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Welcome to the Matt Damon Column,
a forum for sharing news among Matt fans.

Updated 10/1/2002

Matt to host SNL on Oct. 5.
Matt to be on Conan on Oct. 3.
"Nick Adams" tickets went on sale 9/15 Sunday.

• From Felicity:
  • Gerry is now scheduled for release in LA and NY on February 7, 2003.
  • A good interview from the French paper Le Monde, which is mostly about Gerry: here.
  • Good memories of "Rounders" here. The guys who wrote the film have a new movie out called "Knockaround Guys" and in a chud.com interview talk about both films:

    Brian Koppelman: We learned this lesson on Rounders. Whatever little things happen as your movie's getting released and the immediate reaction, it's meaningless as an artist or creator. We'd do these interviews, and people couldn't comprehend it. Now it's become a cult classic. We get emails, people all over the place know that movie by heart. So for us, the machinations don't matter. We just want to make the movies.
    David Levien: We want it to do well, it makes life easier. Rounders did do well.
    
    Nick Nunziata: It opened at number one, right?
    
    David Levien: Yes.
    
    Nick Nunziata: It's one of the films I play for a lot of my newer friends to gauge their tastes in movies.
    
    David Levien: To try to ground them.
    
    Brian Koppelman: Nice.
    
    Nick Nunziata: It was a big victory for me when Damon chose poker over Gretchen Mol.
    
    David Levien: You've got to go to ESPN.COM on Bill Simmons' season ending awards article.
    
    Brian Koppelman: 36 quotes from Rounders.
    
    Nick Nunziata: I don't want to spend all of our time with Rounders, but much of your script made it to the screen?
    
    David Levien: 100%. We were on the set every day.
    
    Brian Koppelman: He (John Dahl, the director) was so inclusive of us.
    

