bad."

Thought you'd like a report on a New Jersey test screening of All The Pretty Horses. It was in a packed house at the local multiplex with all the Miramax brass in attendance. OK, here's the lowdown: We saw a cut that ran about 140 minutes without credits. The print was scratchy and in need of color correction and we were told there was some temp music. All The Pretty Horses is not an easy story to bring to the screen (and it will be a bitch to market). There are elements of romance, action and highbrow drama, but it is a film that refuses to be pigeonholed. And that is to its credit.
In a nutshell, there's no short way to summarize this film. The story is of two young ranch hands, John Grady Cole--played by Matt Damon and his buddy Lacey Rawlins, set in post WW II West Texas. After his granddad's ranch is sold, COle convinces Rawlins to travel to Mexico where they can take up as ranch hands at a spread south of the border. During their trek by horse, they meet up with another south-bound rider, the teenage Jimmy Blevins (Lucas Black) who is riding away from an abusive stepfather. Once in MExico, Blevins does some foolish things that lead to him stealing back his own horse, with some assistance from Cole and Rawlins. Blevins splits away and soon, the two friends are signed on at a huge ranch run by a very modern padrone, played by Ruben Blades, who flies his own plane when not riding his ranch. Cole quickly catches the eye of the padrone for his skills with horses and is soon promoted up and out of the bunkhouse to a private room above the stables where he works the padrones expensive, imported horses. Cole also catches the eye of the padrone's comely daughter, Alejandra (Penople Cruz) and it's love on the hoof. BUT the rich beauty is not for him, as Cole is reminded by his loyal pal and the girl's great aunt who insists, with great logic and no evil in her heart, that the relationship will only injure the girl's reputation, the one thing she has which cannot be reclaimed if lost.
Cole and Rawlins find themselves dragged away from the ranch and arrested as the accomplices of Blevins, who resurfaces after having done some very bad things to try to reclaim the stolen horse and rest of his property. There are a series of tense and unsettling events that will remain unnamed here for fear of spoiling the film. How the events turn out are, to a great extent, less important than what they do to the bodies and souls of Rawlins and, most especially, John Grady Cole.
right and it sounds great already as the music is lovely. The performance by Damon is a tour de force. He exceeds anything he has done in the past with a character who most frequently expresses his emotions by repressing them. Henry Thomas and Lucas Black do excellent work as well as does Blades in a small, but memorable part. Cruz, while beautiful, was less successful for me. I actually thought she was a little too old and worldly for the character. The great-aunt, an actress whose name I do not know as there were no credits, takes a pivotal role and runs with it. Her scenes express some of the central messages of the film and she communicates clearly.
Billy Bob Thornton has done a courageous job with this film. He took a great, difficult book and found a way to bring it to the screen with a minimum of compromises. It is not an easy film. There were walkouts. It is paced deliberately, but not incorrectly. If anything, there were parts where I wanted to see more, especially in the development of the romance. The camera shows us some beautiful vistas and some harsh realities. Thornton's choices were right on. There is an interrogation scene that is the definition of unsettling. This film moves through a lot of emotions. The ending I saw indicates that life has no easy choices, no pat answers. And that's the way things really can be, isn't it?
See this movie.
George Bailey
Harry- FYI, I was in the focus group with about 20 others. 3 rated the film excellent, 10 very good, the rest split between good and fair. There were no poors and most people said they would recommend it. The Miramax folks I talked to and eavesdropped on (including Harvey) are most concerned with the pace of the film and the inability of today's audience to deal with a film that takes its time.