  • Here are the links to the ESPN articles: http://espn.go.com/page2/s/simmons/020411.html
  • Taken from a profile on a golf caddy who works at a Las Vegas course:
    The course record goes to Jordan, and the course jester award to Pesci, but Miyata says that two celebs stand out as Shadow Creeks� most die-hard players.
    "Matt Damon and George Clooney were out here every day for a month when they were shooting Ocean 11 here," he says.
    Damon got hooked on the game while filming "The Legend of Bagger Vance," a story of a downtrodden golfer and his mystical caddy. Miyata says that Damon seems to take the game much less seriously than he did during the filming of Bagger. Most days, Mr. Goodwill Hunting shot his usual round in the high 90�s or low 100�s while cutting up with Clooney on the course.
    "Matt just goes out and has fun with his friends," Miyata says. "Clooney is the same way, he just wants to be with his friends. Matt and George got to be good friends out here. That is what it was all about."
  • A new version of an old studio photo: here.
  • An old pic from GWH: here.
  • Two pictures of Matt and Odessa at Deauville: At the Bourne party: here
    During the screening (or before the introduction): here.
  • An AP story on Saturday Night Live which only briefly mentions Matt: here.
  • An interview with audio clips from the Hoyts website: here
    Including:
    Question 6: What sort of things do you do to stay down to earth?
    Answer: It's kind of tough in L.A. At least when I'm in L.A., you don't get a sense that... I mean people daily paper is Variety, you know, they don't read the L.A Times, they read the Hollywood Reporter or Variety so they can tell you anything that's going on within the industry, but they don't really know, they're like "we bombed who?" (laughs) "triple X really kicked ass at the box office" (more laughs) . One of the reasons I do like New York is it's not dominated by the industry which tends to be pretty proud of itself. I like kind of staying in touch with kind of a regular city like New York and, you know, my friends, my family. I go to a fair amount of plays, I have a lot of friends who are actors. I tend to go to plays, unless I hear somethings great, I tend to go to plays in which I have a friend involved. I do read a fair bit of fiction and non-fiction if I have the time. Right now because The Bourne Identity did well I've spent my time reading scripts because I've just started getting a bunch of scripts handed to me again for the first time in a couple of years.
  • Bourne did do well in Australia in its first week, on a relatively small number of screens. As an example, "Sum of all fears" was on sixteen shows per day at a local cinema when it opened, and Bourne was only on five.
    Its per-screen average was almost $3,000 higher than Goldmember, which came first (in its second weekend).
    A link to the Australian box office charts: here.
  • Here's the cool German poster for Bourne: here.
  • From a German interview at focus.de, my translated version of a question and response:
    FOL: You have filmed in Spain, Czech Republic, France, Argentina and America. How does your girlfriend thereby understand?
    Damon: She is herself from the industry and knows the film business since she was 18. She was the female assistant of Billy Bob Thornton and afterwards for my friend Ben Affleck. She knows the connections and has a great understanding of my occupation. In addition she travels with me, we nearly always spend very much time together in strange countries. That is nearly like a paid vacation!
• From a Big Matt Fan:
  Excerpts from an article from a message board, that looks like it's from one of the trades:
  Mel Gibson, Matt Damon and Jackie Chan were B.O. heroes over the weekend as "Signs" continued to dominate Japan, Mexico and parts of Europe, "The Bourne Identity" enthralled auds in Australia and several Euro territories, and "The Tuxedo" dined out handsomely in Singapore.
  'Bourne's' Potente perf in Germany
  "The Bourne Identity" edged out "Signs" in Germany, helped by "Run Lola Run's" Franka Potente, capturing roughly $2.2 million in three days on 500 screens, including sneaks. That was 20% ahead of "The Sum of All Fears" and 12% bigger than "Panic Room," Universal's Randy Greenberg said Sunday.
  The Damon starrer picked up $1.6 million in four days on 196 locations in Australia, with previews, trailing "Austin Powers in Goldmember," which wooed $1.7 million in its soph session lap (dropping by 41%) and a fab $5.9 million in 11 days.
  The Doug Liman-helmed spy saga trapped $231,000 in two days on 69 in Austria, outrunning "Spy Game" by 64% and "Panic Room" by 41%. "Bourne" has pocketed a sturdy $10 million in 23 days in the U.K.
• Jamie wrote: Just found out that Matt will be on Conan O'Brien on the 3rd of October.
• Echoed Kelly:
  Just wanted to let you know, Matt will be a guest on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on Thursday, October 3. It's a brand new episode, and Matt's there to promote his SNL gig that Saturday. He's the only guest listed (except for the musical guest) for that night on Conan, so let's hope he gets lots of airtime!
• Laura wrote:
  hey the bourne identity mexico premiere changed: its (now on) october 18
  i want to see that movie i can't wait.
• A nice, long note from Rebecca:
  watched Matt from E!News when he was here in Oz, nothing too new, just an interview about Bourne with Jules Asner. He was once again wearing the dark blue shirt. I loved his quote about the standard Hollywood action blockbuster "You can set your watch to the next explosion."
  From Progress Press 3.9.02
  Stellar Visitor is to the manner Bourne
  RED carpet? Check.
  Adoring fans, mostly of the female variety and many still wearing school uniform?
  Check.
  Photographers jostling for pole position?
  Check.
  Guest of honour?
  Fashionably late, of course.
  The odd home-grown celebrity had already arrived for the premiere of Matt Damon's latest flick, The Bourne Identity, in Camberwell last Wednesday. There was Brodie, of fleeting Big Brother II fame, Neighbours' Blair McDonough and footballers Nathan Buckley and Nick Holland. But at 6.55pm, Damon arrived and the screaming began.
  The Hollywood star spent a good half-hour signing autographs and chatting to fans as he meandered up the red carpet.
  ``I love meeting the fans,'' Damon said.
  ``You know, it's a really fun part of the job.''
  Damon said going to premieres and seeing the final product of his films was often like an ``out-of body-experience''.
  The Boroondara premiere was the third time he had seen the final cut.
  ``Tonight they're going to be sneaking me out the back door for a show called The Panel, but that's OK by me,'' he said.
  ``I'd rather other people see it than me see it again.
  ``We're proud of it. I wouldn't have come all the way here if the movie sucked.''
  And here's the article Felicity mentioned from yesterdays Herald Sun:
  To the manner BOURNE
  Sunday Herald Sun (Vic) 29.9.02
  TO call Matt Damon a Hollywood star is something of a misnomer. The 31-year-old actor and Academy Award-winning screenwriter was born in Boston and lives on the East Coast of the US in New York -- or does he?
  ``I've griped before about not having enough time to go set up my house in New York, but this past April I finally had time,'' he said.
  ``I got home, I sat on my couch and within six hours I was on a plane to London to go do a play.
  ``So, I have a home in New York, but I have ended up in Europe a lot the past few years. Probably a total of two of the past four years have been spent over there. It's just worked out that way.''
  Damon's European-made movies have included The Talented Mr Ripley and his latest, The Bourne Identity, filmed in the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy and France. The play was Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth, for which Damon and Casey Affleck, younger brother of his good friend Ben, earned raves from the tough West End critics.
  ``I'm very comfortable over there,'' Damon said of Europe. ``I like it a lot and as long as the movies keep coming up over there I'm happy to go do them.''
  The comment is typical of Damon -- polite, cheerful and obliging, although obviously he has learned to not be as open as he once was, especially when it comes to his personal life.
  Currently he is in a relationship with Odessa Whitmire, formerly Ben Affleck's personal assistant, and, while he acknowledges she was in London with him for part of his West End run, he won't discuss her further.
  ``There was no new romance in London,'' he said with a wide grin, ``except for Madonna. I mean, if you want to talk about that.''
  If he can occasionally be flippant during interviews, Damon certainly gets serious when it comes to preparing for movie roles.
  For The Bourne Identity, based on the late Robert Ludlum's 1980 novel and directed by indy favourite Doug Liman (Swingers, Go), Damon bulked up and skill-trained intensively.
  Jason Bourne has two bullets in his back and the number of a Swiss bank account embedded in his hip when he is pulled out of the ocean by the crew of an Italian fishing boat. He also has amnesia, leaving him puzzled about not only what has happened to him, but also why he possesses extraordinary abilities as a linguist, self-defence expert and weapons specialist.
  ``Doug mentioned that he wanted the character to walk like a boxer, with a certain directness that a boxer has -- you know, they tend not to waste a lot of movement -- so I took boxing for four or five months,'' Damon said.
  ``Then I had all this extensive weapons training with a former shot- gunner from the LA SWAT team out in the desert. We practised shooting weapons, disassembling them, assembling them, cleaning them, just to make sure that when I do hold a gun, which isn't too often in the movie, it looks like second nature to the character.
  ``Doug and I decided early on that the physical aspect of it was very important, so the fact that Bourne didn't remember who he was wouldn't affect the fact that physically he would stand a certain way. He would still walk the same way even if he didn't remember why.' '
  For tips on linguistics, Damon looked to his German co-star Franka Potente, who plays Marie Kreutz, a down-on-her-luck woman who becomes involved in Bourne's dangerous world when he offers her $10,000 to drive him from Zurich to Paris.
  ``She taught me phonetically to say some of the things I had to say in the movie, so that was an ancillary bonus to her participation, '' Damon said. ``It was great to play opposite her. All of us in the industry saw Run Lola Run and I think we're all pretty much fans of hers.''
  Damon claimed he was as keen as any average movie-goer to lose himself for two hours in front of a spy thriller, but was ``too often disappointed by the lack of originality'' and had passed on other offers to try the genre.
  ``I'm not a snob, but I just find them too derivative,'' he said. ``The action always seems to be gratuitous. You know, if something hasn't exploded in four minutes, you can check your watch and -- three, two, one -- bang, there's an explosion.
  ``It looks good, but you're not really involved and invested in the characters.
  ``When I saw this script was very much about the characters, with the action pushing the story along rather than just being lopped on top of it in the standard peanut butter-and-jelly way, it really piqued my interest.
  ``Then to have Doug directing it -- the guy who comes out of independent movies and is known for having a unique sensitivity -- it just seemed like a marriage out of which something really interesting would evolve.' '
  The action includes Damon at the wheel in a car chase that has drawn comparisons with The French Connection.
  ``I'd like to say I drove but, no, we had a lot of help from some really great French drivers,'' Damon said.
  ``In one of the Minis they had a steering wheel on the left-hand side that was fake and they sat this premier French driver on the right. He had control of the car and I was just spinning the wheel with the camera behind me, pretending to shift gears up and down whenever he did.
  ``It was better than any Disneyland ride.''
  The Bourne Identity is now screening.
  ****************************************
  A review from The Sunday Mail (Brisbane)
  29.9.02
  The Bourne Identity (M)
  Stars: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper
  Director: Doug Liman
  Plot: Secret agent on the run
  Review: CHRIS BARTLETT
  A BLOKE is hauled from the ocean with two bullets in his back, a laser implant in his leg and no clue as to who he is.
  Another Schoolies casualty? Surely not, there's no sign of a stash or bottle of overproof Bundy. But then again it could well be, since said bloke -- baby-faced Matt Damon -- looks like he's just out of school.
  He is, in fact, a CIA operative. The laser implant reveals a Swiss bank account number. He heads to Zurich and the safety deposit box which may help him find out who he is. It does, sort of, being full of a multitude of passports in different names all with his mug shot, a gun and loads of cash.
  With CIA bad guy Chris Cooper siccing almost every killer in Europe on to Damon, he does the sensible thing: takes the money and runs.
  Along for the ride is Franka Potente (from Run Lola Run), who chauffeurs him in her bright-red Mini (car, not skirt).
  The Bourne Identity, based on Robert Ludlum's bestseller, is a by- the-numbers thriller. It delivers car chases, spectacular fights and shoot-outs in a dour, no-nonsense manner, though the Euro backdrops add to its appeal.
  But one of the problems is that while Damon's Jason Bourne is clueless as to what's going on, we're not. Meaning there's not as much suspense as there might have been. I couldn't help thinking back to Memento, another movie featuring a bewildered protagonist trying to sort out who he is and what's happening, and its terrific plotting which kept the audience guessing at every twist and turn.
  Still, The Bourne Identity is as polished a spook thriller as you' re likely to get. Damon is unassuming enough to be convincing, though Cooper is a tad hammy and Potente sadly under-used, her main role seemingly being to swear a lot in German.
  **********************************************
  A not so great review from the Sunday Tasmanian 29.09.02
  A Bourne LOSER
  A FEW weeks ago I reviewed the completely unmemorable The Sum of All Fears and bemoaned what an unconvincing action hero Ben Affleck was. I should have held my tongue until I saw how his best friend Matt Damon stacked up in the action genre.
  Ben Affleck is the new Harrison Ford and Sum of All Fears is a masterpiece compared to the diabolically bad piece of rubbish that is The Bourne Identity.
  A body is fished out of the Mediterranean with two bullet holes in its back and secret Swiss bank account details on microchip surgically implanted in its hip.
  Despite who knows how long in the water, this man refuses to die but on awakening has no memory of who he is.
  Using the bank details Mr X travels to Switzerland and on opening his safety deposit box discovers heaps of cash in various currencies, a gun and numerous passports, one of which bears the name Jason Bourne.
  Mr X decides he is Jason Bourne and goes looking for clues about his identity and how he ended up punctured, bleeding and in the drink.
  Coming back to life proves a big mistake for Bourne (Damon) because it turns out he is a covert CIA assassin who botched his last assignment.
  Now, instead of calling their agent in and debriefing him, CIA bosses Conklin (Chris Cooper) and Abbott (Brian Cox) decide to eliminate him because his assignment had not been sanctioned.
  Thus starts a long and bloody chase across some of the more scenic bits of Europe with killers on Bourne's trail while the only person he can rely on is Marie (Franka Potente) whom he bribes to drive him to Paris.
  The Bourne Identity has been directed -- if that's the right word for this mess -- by Doug Liman, who came to attention directing the small-scale, character driven comedy/dramas Swingers and Go.
  Clearly work on these two movies did not in anyway prepare him for the task of directing a big budget, multi-location action movie.
  He seems to have no idea about how to stage effective action sequences and the closest he comes is a very derivative and rather dull car chase through the streets of Paris.
  The screenplay by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron, based on a hackneyed Robert Ludlum potboiler, offers little assistance to Liman.
  It creates no believable or even vaguely human characters.
  These are all just stock spy thriller cliches and not even the always reliable Cooper can do anything with his role.
  What anyone was thinking when they decided to make Damon an action hero is beyond me.
  Damon can be an effective actor, as he proved with his wonderful performance in The Talented Mr Ripley, but he plainly does not have the physical intimidatory presence of an action hero and no amount of incoherent editing can hide that fact.
  And, as the script gives him nothing to do in the way of creating a character, his strength as an actor is completely wasted.
  Potente has proved she can carry action movies and serious dramas but here she is given virtually nothing to do except be attractive wallpaper in the background behind Damon.
  The Bourne Identity does not attempt to do one creative thing yet it can not even manage to deal with the genre's inherent cliches successfully.
  All in all, a total waste of everyone's time.
  THE BOURNE IDENTITY
  BOMB
  Stars: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper and Brian Cox.
  Stuart says: ``What anyone was thinking when they decided to make Matt Damon an action hero is beyond me.''
  *************************************************
  Review from Sunday Herald Sun (Vic) 29.09.02
  Thrills re-Bourne
  FIRST The Sum of All Fears and now The Bourne Identity. Toss in Insomnia and there could almost be a trend -- a return to the sort of movies adults used to pack cinemas to see a generation ago.
  The formula is action blended with intrigue, a plot of sorts, even some dialogue, a gorgeous foreign setting (Prague standing in for Paris and Zurich) and, in the case of Bourne, Sum of All and Insomnia, a matinee idol in the making.
  Yet, if The Bourne Identity is old fashioned, it is far from frumpy, despite being based on a Robert Ludlum thriller that has grass growing from its crosshairs.
  Matt Damon is Bourne, a CIA hit-man and spy who faces a predicament familiar to all who saw Richard Chamberlain in the 1988 made-for-TV version of Ludlum's novel.
  Bourne -- he is not even sure that is his name -- has lost his memory and cannot recall anything other than how to duck and weave the incoming.
  Of incoming there is enough to keep a platoon of SAS occupied as a rogue CIA cell tracks the spy across half of Europe, sometimes entertainingly pursuing him in a battered Mini in antics recalling that magnificent caper The Italian Job.
  The Mini belongs to the romantic interest, Franka Potente of Run Lola Run, with whom Bourne hitches a lift as he is escaping Zurich.
  Oh, earlier he was rescued from the sea by a fishing boat, with bullets in his back and a chip revealing a numbered Swiss bank account hidden under his skin.
  He may not know who he is, but after being shot at a few times he catches on fast that someone wants him dead.
  Cut to a power-struggle in the CIA bunker at Langley where one look at Chris Cooper as the chief of some very black ops tells you Bourne is living on borrowed time.
  Even if Damon is short enough in real life to need a trench cut for his leading lady, he makes a much more convincing action hero than pal Ben Affleck in Sum of All.
  One day he might even grow to be a Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis.
  Potente is no simpering American blonde, but a hard-faced daughter of the German proletariat whose looks could easily grace a wanted poster for the Baader Meinhof Gang.
  There is a bare-knuckled supporting actor around every corner -- Cooper, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles and Clive Owen in roles that range from major to minor.
  Then there are the backdrops. It is funny how the difference between a good spy thriller and a bad one is often the quality of the scenery.
  Prague or Paris? Who knows, or cares? It makes you want to book a ticket for Europe.
  All up, a satisfying and gripping yarn.
  **********************
  A review from The Australian
  David Stratton
  The Company Of Killers ROBERT Ludlum's espionage thriller The Bourne Identity was first published in 1980 and I must have read it at about that time. It's one of those easy reads (perfect for long flights) with plenty of incident and tension.
  I'm not sure why it has taken so long for the book to be filmed (another Ludlum nail-biter, The Osterman Weekend, was brought to the screen by Sam Peckinpah in 1983), but the wait proves to have been well worth it; Doug Liman's film is a genuinely exciting thriller.
  Liman's previous films, Swingers (1996) and Go (1999), were independent productions of a very high standard; the latter film, which explored events over a highly dramatic 24 hours from several different perspectives, was particularly successful. With his first mainstream Hollywood film, Liman has lost neither his edginess nor his ability to bring freshness to basically familiar material.
  The Bourne Identity is about a CIA operative who loses his memory. Despite his amnesia, he has lost none of his instinctive survival skills -- and he certainly needs them, because his former employers are out to get him.
  It's rather surprising to find that a Hollywood film released a year after September 11 is able to present the CIA in such an unfavourable light. The film's principal villain is a senior CIA man, Ted Conklin, played with considerable menace by Chris Cooper. Conklin's office in the CIA headquarters at Langley in Virginia has a photograph of George W. Bush prominently displayed on his wall and a couple of US flags on his desk, but Conklin is no patriot -- on the contrary, he' s prepared to use his agents to commit crimes to cover his mistakes.
  A body is discovered floating in the Mediterranean and taken on board by the crew of a fishing boat. The man (Matt Damon) is still alive, though he has been shot twice in the back, and the ship's doctor also discovers a capsule hidden beneath the surface of his skin. Since the survivor has no idea who he is, this capsule is the only clue to his identity. It contains the number of a Swiss bank account and, as soon as he can, the man heads for Zurich to try to discover who he is.
  The safety deposit box has more puzzles for the confused hero. It has a number of passports -- Brazilian, Canadian, Russian -- plus an American one in the name of Jason Bourne. There's also a large sum of money and a gun.
  Just as Ludlum did in his book, Liman and his screenwriters Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron let the audience in on the secret almost from the beginning. Bourne was a CIA assassin who was supposed to have murdered an African diplomat who had been threatening to blackmail the agency. The mission was Conklin's responsibility and he's determined to make good by having Bourne killed before he can cause any more problems.
  Which is why, when Bourne seeks help at the US consulate in Zurich, he gets a very warm welcome and only just manages to escape with his life. He hitches a ride (for a large payment) with Marie (Franka Potente), who agrees to drive him to Paris, where he can follow the clues to his identity.
  It's a thriller that hardly pauses for breathing space as the implacable Conklin seems to be always one step ahead of his quarry. Bourne, despite rejecting his past life, proves his training skills haven't deserted him and manages to escape from some very tight scrapes indeed.
  Damon is a resourceful hero and Potente (the star of Run Lola Run) is splendid -- and very different from the average ingenue -- as the innocent who goes along for what proves to be a bumpy ride. Neither actor is obvious star material for this kind of film but they lend integrity and a sense of realism to the proceedings.
  There were two more Bourne novels -- The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. If they're made as well as this, I can't wait to see them on screen too.
  Rating: * * * *
  ******************************************************88
  Natural Bourne Filler
  Herald Sun (Vic) 26.09.02
  The Bourne Identity (M)Director: Doug Liman
  Starring: Matt Damon, Chris Copper, Franka Potente, Clive Owen, Julia Stiles
  Rating: * * 1/2
  Stunts dicey. Situation spicy. But Damon is Bourne to be mild
  CONTINUING the long line of movie characters who can't remember who the hell they are -- I'd list a few for you, but the memory's playing up at the moment -- here comes Matt Damon as author Robert Ludlum' s amnesiac spy, Jason Bourne.
  As cashed-up and dumbed-down a Mission: Implausible as it ultimately becomes, The Bourne Identity keeps hustling to find a few bends in Ludlum's straightforward adventure.
  Director Doug Liman (Swingers, Go) is largely successful on this front, placating the action enthusiasts with plenty of explosions and stunts without allowing this tale of a forgetful hero to stray towards the forgettable.
  The mystery begins just off the coast of Marseilles one stormy night when a fisherman retrieves our man Bourne from a disastrous dip in the Mediterranean.
  With bullets lodged in his back, a Swiss bank access chip implanted in his hip and no idea of who he is, Bourne barrels across to Zurich to examine a safety deposit box for further clues.
  A wad of cash, six different passports and a gun don't really explain anything, and when he drops in on the US consulate for further help, they try to arrest him on the spot.
  It is here that Bourne learns he is a one-man masterclass in survival smarts, which comes in handy when he also discovers every American agent in Europe would like to kill him.
  Bourne's pursuers are acting at the behest of CIA super-spook Ted Conklin (Chris Cooper), under pressure from the suits upstairs to bring Bourne back to the fold with somewhat gentler measures.
  As shady villains go, you can't help but admire Conklin whenever he defends his tactics to his superiors: ``Why don't you book a conference room so we can talk him to death?''
  Cross-cutting between the hunter and the hunted, director Liman is able to generate just enough background chills to justify the foreground thrills.
  The introduction of some interesting minor characters -- Franka Potente as a gypsy who joins Bourne on his journey, Clive Owen as the hit man known as The Professor and Julia Stiles as the CIA's pinch-hitter in Paris -- also help fill the void while Bourne fills out the missing details of his identity.
  As for Damon as the lead, he is always serviceable, as opposed to sensational.
  Seasoned fans could be disappointed with the blandness of his performance, especially given his recent enthusiastic promotion of the film.
  Strangely, the very tasks that seemingly require the least of the Good Will Hunting star -- such as swinging wildly at the wheel of a Mini as it clatters down the back alleys of Paris -- bring the most out of a dour Damon.
  Reborn spy gains classy Matt finish
  **********************************************************
  The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 26.09.02
  The Bourne Identity (M)Director: Doug Liman
  Starring: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper and Clive Owen
  General release
  Rating: * * * *
  Review: VICKY ROACH
  Like xXx, Matt Damon's Jason Bourne is being promoted as a ``new breed'' of spy. (Most people, I think, would accept that Austin Powers, the other secret agent competing for the box-office dollar, has mutated into a very different species.)
  Vin Diesel's approach is macho and muscular. We are talking raw attraction and hard-core grunt.
  Damon's appeal, on the other hand, is more well-rounded. His superspy, for instance, speaks several languages. Only one of them is violence, though he is, of course, fluent in it.
  Based on the enigmatic hero of three Robert Ludlum bestsellers, the new Bourne is a decade younger than the character in the original novel (which was also made into a mini-series in 1988, starring Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith).
  When we first meet him, he is an amnesiac in a wetsuit who has just been rescued at sea by the crew of an Italian fishing boat.
  Nearly dead, he carries nothing but the bullets in his back and a Swiss bank account number embedded in his hip.
  What soon becomes obvious, however, is this anonymous anti-hero is capable of extraordinary physical and intellectual feats.
  If anyone can piece together a past out of such a minimal amount of information, it is this man.
  The Bourne Identity tracks the ``black'' CIA agent from Prague to Paris as he tries to work out who he really is and why so many people are trying to kill him.
  Bourne's first stop, not surprisingly, is the aforementioned Swiss bank, where a safe-deposit box contains half a dozen possible identities and a large sum of cash.
  After miraculously escaping the first assassination attempt, he encounters Marie (Run Lola Run's Franka Potente), whom he offers $10,000 for a lift to Paris.
  The free-spirited wanderer figures she might as well go along for a ride ... and what a ride it turns out to be.
  Directed by Doug Liman (the man behind such art-house hits as Swingers and Go), The Bourne Identity sets out to give the old-fashioned spy thriller a tasteful new make-over.
  The decision to cast Potente in the role of Marie is inspired. It puts a fresh and intelligent spin on the rather tired, middle-of-the- road woman-in-peril routine.
  Damon is terrific as Bourne; a man of angst as well as action.
  With the blessing of Ludlum, who died of a heart attack soon after filming was complete, Liman and his team have succeeded in updating a classic genre for the new millennium, without losing any of its original charm.
  **************************************************************************
  The Sunday Times (Perth) 22.09.02
  Bourne Again
  A SLICK, polished, almost Bond-style espionage thriller is the last thing you might expect from the man who brought you the hazy world of strung-out 20-somethings in the cult hits Swingers and Go. But here it is. Doug Liman's version of Robert Ludlum's 1980 spy novel The Bourne Identity has all the hallmarks of a big-budget Hollywood action-adventure. There are guns, gadgets, girls, explosions and car chases through tiny European streets.
  OK, so the car is a crappy Mini and the streets are cobblestoned alleys, but this is every bit an American thriller transplanted to Europe.
  We start in the Mediterranean, where a fishing boat rescues a drowning man (Matt Damon) with gunshot wounds and severe amnesia. A Swiss bank account number tattooed on his arm is the first clue to his identity.
  He heads to Zurich, where a safety deposit box reveals a load of cash, passports, guns, and even his name -- Jason Bourne. Upon leaving the bank, a sense of danger kicks in and he instinctively dispatches several would-be assassins with superhuman speed and brutality.
  As pieces of the puzzle take shape, Bourne drops $20,000 for a ride with Marie (Run Lola Run's Franka Potenta) to his apartment in Paris. The two run the gauntlet of a ruthless CIA operative (Chris Cooper) who wants to eliminate his own agent after a bungled assassination.
  There's a long story about how this film was delayed for more than a year because of script problems, re-shoots and complaints from Damon, who signed on thinking it was going to be a more cerebral espionage thriller than the kind of Hollywood no-brainer his buddy Ben Affleck (or is that B-Lo?) stars in.
  Unfortunately, The Bourne Identity is a bit of both. Apart from Bourne, the characters are one-dimensional and the plot becomes somewhat pointless after the amnesiac discovers who he really is.
  The subplots of romance, assassination and CIA involvement seem written, re-written, cut and re-cut to death. As such, the film almost has more problems with its own identity than Bourne does with his. There are more lethal martial arts, sharpshooting and Ronin-style car chases than character detail, which is fun but unfulfilling.
  You can't help thinking that if the writers of the James Bond movies penned a script with 007 losing his memory, they'd basically have The Bourne Identity.
  What holds it together are slick performances. There are top-notch supporting roles from Clive Owen (tipped as the next Bond) as an enemy assassin, Julia Stiles as a techno-geek and Cooper as the paranoid spook.
  Most of all, a beefed-up Damon is perfect as a baby-faced innocent turned icy-cool killer. The Harvard-educated actor brings a quiet, brooding intelligence to the role, playing Bourne as a super-spook so lethal he's almost robotic.
  The Bourne Identity almost needs psychiatric help in the much rewritten third act, where explosions and gunplay are amped up with techno-inflected music. But at least there's no Bryan Adams theme music in the closing credits.
  So be thankful. The Bourne Identity at least trumps the clunky 1988 television mini-series that starred mini-series king Richard Chamberlain. If Liman, Damon and Co failed at that, they might have wanted to change their own identities.
  *******************************************************************
  Whispers: Star dodges my cheeky questions
  News letter 6.9.02
  On Tuesday I was in London to interview MATT DAMON who was in town promoting his new movie, The Bourne Identity, which is released today.
  Everything was running smoothly as he chatted to journalists until I cheekily asked: What part of your career are you most ashamed of?
  Matt, 31, saw the funny side of the question: There are too many to mention, he joked.
  Im pretty ashamed of a couple of them.
  When I probed further and asked what those films were he ducked out saying: Oh damn... it looks like weve just run out of time.
  ***************************************************
  Spy With Amnesia
  The Sunday Telegraph (Syd) 29.09.02
  IT has one of the best fights ever filmed, one of the best car chases ever staged for the cameras, and is a fitting reminder that thrillers can be fun.
  The Bourne Identity was written by Robert Ludlum in 1980, and there was an indifferent (although mildly entertaining) television mini- series starring Richard Chamberlain as the spy with amnesia.
  Now Matt Damon takes over the role of the man washed up near death, with no clue to his identity except for bullet wounds and a Swiss bank account number tattooed on his hip.
  He sets out to find his identity, via the bank account. But there' s a problem: he has several passports in different names, a gun and wads of cash of various currencies.
  There's an address and a name (Jason Bourne) that might help. But before Bourne can get anywhere near Paris, he finds himself under attack.
  Escaping from the American embassy, he offers a girl he has seen in the embassy (Franka Potente) a large amount of money if she'll drive him to Paris in her battered red Mini.
  In Paris, things go from bad to perverse as Bourne finds his rather pleasant apartment ... then finds it also comes with a hidden assassin.
  With the girl grafted unwillingly on, Bourne has to use every bit of skill he doesn't know he has, as he eludes the police and some nasty killers.
  This is a rattling good thriller, so thoroughly involving that you forget the odd plot blemish.
  Damon's unassuming air helps preserve credibility in the film's early moments as we, like the character himself, try to find out who he is.
  And The Bourne Identity stands apart from most films of its genre in that it keeps the violence and the stunts to a credible limit.
  Exciting, certainly, but believable as well (it's been a long time since we've seen a real person's reaction to extreme violence).
  Damon does excellently, but Potente is a brilliant piece of casting. Headstrong, idiosyncratic and attractive, she's the ideal patsy to take along for an exhilarating car chase.
  ********************************************************************************
  Damon Wields Quality Control
  The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 26.09.02
  Matt Damon is keeping a low profile, waiting for a script that sings. MICHAEL BODEY reports
  Oscar winner and ever-beaming American boy-next-door, Matt Damon, is one of the major movie stars of his generation.
  Yet earlier this year he was driven to the London stage to make his West End debut in Kenneth Lonergan's play This is Our Youth.
  Incredibly, he admits: ``I was basically looking for something to do. There weren't really any good movie scripts -- I haven't shot a movie in over a year -- I'm still kind of waiting for a good movie script and haven't really seen any and this thing was a great piece of material so I jumped on it.''
  Yet Damon has starred in some of cinema's biggest, and finest, films of the past decade: Good Will Hunting (for which he won the screenwriting Oscar), Saving Private Ryan, Ocean's Eleven and The Talented Mr Ripley.
  ``I'm trying to be choosy but I don't think my standards are that, you know, prohibitive that I wouldn't see anything but I really haven' t seen anything that I wanted to do,'' he says. ``Plus the offers are starting to roll in more now that this thing came out and did well. I wasn't exactly at the top of the list before The Bourne Identity opened.''
  The film, an adaptation of Robert Ludlum's thriller, is the best of both worlds, a critical and commercial hit, and suddenly Damon is the franchise boy his mate Ben Affleck wants to be. ``Yes, but I didn't sign up for the second one when I signed for the first one, '' he says. ``They signed everyone else though. I didn't know if I was going to enjoy it or not and I ended up really enjoying it. I' d do another one but it's a bit of a ways off because Tony [Gilroy, the screenwriter] would have to come up with a whole new story.''
  Damon plays Jason Bourne, a young tyro, found unconscious, who must piece together his life as he recovers from amnesia.
  As happens in the movies, his life was simply that of a secret agent. And he can't exactly lose his identity again in a sequel, a point of which Damon is well aware.
  ``I don't think there's any reason to do it unless we feel we can do it better than the first one,'' he says.
  The first one is smarter than your average Hollywood fare, and the comparison can't help but be made with Affleck's latest, the bigger but dumber, The Sum of All Fears.
  ``I felt it [Bourne] was a cut of cloth above the ones I normally tend to read and see,'' he says. ``And I liked the intelligence of it and the way [director] Doug Liman talked about it -- he really sold me on it.''
  ``Plus I thought his never having done a movie with this kind of budget, it seemed like the right amount of chaos to bring to something like this to make it work.''
  And chaos Liman brought. The director of arthouse hits Swingers and Go was a novel choice for the $150 million-plus movie.
  That novelty almost destroyed the film, with bickering against the studio, last-minute script changes and reshoots the norm.
  ``Doug's known for creating -- if it's not there -- as much chaos as possible,'' Damon says. ``It was a calculated gamble.''
  That resulted in one of the more troubled films of recent times.
  ``We really pulled one out of the hat because I'm really happy with the movie, how it came out, and Doug's happy but there were definitely some really tense moments on set,'' Damon says.
  ``The movie benefited from a lot of smart people around it. It's very rare that a movie gets worked on that much and remains as coherent as The Bourne Identity is.''
  *************************************************
  Q&A
  Herald Sun (Vic) 26.09.02
  MATT DAMON tells CLAIRE SUTHERLAND about his not-so-charmed life.
  You' ve just made a high-powered action movie with Doug Liman, who is better known for his quirky character movies Swingers and Go. How did you know he'd be able to pull off car chases and gun fights?
  I would have been worried if it had been the kind of director who does this kind of movie all the time. I was actually excited with what he would do with it because I figured it would be a new twist on an old genre.
  You've led a pretty charmed life in terms of your movies winning over critics. You don't seem to have put a foot wrong.
  Well, All the Pretty Horses got pretty savaged. It was cut by the studio at the end of the day because Billy Bob (Thornton's) cut was three hours and 12 minutes. It's still the best movie I've ever done and I was so proud of it and of everybody's work in it and I was really, really sad to see what happened to it. But what happened at the box office or what the critics say literally has no bearing on what I feel about that movie. If I could go back and do one movie again it would be that one. Everyone working on Billy Bob's version reached personal bests with their own work.
  The Legend of Bagger Vance wasn't very popular either, but Bagger Vance I understand a little more. All the Pretty Horses I've always been upset about because it never really got its chance to be what it was.
  How do you respond to negative reviews?
  It depends, sometimes you agree with what the person is saying. Certainly in the case of All the Pretty Horses it was hard for me because I had seen the original cut of the movie I thought was truly a masterpiece so I didn't know what to say. It was like trying to fight with one hand tied behind your back. You're like ``I could whip your ass if you could just untie my other hand'', but it's not even a fight, it' s a beating. But I think if you're going to read it just don't take it to heart, if it's good or bad, it's all bulls. . t. And a lot of time, the people writing it don't know what it takes to make a movie anyway.
  The press has made much of your star-spangled love life. What would you have done differently in hindsight?
  I probably would have been less forthcoming. It's so strange to look at your life reflected back at you through the media, and I think that's what happened with Ben (Affleck) and I's friendship. It was just so weird to have this friendship that has been a huge part of your life and you take it for granted for 10, 15 years and suddenly it's a matter of public record. I think it undermines your ability to do your job. Someone like Edward Norton is a lot more circumspect about his personal life and his personal history because it makes it easier for him to just disappear within a role, it makes it easier for audiences to accept him in different roles. I think the more people know you the more you get trapped into doing the same thing over and over again, so I maybe would have done things there a bit differently.
  So how do you approach giving interviews now?
  It's still hard for me to talk to you and try to remind myself that I'm not just talking to you, because your natural inclination is to just be forthcoming with who you're talking to. Oh yeah, you're a nice person, so we sat and we chatted and then you see it with quote marks around it and suddenly it looks like some huge proclamation made from a soapbox by somebody and you just seem like a jackass.
  Do you understand public fascination with the love lives of celebrities?
  I don't. I don't care why anybody broke up with anybody. I don't feel it's any of my business. If I know the people and they want to talk to me about it then that's one thing, but I just never had any interest in that stuff. I'd much rather be in touch with the people in my own life than be in touch with people who I'll never meet or have trivial information about people I'll likely never meet.
  Do you ever read the weird things written about you on the Internet?
  I'm kind of tempted to see what else is on there, but I don't think I could ever look myself in the face again if I went hunting for Matt Damon websites.
  The latest rumour has you having a big bust-up with Ben Affleck.
  I don't know where that's come from but I'm sure that will then get picked up by other news services, which is strange because we just launched the second season of Project Greenlight in New York.
  I understand Ben's brother Casey is responsible for many of the lies circulating about you.
  He's got just the right distance between the stuff he's seen happen to his brother and me. He will do interviews and not one honest word will come out of his mouth, about himself, about anybody. He doesn' t take any of that stuff too seriously. I don't think he wants it to be too much a part of his life.
  Are you able to live a relatively normal life?
  The strangest my life gets honestly is on things like this. I end up in fancy hotels and there are people around keeping a very tight schedule. It's amusing to me because I'm not that much of a Nazi about my own time. Back in New York I don't live in any kind of highfalutin' way, I don't have a bodyguard or anything silly like that. I walk around everywhere, I live a very normal life and in the long run I think that is going to help me with my own work because I'm not losing touch with the real world.