• From USA Today:
  An 'authentic swing' at golf New movie recalls the 'gentlemanly elegance' of the game
  By Harry Blauvelt
  USA TODAY
  NEW YORK -- Golf has gone Hollywood, thanks to Robert Redford's latest directorial effort.
  The Legend of Bagger Vance is a story of redemption starring Will Smith, Matt Damon and Charlize Theron. The film will open Nov. 3.
  Action in the period piece revolves around a two-day, 72-hole exhibition match for $10,000. Competitors in the 1931 duel are fictitious character Rannulph Junuh (Damon) and real-life golf legends Bobby Jones (Joel Gretsch) and Walter Hagen (Bruce McGill).
  ''It was extraordinary to come in and do a film like this as opposed to Caddyshack or one where golf is a joke,'' McGill says. ''You watch golf used as a metaphor for life in the sure hands of Bob Redford.''
  Junuh, a hometown hero because of earlier golf exploits, returns to Savannah, Ga., an emotionally damaged man because of horrific World War I experiences.
  He has lost his way in life. Junuh is searching for his ''authentic swing,'' the one true swing we're all born with. As the movie begins, he has lost his desire to play golf and his will to live.
  The exhibition golf match gives him a chance to get back on track, with the considerable help of the mysterious Bagger Vance (Smith), who serves as Junuh's caddie, guardian angel and spiritual guide.
  ''It's a great story with humor, pathos, drama,'' Redford says. ''You have the hero's journey. Something happens to this shining character and he falls into darkness. He's fighting his way back into the light with the help of a stranger.''
  For authenticity, Redford broke out hickory-shafted clubs, old Spalding Blue Dot golf balls, knickers, sweaters and ties for his golfers.
  Says Redford, ''I wanted something that had historical and nostalgic value in an age when you can't see a sports player without a decal or commercial tattooing.''
  He dislikes the use of golf hats as endorsement billboards.
  ''This movie is before that,'' he adds, ''when the sport was played with gentlemanly elegance.''
  The golf was filmed at two Pete Dye courses in South Carolina: Colleton River Plantation in Bluffton and the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island. The production company built an entire oceanfront 18th hole along the sand dunes near the practice range at Kiawah for the movie's climactic scenes.
  The golf is believable. Surely, no cast had more fun making a movie.
  ''From caterers to wardrobe people, everybody played golf,'' Gretsch says. ''Every day.''
  Gretsch, as Jones, has a swing to die for. McGill is an accomplished golfer, although in the movie he mimics the lurching Hagen swing.
  Learning to swing
  Damon, a good athlete whose sport is baseball, had never played a round of golf before the film.
  He spent a month prior to filming with PGA pro Tim Moss to develop a good swing. Damon beat balls for a month, hours a day. His hands were covered with blisters.
  ''I'd gone to a par-3 with friends and tried to muscle my way around,'' he says. ''Nobody had ever told me how to swing a club.''
  His baseball swing got him into trouble at one point, when he swung so hard he separated a rib.
  ''Tim kept telling me to bring the club back low and slow,'' Damon notes. ''The tendency for anyone who has played baseball is to kill it. The golf ball's just sitting there.''
  Damon was the victim of a practical joke by actor J. Michael Moncrief, 12 years old during filming.
  Moncrief, a newcomer who won his role during open casting calls, slipped an exploding golf ball onto Damon's tee at the range one day.
  ''He wanted to trick me,'' Damon says, smiling. ''It exploded and turned to powder. He set me up. I chased after him. He's a really good kid. We had a lot of laughs.''
  His Bagger Vance experience left Damon hooked on the sport. ''I love the internal battle,'' he says. ''It's a fascinating game. No one to blame but yourself.''
  Like Damon, Theron never played golf before Bagger Vance, even though her mother, Gerda, is an accomplished player. ''I used to make fun of her when she went out,'' Theron says. ''I would kid her that golf is the first sign of aging.''
  Theron resisted all golf overtures her first month on the set but one day gave in because of boredom.
  ''I was surrounded by golf every day,'' says Theron, who plays Damon's love interest, Adele Invergordon. ''I picked up a club, but I couldn't hit the ball.''
  She went to Moss for pointers. Now she can't put the clubs down. She played Christmas Day with her mother in Hawaii. On Easter, she and her mother played in Napa, Calif. ''Thirty-six holes and a six-pack later,'' she says, laughing.
  Smith, an avid golfer, has only one on-camera swing in the movie.
  ''Redford promised the best swing I gave him would be the one that's in the movie,'' Smith says. ''Those old hickory shafts really whip. I don't know how anybody hit a ball straight in those days.''
  Gretsch had no trouble hitting it straight. In one scene, Redford called for a near miss, left side, on a 40-foot putt. He made the putt his first two tries. On the third, he missed, right. They printed take No. 4.
  ''I have to admit I've never been luckier,'' says Gretsch, who has played since he was 5.
  McGill was involved in two of the movie's most memorable shots: one from water with a 7-foot alligator watching, the other from a small sandbar in the ocean, where a scripted errant shot landed.
  ''We didn't want to screw up and hit anybody,'' McGill says. ''We wanted to look good. And we wanted to impress Bob.''
  Sporting director
  Redford adds to his list of sports credits, which as actor or director include A River Runs Through It (fly-fishing), The Natural (baseball) and Downhill Racer (skiing).
  He is playing golf again after a 32-year hiatus. Bagger Vance and the prospect of playing with his son, James, triggered his return.
  He started playing in Southern California when he was 11. He would hide in the bushes, then climb a fence when the coast was clear and sneak onto the third hole at Bel Air Country Club.
  He remembers sneaking into Riviera Country Club to watch the Los Angeles Open and stars such as Ben Hogan and Sam Snead.
  ''You'd worm your way through people's legs to get a ringside seat around a green,'' he recalls.
  ''Golf is such a hypnotic, seductive sport.''
  Has Redford found his authentic golf swing since taking up the game again after so long?
  ''Are you kidding?'' he says. ''I've been afraid to go out and look for it. But the swing is there. You just have to go and play.''
• Today's Variety has news that actor Brian Cox may join the cast of Bourne to play the head of the CIA (further shades of Enemy of the State). But it says that filming is likely to start in Europe in January. I thought it was meant to start mid-October (ie next week). If it is January, then Ocean's Eleven would be out.
• The official BV site has opened up a bit www.cannery.com/thelegendofbaggervance.com It's got a new, very smiley pic of Matt as part of the credits, and a photo scrapbook.
• Bagger Vance is showing at Showeast, Orlando Florida, on Saturday afternoon.
• And for those Australian fans: All the pretty horses is scheduled to open there on February 22 (Bagger Vance on February 8).