• Here's a link to a 24 minute audio interview with Matt from Australia's "Movie Show". It's another long and thoughtful piece, discussing the early years with Ben, struggling in LA, coping with sudden fame, problems with Liman v the cinematographer on Bourne, Frank Marshall saving the film, identifying bad scripts and working with Kenneth Lonergan.
• From an interview in the Herald-Sun, some excerpts:

  Q: Do you understand public fascination with the love lives of celebrities?
  A: I don't.  I don't care why anybody broke up with anybody.  If don't feel it's any of my business.  If I know the people and they want to talk to me about it then that's one thing, but I just never had any interest in that stuff.  I'd much rather be in touch with the people in my own life than be in touch with people who I'll never meet or have trivial information about people I'll likely never meet.
  
  Q: Do you ever read the weird things written about you on the Internet?
  A: I'm kind of tempted to see what else is on there, but I don't think I could ever look myself in the face again if I went hunting for Matt Damon website.
  
  Q: I understand Ben's brother Casey is responsible for many of the lies circulating about you.
  A: He's got just the right distance between the stuff he's seen happen to his brother and me.  He will do interviews and not one honest word will come out of his mouth, about himself, about anybody.  He doesn't take any of that stuff too seriously.  I don't think he wants it to be too much a part of his life.
  
  Q: Are you able to live a relatively normal life?
  A: The strangest my life gets honestly is on things like this.  I end up in fancy hotels and there are people around keeping a very tight schedule.  It's amusing to me because I'm not that much of a Nazi about my own time.  Back in New York I don't live in any kind of highfalutin' way, I don't have a bodyguard or anything silly like that.  I walk around everywhere, I live a very normal life and in the long run I think that is going to help me with my own work because I'm not losing touch with the real world.
  

• After Jeff's note yesterday this is timely - from the Harvard Crimson Online:
  Drama Society Stages Comeback
  Winthrop House to host plays
  By JAQUELYN M. SCHARNICK
  Contributing Writer
  After a lengthy hiatus, the Winthrop House Drama Society met last night to start planning for its first performance in seven years, a production of the well-known suspense thriller Deathtrap. The Drama Society faded out of existence around 1995 after a storied history that includes the final Harvard performance of actor Matt Damon, Class of 1992.
  Ira Levin�s Deathtrap will open on Dec. 5 in the Winthrop Junior Common Room, which is the same room where Damon performed Burn This with the society.
  Ellsworth A. Fersch, a lecturer on psychology and nonresident tutor in the House, said he remembers Damon�s performance �generated such a crowd.�
• Here's a lengthy Chud review of the Project Greenlight DVD: here.
  A still of Matt and Ben during the initial deliberations (choosing the PGL winner): here

9/26/02

• From Felicity:
  • From Moviemaker magazine, an interview with Doug Liman I haven't seen before: http://www.moviemaker.com/issues/47/liman.html
    Includes these quotes:
    DL: I think of making films as an adventure and I want to work with people who see it that way, so working with new screenwriters and actors is one way of achieving that. Working with Matt Damon, I discovered that it�s possible for someone to become a major star and not become jaded to the process; to be as excited by the process as if it had been his first movie.
    MM: Has there been one actor who surprised you in his/her range or ability?
    DL: I could never single out a single actor because I�ve been fortunate to work with some of the greatest talent working today. Matt Damon and Franka Potente come to mind right now because I am reminded on an hourly basis how amazing they are--not just as actors, but as people.
  • From the NY Post a few days ago:
    TOMMY'S SINGING A NEW TUNE
    By JARED PAUL STERN
    September 23, 2002 -- DOES Tommy Hilfiger have a new girlfriend? It certainly looked that way when he turned up at Stella McCartney's store opening Friday night with super chic Vanity Fair contributing fashion editor Anne McNally on his arm and whispered into her ear, then continued with her to Paolo Zampolli and Ron Galotti's birthday party for David Copperfield at the GQ Lounge.
    Hilfiger's reps could not be reached for comment. Blonde McNally, who's divorced from restaurateur Brian McNally, is known for her killer gams, sexy designer outfits and husky French accent.
    Hilfiger split from Susie, his wife of 20 years, in July 2000, and he has been known to take a healthy interest in his models. At the Copperfield party, he and McNally mingled with the likes of Matt Damon, Chloe Sevigny, Donald Trump and Jocelyn Wildenstein.
  • Isn't it amazing that Bourne is still in the top 20 (albeit at the end) after 15 weeks. That has to be why the DVD still hasn't been announced yet. The film has just passed $120 million in the US, and internationally seems to be doing well, if not at blockbuster status.
• Added the Big Matt Fan:
  ("Bourne" is) making more "Minority Report" and "Lilo and Stitch," and on a per screen basis is outperforming "Road to Perdition," "Austin Powers 3," and even more recent films like "Possession." Who would have thought?
• Laura wrote:
  vota por matt damon en http://movies.yahoo.com/movieawards/

9/24/02

• From Lisa:
  matt is losing but if everyone votes, he could still win: here.
• Rachel wrote:
  From the boston heralds inside track
  Matt's on the move
  And speaking of love and our Cambridge homeys, Matt Damon's romance with Ben's former personal assistant, Odessa Whitmire, seems to be hot 'n' heavy. Matt showed up at the premiere of ``The Secretary'' in NYC with his ladylove - one of their few public appearances together - and put on a steamy show! ``They were all over each other,'' said Big Apple man-about-town Baird Jones. ``It was a real head-turner since he's typically so reserved. They were really pawing each other.'' We smell a double wedding!
• From Felicity:
  • Do Saturday Night Live episodes usually run for 90 minutes? From TV Guide:
    Saturday Night Live
    Matt Damon; Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
    90 min.
  • There's a two-page interview with Matt in the Australian "What's on Weekly (WOW)" magazine, but there's nothing new.

• Good quote from Matt in a German interview, on what his directing style will be like: "Paradise for the actors. Hell for the producers".
• A German site with links to a Matt video and text interview in Berlin, pictures, etc. here
• Here's the full Sun-Herald interview, now online.
  And the good picture that went with it: here.
• From a Norwegian interview, a good pic from Deauville: here.

• We thank Niki, who wrote:
  I went to the premier of the Bourne Identity in Sydney a few weeks ago and I have some photos that I took there. They're on my website at here.
• From Felicity:
  • It's the weekend before Bourne opens in Australia, so there are quite a few interviews around.
    Really good one from The Age, which talks about the "Nice Guy" persona, the draining publicity circuit, the artificial nature of interviews, school reunions, the non-commume upbringing, identifying with Ripley, Ben etc: here.
    Fairly standard interview from the Sun-Herald, except for the opening:
    Mattinee Idol
    From Good Will Hunting to The Bourne Identity, Matt Damon has hardly put a foot wrong. Brett Thomas discovers how he does it.
    Matt Damon was stifling a yawn. It had been a hectic few days in Sydney, what with all that Harbour Bridge climbing, theatre attending, movie spruiking and red-carpet strolling to endure. Cleverly, though, his entourage had devised a tactic to get him going for our photographs.
    "Work it!" came the cry from someone across the room. And, just as if someone had unravelled a plug from his back and stuck it into the wall socket, Damon instantly came to life, unleashing that slightly sub-Tom Cruise grin - the one that makes you wonder: how can one man have so many teeth? Ordinary jet-lagged bloke was out; dazzling movie star bloke was in.
    His response was not Pavlovian, we must stress, but caused instead by a keen sense of irony. Damon, 31, came as advertised, a nice guy from Boston seemingly free from all the usual movie star ego, neuroses and peccadilloes. The thought of anyone actually asking him to "work it" - it did happen once, never to be forgotten - was enough to get him laughing every time.
    He'd charmed the locals from the day he arrived, happily posing for photos with his girlfriend Odessa Whitmire, and snapping pics of himself with fans at the premiere of his new movie TBI.
    Controversy-free - apart from a tiny slip-up involving the dumping of ex-girlfriend Minnie Driver on the Oprah Winfrey Show - accommodating and unfailingly polite, he went uncomfortably close to giving Hollywood stardom a good name.
    "We definitely don't look for any attention but the more you duck and hide the more you're asking to be chased," he shrugged of his and Whitmire's easygoing attitude. "And we don't want to be chased, wither. We want to live as normal a life as possible and if that means taking five minutes out of our day and being polite and doing that, then great."
  • An interview from the French newspaper "Liberation", conducted at Deauville when Matt had a hangover: here
  • Ryan's site includes a few Us Weekly mentions: here
  • Here's the start of another article, which appeared today in a Malaysian paper:
    Damon packs a punch
    By SHEELA CHANDRAN
    AT first glance, Matt Damon looks like a typical boy band member � he�s attractive, muscular, has captivating blue eyes and a charming personality to match. Oh yeah, don�t forget the cute grin that can win over any female heart.
    Yes, he�s blessed with traits that most teenage girls would go crazy over, but it�s nice to know that there�s more to Damon than just a pretty face. He�s also a talented actor, scriptwriter and already has an Oscar under his belt.
    Above all, he is humble and genuine.
    
  • A scanned photo of Matt and Odessa arriving at the airport in Taiwan is attached. It appeared in a local newspaper - the arrival seemed to be a huge media event (seen in the partial photo), as was the whole visit, and widely covered in the papers.
• Our thanks to B., who wrote:
  hi! i don't know if you're aware of this or not, but there's a cute picture of matt in the october issue of teen people magazine under the horoscope section. there's a section entitled "sure signs of a libra" where it describes traits of well-known libras - for matt, it says "strives for perfection: Matt Damon."

• From Felicity:
  • A Lucy Lawless fan site has the entire Bernie Mac episode online (in 12 clips) and some photos available at here.
  • Here's the link to the Kodak Theatre, where "Nick Adams" will be presented on 4 November.
  • Answer to Constanza about Ripley:
    I bought the script off ebay years ago, but they are still available through the site: here Look for a pre-shooting script, or something similar.
• A reader sent in this Matt article.
• Shalo Water invites us to visit her The Best of Matt Damon site.
• Bec wrote:
  Matt was on Aussie radio station, JJJ, this morning. Unfortunately I didn't know in advance, so I only heard the last few minutes. He was talking about Hollywood and the industry, saying that they make films to the lowest common demoninator, which means they keep getting "Bigger, Louder and Dumber!" LOL! He also said there were a couple of movies he wished he hadn't made...although seemed a bit uncomfortable saying so. He also thinks its important that original voices, and lots of them, continue to make films that are new and different.

• Bridget wrote:Matt is going to host the season premiere of SNL on Oct 5.
• AC wrote:
  I just wanted to forward you on a website that confirms the fact that Matt Damon will be hosting the premiere of SNL this season. The website is listed below that had some information on the matter.
  Set your VCR or make plans to be home this night!!
• From Felicity:
  • There are three pictures of Matt on wireimage.com at the after-party for the new movie "Secretary" in New York.
    With Casey: here, and here.
    With Summer Phoenix: here
  • There's apparently also a pic of Matt in Us Weekly taken at the Cape Cod wedding a few weeks back.

• From Felicity:
  • Here's the start of another Australian interview - from http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=6539&s=Interviews
    BOURNE AGAIN SPIES
    What was Matt Damon�s greatest fear when taking on the role of an action hero in The Bourne Identity, a Bourne-again spy thriller? It wasn�t the stunts for which he spent five months in training, he explains on a Sydney visit to promote the film. Andrew L. Urban reports.
    Looking like a tourist in a blue short sleeved shirt and beige casual pants, Matt Damon walks into the Sydney hotel�s small function room with a shy smile and sits down facing a dozen journalists in a semi circle. A couple of photographers standing at the back flash and then the questions begin. Damon sits facing the window, which overlooks the Sydney Opera House. The man is totally void of star baggage, endearingly straight forward and polite to a fault, but with a ready glint of mischievous humour.
    He�s here to promote one of the best spy thrillers of recent years, The Bourne Identity, in which he plays Bourne, the spy who forgot himself. It�s from Hollywood major, Universal, and is a full on action picture. Not the usual Matt Damon role, and the first for a while. How scary is that?
    There were just two things that scared Matt Damon about taking on the role of Jason Bourne: being an action movie, would it dumb down to extract maximum dollar? �The inclination is to make them bigger: the more money that goes in, the more stuff you�ve got to blow up,� he says with a touch of dry humour. �They get dumbed down, the higher the budget gets. And this was walking that fine line. It�s a $60 million budget movie � huge for me, but only about half the standard cost for a studio picture like this. Still, you have to do certain things to get that money back. It�s not a kitchen sink drama.�
  • Bernie Mac preview from the Indianapolis Star:
    If you've seen the commercials for the new season of "The Bernie Mac Show," you might have thought the show looked flat. Not at all.
    Last season's best new comedy starts out blazing with a hilarious episode that finds Bernie being goaded into playing in Matt Damon's children's charity golf tournament.
    Bernie balks initially, but when his agent says Damon boasted about beating Bernie when they were filming "Ocean's Eleven," Bernie takes the bait. He says he lost because, the night before, Julia Roberts had taken him to an all-you-can-eat lobster buffet.
    "America's sweetheart made me sick to my doggone stomach," Bernie moans.
    With Bernie's competitive nature in action, some of what happens is predictable. Much of it, though, is hilarious, especially Bernie's reaction when he finds out that Damon's golf partner is Lucy "Xena Warrior Princess" Lawless.
  • Did anyone watch Leno with Bernie Mac on Monday?
  • Here's the press release from NBC officially announcing that Matt will host the season premiere of "Saturday Night Live" on 5 October.
  • Here's a series of photos from the Bernie Mac Show appearance.
  • If it's not too late, Access Hollywood will have a story on the Bernie Mac appearance tonight (Pat O'Brien also appears in the episode).
  Jann in NH also wrote:
  I just saw that Matt will be on Access Hollywood tonight 9/18 - doing a promo for the Bernie Mac show. Just FYI if anyone wants to tune in.
• Costanza wrote:
  I am Costanza, who emailed ya about The talented Mr Rpley cut scenes. I wanted to thank you so much for having posted my mail and for the replies I got! :) I have a few questions: where did you get that script you posted a few lines of? Downloaded it from the Net? I did download Ripley's script last year but it was without cut scenes.. Could you kindly provide me the URL if it's to find the script online? Please, I'd totally love to read those scenes completely!! I seem to spot some of the book passages in those scenes, esp. the on with gymnasts on the beach, or then one when Dickie comes to Tom and says he's not a queer. I am really mad at the Miramax if they are the cause of these cuts (I also had read about the over 3 hours lenght), caust the cut scenes sound brilliant and now I am dieing even more to see them! Damn! I really hope they'll decide to make a collectors edition of the DVD. BTW, Ripley's game (Italian director, located in Italy, partially Italian cast) is scheduled to be relased in the fall here.. Do you care me to let you know when it' s released , or not cause it's not strictly related to Matt? I love John Malkovich, but I personally think they shouldn't have dumped Matt, and Minghella's much better director than Liliana Cavani. Besides, it is not so realistic that Ripley is gonna be played by John, when he is only 10/15 years older than when Matt played it (late 50'ies, late 60'ies/early 70'ies).. I think that also for the realism sake, Matt should have kept on playing Ripley. Sorry, I blabbed enough..
  Please, thank David who answer my question too, on my behalf!
  (Constanza: Matt was not "dumped" - the Malkovich film is a separate production than "The Talented Mr. Ripley.")
• Jeff wrote:
  I know you reported, a while back, that Matt is scheduled to host the season premiere of Saturday Night Live (with Bruce Springsteen as musical guest) on October 5th, and I've heard the same rumor a number of times elsewhere, from different people... but I haven't seen anything that would seem to be an "official" announcement of this anywhere in the press.
  Also, this is the second time now I've noticed you mention this:
  "On Oct. 3, Matt Damon and DANNY GLOVER will host a benefit screening of 'My Khmer Heart,' a film that received the 2000 HFF Discovery Award for Best Documentary. The event, which will be held at the Directors Guild of America, will benefit Cambodian orphans."
  ... which, because of the timing, again makes me wonder if Matt really is doing the October 5th SNL. Can you shed any light on this? Do you believe that the news of his hosting is "official"?
  And enjoy the Bernie Mac Show tonight -- I'll be watching, too!
  (Jeff: we too wonder about the SNL hosting - only time will tell.)