• I don't know if this was mentioned before, but last week's People mag had an article with Matt/Ben about their latest net ventures. Usual stuff (for a change Matt doing just about all of the talking), but at one stage Matt was asked if they had become the new Renaissance men, for their multi-faceted ventures. Matt said that he never thought of Ben as something like that, and said they still think of each other as kids. (Or words very similar)
• You remember that auction I mentioned last week (Silicon Valley types), from some paper:
  The winning bids:
  Arnold's car -- $110,000.
  The Shaq pack -- $40,000.
  And the Goldie Hawn dinner and jeweled dessert: $60,000.
  But the hottest prize was a night out on the town with none other than Affleck and his movie buddy, Matt Damon.
  The double date -- bought by a female Netscape executive {Jane Savignano}-- went for $135,000.
  The half-a-million dollar haul from the auction went to a number of charities, including the Ronald McDonald House at Stanford, the Morgan Center for Autistic Children and the Tiger Woods Foundation.
  As for the crowd: 600 very well- connected and money-minded investors in Conroy's Angel Investors group, most of whom had spent the day holed up inside a Peninsula hotel plotting how to sprout more green.
  As for the Silicon Valley-Hollywood connections?
  Well, it turns out that some of Angel's capital is being used to back a new Internet company started by Affleck.
• Bad news on Bagger Vance in an Oscar talk article (but continues what we've been hearing), from Roger Friedman's foxnews.com:
• Then comes word on Robert Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance, with Will Smith and Matt Damon. "It's very slow," was the word from the junket. "Very, very slow." Since this is a golf movie, slow is probably not a good thing since the sport itself could kill you from boredom. Redford is a gifted director � Quiz Show and Ordinary People can't be beat. But if this is "A Golf Cart Runs Through It," the great one may have put Will Smith in his first real clinker (Wild Wild West notwithstanding).

On Entertainment Tonight:
(With a chorus of "Happy Birthday to You!" in the background.)
Jan Carl: We surprised Matt with a birthday cake for his big day. (He blows out the candles, picks up one and licks the icing off.)
Matt: I wish all the interviews could be like this. (Jan Carl laughs.)
Jan: And Matt gave us the scoop on his buddy, Billy Bob Thornton who had been hospitalized two weeks ago.
Matt: He had a virus. Yeah, it was around his heart, so they've got him on bed rest. But he's going to be fine.
Jan: Matt's own health was a problem while making THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE. He separated his rib.
Matt (demonstrating with a golf club in hand): I swung too hard and I drove the club into the ground so my body kept turning but my club was in the ground attached to my arms. (Segue into an interview with Will Smith in which he talks primarily about his upcoming role as Muhammed Ali).

On Access Hollywood:
(After an intro about the plot of the film)
Pat O'Brien: Now you'd think golf is a pretty safe game. So did Charlize, until Matt proved her wrong.
Charlize: I walked into the make-up trailer and he had all these ice packs all over his body and actually was like, "I have two ribs that are like, puncturing my lungs right now," and I'm just like, "Oh, my God, Matt!"
Matt: One of them separated so if you consider that like the rib cage (holding out his hand sideways to demonstrate) the bottom one dropped down and was facing the wrong way.
Shawn Robinson: How did you do that?
Matt: Swinging the golf club really too hard and hitting the ground.
(Scenes of Matt swinging a club in the movie)
Pat: Once in the swing, Matt healed but there's a little controversy over who has more golf talent, Matt or Will.
(Scenes of both of the actors showing Shawn Robinson how to swing and putt.)
Shawn: Some folk say Matt has...
Will Smith: Who said? Some folk like who?
Shawn: I don't want to say...
Will (in mock indignation): Some folk like who? These folk got names?
Some folk are saying something, I gotta know!
Matt (with a smile): Will is significantly better at golf than I am.
Shawn: You can see just how well Matt and Will handle the golf course when THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE opens in theaters November 3rd.

There's a rumour on the EW boards today that Matt spent a day filming the movie 'Finding Forrester', which is directed, of course, by Gus Van Sant. It's certainly very possible, but there's been nothing publicly stated, and I don't know of any test screening reviews. I think it comes out around Christmas, and it does star Sean Connery.
• There's also a mini-review of Bagger Vance on the EW boards by a guy who really doesn't like Matt, and he doesn't like the film. There's a few thoughts at the moment that it's beautifully photographed, but soft.
• Will Smith will be interviewed on Entertainment Tonight on Monday re Bagger Vance.
• www.spielberg-dreamworks.com has got the new sites for the BV website, which includes only at the moment four clips from the soundtrack.
• I've found an official soundtrack for Franka Potente - www.frankapotente.de There is an English version of the site, but it doesn't seem to contain any information on Bourne Identity yet. On her biography, it does say that she speaks English.
• And an interesting note in The Times yesterday (London). In a mini-profile on Penelope Cruz, it included the line "Cruz recently admitted that she was the cause of the breakup between Matt Damon and Winona Ryder". Um, where?