• From Felicity:
  • What's interesting about the overseas articles, is that they seem to talk more around the subject (nature of interview, how Matt appears - dress and attitude) than US papers. Maybe the American interviewers are just too jaded and feel they are part of a non-personal process, and therefore rarely descriptive of the person before them. The international papers are happy because Matt's actually in their country, often taking time for sightseeing and to appreciate their city.
    The other interesting nature of the overseas interviews is to see the national differences in how they approach Matt, and the promotion of the movie. One example of this is how they cover the presence of Odessa. Bear with me on this theory, based on the press reports I've seen...
    In Taiwan Odessa (and her mother) were greeted with flowers at the airport, and she's in almost as many photos as Matt in the papers (I've got the hard copies). But she wasn't mentioned, at least in the English version of stories that I've seen.
    In Australia almost every story reported that Matt was travelling with his girlfriend and her mother. He was asked questions about it (responding cautiously), and talked about Odessa for the first time on national TV. There were a few photos of her in the press, and it was very open, and good-humored.
    In Britain, she was barely mentioned, except for trashier stories in the tabloids. In Germany there was no mention of her at all. In Spain, she was mentioned in almost every article and photo caption, and there were comments that she walked around the streets with Matt and appeared at a photo session.
    What does it all mean? Probably nothing, but it amused me.
  • Expanding on the "Matt's niceness" theory, here's a perfectly timed article from Singapore based on the Taiwan interviews. Excerpts below:
    Taken from: here; great photos at: here:
    NICE GUY DAMON
    WONG KIM HOH meets Matt Damon in Taipei and talks to the actor about performance anxiety, amnesia and The Bourne Identity
    Sept 12, 2002
    NICE. A controversial word. Some literary snobs revile it as a nothing word - bland, uninteresting.
    Others extol it for its economy and convenience. It's monosyllabic, yet so positive and versatile.
    And it describes Matt Damon to a T. Well-groomed, clean cut, he minds his manners and exudes congeniality. He is good-looking, but in an unthreatening and reassuring sort of way.
    Yup, he is a nice guy.
    Not insidiously, ingratiatingly nice like his diabolical gay serial killer character in The Talented Mr Ripley, mind you.
    Instead, his is a casual, uncomplicated and genuine niceness, the sort that melts cynicism and puts smiles on faces.
    He listens to questions attentively, eschews affectations of boredom and proffers anecdotes instead of one-word answers...
    Perhaps it's the actor in him. Perhaps it's his gift of the gab. Perhaps it's his four years reading English in Harvard. But Damon is a great story-teller.
    He enunciates clearly, pauses for dramatic effect and has a way with words...
    He grinned and said of the director of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: "Can I tell you a story about Ang Lee?"
    "I met Ang Lee; it was for Ride With The Devil. On the day that I was supposed to meet him, I got up for a five-mile run in Central Park. But I got completely lost so I had to run 10 miles.
    "I met him, and we were making small talk and he asked me, 'So what did you do this morning?' So I told him the story.
    Meanwhile, I had prepared a whole scene to read to him but he told me, 'You have the part'.
    He said: "This is exactly what these characters would be doing. They run until they get where they are going. You didn't catch a cab, you ran."
    However, Damon didn't take on the role because he was offered The Talented Mr Ripley the next day.
    "Ang told me I should take Ripley; it was a very good and important role. That man is so completely fascinating."
    And Damon, he is so completely nice.
  • Here's a positive look at Gerry from the Toronto festival, on AICN:
    GERRY
    Gerry is an undeniable example of an ambitious art film that both entertains and woos. Unlike many other films of its kind, Gerry does not present an overly intellectualized notion at the expense of an interesting narrative but rather it recounts an engaging story in a unique and interesting style while concurrently relaying interesting ideas about despair and desolation in our geographical surroundings.
    For those completely unaware of this films existence, it chronicles the story of two young men, played by Matt Daman and Casey Affleck, who loose their way while hiking a desert trail somewhere in the Southwest. As described by the film�s director Gus Vant Sant, �the movie has a very expanded pace,� but with the exception of maybe one or two shots, the film handles this elongated pace very effectively. Gerry features two very strong performances from Matt and Casey. Both men displayed a strong sense of comedic timing as well as a there range and ability to subtlety articulate their characters feelings and concerns. What limited dialogue the actors have is filled with humor and showcases the progression of a very poignant exchange between two increasingly desperate individuals. The film is very nicely photographed by Harris Savides, who encapsulates the viewer through his constant manipulation of depth and field of view.
    What is perhaps most remarkable about this film is that in spite of its limited dialogue and lengthen shots, it nevertheless manages to remain focused and maintain the audience�s interest and attention from beginning to end. (****)
    In the Toronto Festival awards, Gerry received a "Special Mention" in the Visions section (equal runner-up).
  • Matt and Bourne are now losing by a large margin in the yahoo/Hollywood Film Festival awards: http://movies.yahoo.com/movieawards/
    (Read on - see Kathy's note)
• And Kathy wrote:
  I found this over at ETOnline and thought you might be interested.
  Dennis Quaid at the Hollywood Film Fest!
  September 16, 2002
  Click here to vote for whom you think should win Hollywood Movie of the Year, Actor of the Year and Actress of the Year!
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  It's time again to roll out the red carpet! Tinseltown's brightest stars, from LEONARDO DiCAPRIO and MATT DAMON to JENNIFER ANISTON and TOM HANKS, are expected to hit the town this October for an eight-day marathon-celebration of filmmaking at this year's Hollywood Film Festival!
  From Oct. 1-8, celebrities, filmmakers and industry VIPs will attend events at various venues throughout Los Angeles, such as the historic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and the Arclight/Cinerama Dome.
  Leo, JOSH HARTNETT, DANNY DeVITO and director GARRY MARSHALL will be on-hand to present awards voted on by the public at the 6th annual Hollywood Movie Awards Gala Ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Oct. 7. 'Panic Room' star JODIE FOSTER will take home one of the festival's most distinguished honors highlighting an extraordinary acting career that spans over 30 years. The two-time Oscar winner will receive the festival's Hollywood Outstanding Achievement in Acting Award.
  Director MARTIN SCORSESE, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate JODY WILLIAMS, MPAA president JACK VALENTI and composer MARC SHAIMAN are among the other honorees being applauded at the star-studded ceremony.
  The film festival opens with the world premiere of 'The Ring,' a psychological thriller starring NAOMI WATTS. The 'Mulholland Drive' star will also be honored with the festival's Hollywood Breakthrough Acting Award, while 'Charlie's Angels' director McG (who is currently underway on the film's sequel) will take home the Hollywood Breakthrough Directing Award for his feature debut starring CAMERON DIAZ and LUCY LIU.
  On Oct. 3, Matt Damon and DANNY GLOVER will host a benefit screening of 'My Khmer Heart,' a film that received the 2000 HFF Discovery Award for Best Documentary. The event, which will be held at the Directors Guild of America, will benefit Cambodian orphans.
  While the HFF Discovery Award winners are carefully chosen by a panel of veteran filmmakers, you can help decide who will take home the festival's top honors of Hollywood Movie of the Year, Hollywood Actor of the Year and Hollywood Actress of the Year. Last year, the general public voted on the year's best films and lavished kudos on BAZ LUHRMANN's vibrant and inventive film, 'Moulin Rouge.' The spectacular musical was voted Hollywood Movie of the Year, while EWAN McGREGOR and NICOLE KIDMAN took home the acting honors.
  This year, you can cast your votes for Hollywood's best and brightest!

  HOLLYWOOD MOVIE OF THE YEAR NOMINEES: 
  'The Bourne Identity'
  'Monsoon Wedding'
  'Minority Report'
  'My Big Fat Greek Wedding'
  'Road to Perdition'
  'Y Tu Mama Tambien'
  
  HOLLYWOOD ACTOR OF THE YEAR AWARD NOMINEES: 
  Matt Damon ('The Bourne Identity') 
  Hugh Grant ('About a Boy') 
  Tom Hanks ('Road to Perdition') 
  Paul Newman ('Road to Perdition') 
  Dennis Quaid ('The Rookie') 
  Robin Williams ('One Hour Photo') 
  
  HOLLYWOOD ACTRESS OF THE YEAR AWARD NOMINEES: 
  Jennifer Aniston ('The Good Girl') 
  Ellen Burstyn ('Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood') 
  Jodie Foster ('Panic Room') 
  Diane Lane ('Unfaithful') 
  Bebe Neuwirth ('Tadpole') 
  Nia Vardalos ('My Big Fat Greek Wedding') 
  

Weekend Australian article 2/6/01
Yours sincerely
By Shane Danielsen If the nice-guy thing is an act, it's a good one. Shane Danielsen meets Matt Damon, the straight-shooting star of All the Pretty Horses
SOMEONE has overstayed his welcome. You sense it at once: a tension in the air, a strained look in the eyes of the publicist. The journalist in question is American, buff and tanned and handsome in a college football sort of way -- a television guy, possibly named Brad or Rick -- and apparently he and Matt Damon have a friend in common ``back east''. ``So,'' the journo is saying as I arrive, ``when I get to LA, I'll give you a call. We can hang out.'' The publicist looks appalled by this suggestion, but the actor nods slowly, like a man hearing a child explain a finger-painting, and gives a warm smile. ``Sure,'' he replies. ``That'd be great.'' His eyes are lit, his voice animated: he seems absolutely sincere. Delighted, the reporter actually punches his arm (the publicist flinches visibly) and walks away grinning.
It's always faintly distasteful to watch journalists attempt to buddy up to The Talent -- the disparity in status, the artificial nature of the encounter, all militate against any true rapport being struck -- but Damon, one suspects, is more likely to inspire this presumption than most. On screen and off, he seems to exude a kind of easy accessibility, the feeling that, were it not for the dictates of this bothersome schedule, this celebrity thing, he'd be perfectly happy to come join you in the bar for a couple of beers and some laughs. Perhaps it's that smile, all white teeth and guileless good humour. Or that frat-boy sense of camaraderie. Handsome without looking intimidating, talented without seeming freakish, he's the quintessential ordinary joe made good, a decent guy.
If it's an act, it's a good one. For all my attempts at ingenuity, I suspect I'm not the first person to ask the 30-year-old actor about the vicissitudes of fame, or the sudden (one might almost say meteoric) upward trajectory of his career. Nevertheless, he considers each question thoughtfully and replies at length, with candour and unfailing good humour. He's modest and apparently under no illusions about his good fortune: ``I am,'' he says early in the conversation, ``one lucky bastard. I know that.''
And to his credit, he behaves accordingly. At times he seems almost shy. It has been just five years since Good Will Hunting lifted the then unknown actor to fame (along with his best friend and co-writer, Ben Affleck) and he still seems to find his breakthrough faintly bewildering: ``I still remember, six months before Good Will Hunting, going in to audition for Cutthroat Island. And not the lead role, either -- we're talking Second Swordsman From The Left here.'' He pauses. ``I didn't get it.'' But that, too, might be taken as proof of his uncanny good luck. ``True,'' he smiles. ``It wasn't exactly a career-maker.''
Standing onstage at the 1997 Oscars, accepting their award for best original screenplay, the pair's achievement seemed all the more remarkable in that it appeared to subvert one of the longest-standing Hollywood paradigms: that you have to be a ruthless bastard to get ahead. ``Well, I don't know about that,'' he sighs. ``There's already enough bad behaviour around in LA without adding to it, you know. I don't think Ben and I were ever particularly hard-bitten in the way we conducted ourselves -- maybe because we came from a position of having absolutely no power whatsoever. Nobody would listen to us for an awfully long time, or even give us the time of day. So we couldn't exactly go around telling people to shove it, or throwing tantrums. 'Cause the fact of the matter is, no one cared."
Now he's starring in another literary adaptation: the long-awaited screen version of Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, one of the most important American novels of the 1990s. Such roles are a challenge, he claims. As an avid reader, he's determined to be faithful to the spirit of those books; yet as an actor, he wants to avoid a simple talking-picture version of the original. ``Ed Norton and I talk a lot about relating to the scripts we choose, and what we see in them that relates to our own lives. There's always some point of identification there, whether you recognise it in yourself at the time or not. I don't think I could play someone who was completely alien to me.''
What about the talented (though psychopathic) Mr Ripley? ``I thought -- and Anthony agreed -- that he's primarily about social aspiration and unease: virtually everything he does is a consequence of that. He's not specifically out to kill -- he just wants to improve himself and live a better life. And I think everyone can relate to that at some level. That sense of being on the outside looking in.'' It's something Damon can relate to, having struggled for years to break into the big league. Any kind of actorly success is, he maintains, little more than a crap shoot (``the odds against it are enormous'') and therefore, to someone who confesses to a fondness for gambling, represents a challenge that's practically irresistible. ``If you choose to become an actor, you're really entering a profession in which there's an awful lot of risk and hardship, and a minuscule chance of financial reward or security. Individual jobs may be rewarding, little bits of work here and there, but you'll probably starve along the way. So you forgo a more stable, responsible life for a dream, something that a lot of other people would dismiss as pure frivolity.'' So why do it? ``Because I'm an idiot,'' he laughs. ``I don't know. I didn't have a choice: it was the one thing which really spoke to me. Writing was good, but acting was the buzz: that was where the magic was.''
Damon, for his part, professes to be unconcerned by the film's poor returns: ``I really don't strategise too much in terms of my career,'' he says. ``I go on the particular merits of the material and the project: by the script, or by a certain director or other actors who I want to try working with. And on those grounds, I can live with a movie not doing well financially. There are other rewards.''
This is an exceptional, not to say rather idealistic way of working. ``Oh, sure,'' he smiles. ``Some actors I know plan out their moves very deliberately. They'll sign on for a big film even when they hate the material and when they don't respect their co-workers. They figure all that's OK -- it's worth it, because it promises to be a huge box-office success. And then, when it's not a hit, they're really left with nothing from the experience. They've wasted their time, and screwed-up their game plan in the bargain.''
Could he be alluding, perhaps, to his friend and sometime colleague Affleck, whose choices have, on the whole, been rather less lofty than his own? ``No, not at all. Ben made Armageddon, which, OK, wasn't necessarily a film I would have wanted to do -- but at the time he needed a job. Same with me when I did Saving Private Ryan: yes, it was Spielberg -- but it was also work, and I needed to work, because I'd just finished Good Will Hunting, which I'd lived with for six years, and it still hadn't been released ... Afterwards, people told me how smart I was, going straight from my little indie film into a big Hollywood blockbuster, but really, it was just dumb luck and the need to eat.
``I'm not a genre snob,'' he adds. ``And I'm not saying I'll never make an action movie, or some big, dumb blockbuster. But I haven't had to yet, because I've been incredibly fortunate in terms of the scripts I've been offered. Incredibly well-written scripts, with film-makers I've really admired. And not many actors can say that.'' Time is up. We shake hands. I'm scheduled to fly back through Los Angeles but, much to the publicist's relief, I don't make any rash promises to shout him a daiquiri in SkyBar. Still, if our whereabouts did happen to coincide, I'd probably find it hard not to at least say hi. He's such a nice guy, after all.

• From Natalie:
  Hi, i saw a picture of Matt on snl on this snl fansite. This is the link... here. (Pic shown to right and as feature pic of the day.)
  I also saw a timeline like page of him in the latest J-14 mag. It shows 6 pics of him from high school to now. Its only out a few more days though.
• From a Big Matt Fan:
  • A couple of tidbits from this week's Entertainment Weekly:
    On Page 16, in the "Random Quote" section: "People follow me and scream, 'Matt, Matt, Matt!' It hasn't gotten to the point where I'm going to answer to 'Matt'. -- Ben Affleck, on the celebrity for whom he's most often mistaken, childhood buddy Matt Damon.
    On Page 91, this review of the upcoming "Bernie Mac" episode:
  • THE BERNIE MAC SHOW (Fox, TV-PG) Mac is back for a second season of in-your-face humor. He's as dapper, smooth, and cranky as ever, and the only disappointment in this premiere is that there are too few scenes with Bernie's wife and the wild, wacky kids in his house. Instead, the episode takes place mostly on a golf coruse, where Bernie is part of a celebrity match, pitted against his Oceans 11 costar Matt Damon. There's a great throwaway line about Julia Roberts; Damon's a charmer; and the poker scenes between Bernie and his buddies could go on all night as far as I'm concerned. B+ --Ken Tucker
• From Felicity:
  
  • There are pictures in "Woman's Day" magazine of Matt and Odessa in Normandy visiting the grave of the soldier whose story inspired "Saving Private Ryan." I'll scan the pics and send it through.
    (Done and pics shown above!)
  • From a Straits Times interview, a few excerpts:
    Matt about Bourne
    Matt Damon, Hollywood's latest action hero, is willing to wax lyrical about his new movie, The Bourne Identity. But not about his travels with his girlfriend and mother
    By Valerie Khoo
    ACTOR Matt Damon is about to hit the red carpet in Sydney at a preview of his latest film, The Bourne Identity. But the 31-year-old is so keen to talk about his movie, he ignores the publicist's subtle signals that it is time to go.
    Despite his macho persona, Damon emphasises that he is just a regular guy. He says: 'Sometimes, I think of my friends watching the movie and wonder if they think I'm making a total jackass of myself. They'd be thinking 'Come on! Martial arts? That's Matt - he'd would get killed!' '
    Although Damon and Potente, who plays Damon's love interest, share some intimate scenes in the film, his real life affections are for his girlfriend, Odessa Whitmire. While Damon has squired Hollywood starlets such as Winona Ryder and Minnie Driver in the past, Whitmire works as the personal assistant to Casey Affleck, Ben's brother. Damon is in Sydney not only with Whitmire but also her mother, Deanna Davis, and I am in the middle of asking him about this when the publicist cuts me off and suggests Damon head to the red carpet event and his waiting fans instead. Damon resists her advice. 'My obsessive compulsive disorder won't let me go,' he smiles. 'What were you going to ask?' I ask: 'What's the best and worst thing about travelling with your girlfriend's mother?' He laughs, flashes his famous smile and stands up. 'Yep, I think we're definitely out of time.'
  • A quote from "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin in a local paper:
    You guys have taken the leap to the big screen as the Crocodile Hunters, but do you get to go to the movies much yourself?
    Steve: "We never did - but we do now! The Sum of All Fears was on at the Maroochydore cinemas and we went out and saw it on the second day. And wait 'til you see The Bourne Identity mate! I reckon it's the hottest flick this year. "I met Matt Damon at the Nickelodeon Awards in the US and he's a really nice, normal bloke. I got to meet the Austin Powers guy, Adam Sandler, Will Smith ... they're all fans. "I guess I'm the celebrity's celebrity!"
  • A late report from Madrid (I've tried again to make sense of a Babelfish translation): Matt Damon presents his latest film ' The Bourne Identity� MADRID, (EUROPE PRESS), 13 September
    Matt Damon presented yesterday his last film in our country, The Bourne Identity, for the mass media. In this occasion, the actor interprets to Jason Bourne, a spy with amnesia and many things to discover without being killed his in the way.
    Matt, who was very smiling before the photographers and brought to light his more tender side when taking photos with a girl, took advantage of his lightning visit to our country to prove a typical gastronome by going to eat to a well-known madrileno restaurant.
    This was the first time Matt Damon had visited Spain, a country with which he has been enchanted and, that assured, would like to visit with more tranquillity since the young actor of ' Good Will Hunting' or ' Saving Private Ryan' as soon as it has had time to visit the more emblematic corners of Madrid: "I would like to have more time. It is my first visit, but I will come back when I have more time. There has not been time for me to visit anything but what I have seen is very pretty ".
  • Excerpts from an interview in the Brisbane News:
    the interview: matt damon
    He's a big-time Hollywood star, but Matt Damon knows better than to take success for granted, writes Trent Dalton Maybe we know too much about Matt Damon. It's like something fellow actor Edward Norton once told him: "The less people know about you, the more willing they are to accept you playing different characters." The world's got Matt Damon pegged. He's the good guy who made it big, and brought along his best mate, Ben Affleck, for the ride. Down to earth, guileless, he's the all-American kid done good. His smile could illuminate a sports stadium and when he smiles he means it. In Australia to promote his latest film The Bourne Identity, he has been the perfect interviewee for a sea of glowing print and television journalists. As he is now.
    He details, as if he hasn't done it a thousand times before, his "meteoric" rise and laughs about the hard early days, scrounging for bit parts in sitcoms and tele-movies. His enthusiasm is rare. It's like he's grown up watching Hollywood stars whine about their lives and vowed to be different. His answers are thoughtful, honest and insightful. He can't help but be open. And he fears it might be his undoing.
    
    "I've had many conversations with Edward about it," says Matt, who has remained close to Norton since 1998's Rounders. "A lot of our conversations are about this kind of thing - interviews and things. He thinks, and I actually agree with him, that the fewer of these things that he does, the better it is for him as an actor. He's right. I know Edward's story and his whole background, but I think not knowing it makes it better watching him on film."
    
    But behind Matt Damon's million-dollar smile is a hard-working actor trying to better himself, while constantly being aware, and fearful, of the fickle nature of his profession. Since his Oscar-winning success as screenwriter and star of Good Will Hunting, his lead work has been incredibly strong, but, and this is the only thing that matters in Hollywood, economically inconsistent. The Bourne Identity had to work. And it does.
    
    "I'm breathing a big sigh of relief to be honest with you," says Matt, 31. "Seriously. I mean, the last couple of movies I had where I was the star of them, you know, they didn't do very well. You know, Legend of Bagger Vance and All The Pretty Horses, neither of them did very well. So this was a big one for me. I think, had it not worked, that would have been pretty much it for me."
    
    Re: sudden success
    
    "It was kind of weird, the response," he says. "They threw this party for us, right before the Academy Awards, and our families and a bunch of our friends from back home came out. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman showed up and all these actors that we'd never met. It was insane. Tom Cruise comes up and he's like, `Hey. Tom.', and sticks his hand out. It was pretty funny. My family was in the corner having a few beers and laughing. I mean, falling over laughing."
    
    Re: his dedication
    
    Of course, he is. Call it the Will Hunting in him, the Will who put friendship over success at any cost. It's like Will is his conscience and he'll never let Matt forget the struggle or forego friendship for dollars or step on heads on the climb up. Never was there an actor so determined to be real. Not fake.
    
    In a recent introduction he gave for an episode of ABC's Australian Story about the tireless aid work of Adelaide's Geraldine Cox who established orphanages in Cambodia, Matt seemed almost apologetic for speaking about her. He looked acutely aware of the pretence that could be read into this big Hollywood star paying tribute to this relatively unknown Australian charity worker. "She's not a saint, she's human," he said, before almost scoffing, with an embarrassed laugh, at the prospect of Hollywood glamorising Cox's story in a film now in the works. And at that moment, if you knew anything at all about Matt Damon, you knew he was on the level.

• Quick Takes, Los Angeles Times:
  Tickets on on sale via TicketMaster at noon Sunday for a Nov. 4 staged reading of "The World of Nick Adams," a fund raiser for the launch of Paul Newman's Painted Turtle Camp. Joining Newman and his wift Joanne Woodward: Julias Roberts, Matt Damon, Annette Benning, Warren Beatty, Brian Dennehy, Danny DeVito and Kevin Kline.
• From Felicity:
  • Here's the companion picture (see right) to the one from Arena magazine, posted recently. Both pictures (face up, face down), were on a two-page spread as part of the Daily Telegraph interview in the UK. The headline was "Matt or gloss." Quite lovely :-)
  • Here's an interview from the most serious local newspaper, "The Australian." Notable again for the honesty of Matt's comments (see "Pearl Harbor" references), and the journalist's displeasure at doing the interview being overcome after meeting Matt.
    Alpha Male
    Tired of saving the world in explosion-fests, Matt Damon is hunting a decent role, writes Lynden Barber
    Job wanted by frustrated Hollywood star. Salary unimportant. Anything needing a brain will do. This may sound incredible, but the star of O11, SPR and TTMR hasn't worked in a year, and for a simple reason. He can't find a gig. A halfway decent one, at least.
    Such is the drought of interesting movie scripts in the era of the no-brain blockbuster that Matt Damon has not signed on for a movie since making CIA thriller TBI a year ago. And although that film, adapted from a Robert Ludlum airport paperback and opening nationally on September 26, is hardly dumb, neither is it exactly a brain-teaser.
    Although Damon is one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, reputedly earning $US10 million for TBI, the increasing popularity of "$100 million-plus explosion-fests" makes it tough for actors to get substantial roles they can sink their teeth into, says the Harvard-educated actor while visiting Australia to promote Bourne, directed by Go and Swingers director Doug Liman.
    Damon has been looking for suitable film roles but "I just don't see anything that I really want to do", he says. And it's not because he isn't sent lots of scripts. Tired of not working, he spent months in London this year acting on stage in TIOY, penned by Kenneth Lonergan, the writer-director of last year's independent hit movie, You Can Count On Me. Apart from that, "there isn't a piece of writing I've seen that I've gotten really excited about", he complains.
    It should be clear by this point that Damon is rather more intriguing than just a bland, pretty-boy Hollywood star getting his face in the glossies with another ravishing star on his arm (though in previous years he did have Winona Ryder as a fiancee and Minnie Driver as a girlfriend).
    This is something of a surprise, for this hack had not been looking forward to the interview. Damon's films, to be honest, had not often filled me with great joy, though I was impressed by his performance as a young lawyer in Francis Ford Coppola's version of John Grisham's The Rainmaker. But, then, neither did they trigger particular displeasure (the hack somehow missed the widely panned ATPH and TLOBV). Damon is a capable and likeable performer - but is he, perhaps, a little too likeable? Certainly there seemed insufficient darkness beneath that well-scrubbed demeanour to make his charming killer Tom Ripley entirely believable in TTMR.
    No, there was nothing personal in not being in a rush to interview Damon; merely, let us admit it, a touch of that world-weariness that can, on occasion, overwhelm even the more carefree chroniclers of those who glitter brightly.
    It is a surprise, then, that meeting Damon is a pleasant and interesting experience. He is, of course, handsome in a preppy kind of way and looks younger than his 31 years, but he also has charm to spare without being smooth or practised. His style is relaxed, his answers free of autopilot PR-speak or defensiveness, and it is clear that he has what used to be called values.
    "It seems like Hollywood's getting interested in hitting grand slams, not even home runs," says the actor, warming to his theme. "All these movies we [TBI] opened against were $US100 million-plus [budget] explosion-fests and a lot of them did well, which means you're going to be seeing more of 'em next year. They're getting dumbed down a bit and it's becoming about bigger and not necessarily better."
    It's hard not to think at this point of Pearl Harbor, the corny special effects-fest starring his friend since childhood, actor Ben Affleck (the pair won the original screenplay Oscar for GWH when they were still relatively unknown).
    "I'm not a fan of Pearl Harbor but I don't think Ben is either," says Damon without skipping a beat. "I think there was one big mistake made with that movie. Not just because he's my friend, but I think he got hung out to dry a little bit on that one." By the film-makers, he means. "He was aked to create a character in a world of innocence, even though the dialogue was a bit camp, because this was about a time 'when people do say things like this'. If you're going to do that and make an old-fashioned movie, then you've got to cut [edit] it that way or else he just looks like a melodramatic [actor].
    "He was done a disservice, I thought. Look, I grew up with him and I've seen him do terrific stuff on stage and I thought that wasn't a fair shake he got in that movie because he's a better actor than that."
    Damon denies that TBI, in which he plays a CIA agent who has lost his memory on a covert assassination mission, had been delayed because of post-September 11 political sensitivities. Rather, he says the movie was influenced by the 1980s Iran-Contra affair since director Doug Liman's father, Arthur Liman, had been the chief prosecutor of Iran-Contra conspirator Oliver North. The delay in its release - it was filmed before last year's terror attacks - was caused by Liman's desire to shoot an additional pair of scenes. Despite the war against terror he believes Hollywood should not develop "amnesia over some of the darker things that have happened at a higher level" in the US.
    Damon, who had an early career break when he appeared in Gulf War movie CUF, says he is "not in favour of going to war with Iraq. I don't think that will be any surprise to anybody in America. I took a little shit for signing my name to a petition saying we should not hurry up and bomb Afghanistan post-9/11, that we should let cooler heads prevail and, if anything, seek diplomatic methods, sanctions.
    "A lot of times we end up at the mercy of the American media. We're heading into a risky time when there are fewer and fewer independent media outlets and sources of information that aren't all coming from the exact same place. So I think it would be good for everybody to get as much information as they can from as many sources as they can. But easier said than done."
    And no, he doesn't have any aspiration towards an involvement in politics. Acting has long been his passion - he studied English at Harvard with the profession in mind. But the obvious question is, if he isn't satisfied by the material being sent his way, why does he not reunite with Affleck to write screenplays that could give them the opportunities they seek?
    That, it turns out, is actly what is on their minds, too. The pair wrote GWH to get work as actors: "The good news is that we suddenly got some work, the bad news is it became a logistical impossibility to write something because we were never in the same city for very long," says Damon. However, the buddies met recently and discussed writing a screenply for themselves and Casey Affleck to direct and act in. "To just make some movies together would be the ultimate victory for this." He grins hopefully. "We could do what we love with the people we're close with."
  9/14/02
  From Felicity:
  • The final stop in the world tour was Madrid, and quite a few interviews are online. All the usual stuff, including a mention that he knows Spanish from summers spent with his mother in Mexico, and expressing a desire to work with Pedro Almodovar. Headline quote: "Hollywood prepares films as if they were pies"
  • Here's my reworked version of a Babelfish translated elpais.es article (could be wrong in various parts): here.
    "Someone tell Pedro I want to make a film in Spain" He speaks acceptable Spanish, although he recognizes that he needs to practice. When younger, Matt Damon used to spend long seasons in Mexico with its mother, who then was learning Spanish, and they lodged with a Mexican family. "Now I have forgotten a little and I want to recover it", said the actor yesterday, who did not hide his interest in working in our country: "Somebody tell Pedro I want to make a film in Spain", laughs the protagonist of Good Will Hunting, and who is a personal friend of director Pedro Almod�var. Relaxed, smiling and not a diva, Damon travelled to Madrid from Berlin, where he has also been promoting The Bourne Identity, the film directed by Doug Liman and filmed for more than a year in Paris and Prague. Damon will travel today to New York to enjoy a year of rest. The North American actor, who sometimes has not been objective with the press (?), especially while his romance with the actress Winona Ryder lasted, travelled Wednesday to Madrid accompanied by his fianc�e, the actress Odessa Whitmire, to whom he had no qualms in kissing in the course of a break between a series of interviews and a session for the photographers. "Can I smoke?" he asked at the start of a meeting with journalists yesterday. When receiving an affirmative answer, the actor shouted : "Viva Espa��!"
  • Photos at: here and here
    Feature articles
    here, here, and here.
    Shorter story here.
  • From the Boston Globe:
    STACKING THE DECK In its latest issue, People magazine writes about the celeb support that Marjorie Decker has attracted in her campaign for state representative in the new Boston-Cambridge 8th Suffolk District. The story, ''When Celebs Rock the Vote,'' is accompanied by a photo of Decker with childhood pals Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who recorded a message for Decker that will be dispatched to voters' phones on Monday. We love the photo of a young Affleck with a cute-as-pie Decker back when they played Little League baseball together. All together now: Awww.
  • There are also lots of Norwegian articles around as Bourne opens there today.

• David (thanks!) wrote in answer to Constanza's question :
  There are many scenes that were cut from the theatrical release of The Talented Mr Ripley, especially from the opening of the film which establish Ripley's character in New York. However, these have never been included on a VHS or DVD release.
  There is currently a special edition DVD of Minghella's The English Patient in prodution (following on from an existing "normal" DVD release). It is possible therefore that a special edition Talented Mr Ripley could be released at a later date.
  From a marketing point of view, any special edition release could be tied-in with the release of Ripley's Game which wrapped last year, but is alledgedly having problems in post.
  I agree with you that The Talented Mr Ripley is a superbly-crafted film and suggested the title to Criterion some months ago. Click on "ask Jon Mulvaney" at here to suggest a title for release. Or contact Miramax.
• Bec wrote:
  LOL! Go vote for Matt as "Hot Babe Of The Month!" here.
• From Felicity:
  • Here's a picture from the Glamour magazine article.
  • The Berlin Morning Post has an interview with Matt. here.
    It's in German but there's not much new, except a few questions about Franka. A separate article about Franka mentioned her saying that Bourne's success didn't mean much to her, but it was important for Matt because he hadn't had a hit film in a while.
    Matt was asked whether his comments criticising Bourne's rating in the UK were career-damaging(!) He replied that it was just his honest opinion.
  • A good pic of Matt in Berlin promoting Bourne: here. (Shown as feature pic of the day)
  • An AICN story linked a Matt interview with a London TV program. here.
    Best quotes:
    VH: Finally, yourself and Ben Affleck are both spies. Is that pretty cool?
    MD: Yeah, we certainly didn�t plan it. But yeah, it�s kind of funny looking back. We are kind of relieved actually that the movies both did really well, because it would have been a drag if it was like, so you beat Ben, or hey Ben you beat Matt. We�re not of the mind that either success depends on the others failure.
    VH: Can�t you get together and do the next spy movie together?
    MD: I wonder if you can have Jack Ryan doing the analysis and Jason Bourne running around being his man in the field.
    VH: I think you should pen it.
    MD: I don�t know how Tom Clancy would feel about that.
  • Aidan Quinn gets upset again about Greenlight: here.
  • For Constanza:
    I've got a draft of the shooting script for Ripley, and while it's close to the final version as seen on screen, it is probably the complete version of what was filmed, minus the cuts for length. I think the original screening of the film went for close on three hours, and it was cut by about forty minutes.
    The main additional scenes in the script are, in order:

     
    1. Dickie opening presents that Ripley has bought for him
    2. Dickie and Dahlia (local girl) having sex outside the jazz club, with Ripley nearby.
    3. Dickie falling off the Vespa on the ride home (couple of scenes), and they start talking, including Ripley telling Dickie about his life in New York.
    4. Ripley and Marge discussing her work - a new study of algebra.  Ripley starts playing a harmonium, improvises, impresses Marge, Dickie walks into the room so Ripley starts playing "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."  Scene continues with Ripley, continuing to play the harmonium and guessing all twelve ingredients in Marge's recipe.
    5. Dickie coming into Ripley's bedroom and saying he's "not queer".
    6. The scene on the beach with the gymnasts, which was mentioned in the early draft of the script in Movieline mag.  
    7. Extension of a scene with Meredith where they're sitting at a cafe in the Piazza Navona (there are some stills of this).  Meredith says she doesn't care much for Italian boys, and Ripley says he doesn't care for Italian girls.
    8. A phone call in the Hotel Grand in Rome, which Ripley takes as Dickie (in the presence of Meredith).  I think the actor who played the scene, and was cut, was stage actor Matt McGrath, who has mentioned being cut from the film.
    9. An extension of the Christmas gifts scene in Ripley's apartment.  Ripley opens presents from "Dickie", reads fake cards and comments on them: "We'll give it to Tom, he appreciates poetry - he can read it aloud to Dickie, explain the difficult words."
    10. In Mongibello, selling the boat.
    11. Ripley watches the arrival of his new Steinway piano, bought with the cash from the boat sale.
    12. Longer death scene with Freddie.
    13. Scene at American Express after there's a problem with signatures.
    14. A few sequences where Ripley was backpacking through Italy, wasting time, he sees newspapers with his photograph (semi-blocked), before he arrives in Venice.
    15. Peter bringing Ripley into his new Venice Palazzi.  Peter: "I have to warn you - it's probably damp.  And camp.  All Venetian Palazzi are of the damp and camp variety." (This gives more meaning to a later comment)
    16. Ripley crying on Peter's shoulder after talking about Dickie.
    17. The scene (partly in the trailer but later cut) where Ripley enters Marge's bedroom.  Ripley: "I wish I could live Dickie's life for him.  I know what I would do."
    18. Ripley throws the typewriter into the water and it's later found for him
    

    A more romantic scene with Peter isn't described in the script, but you catch a glimpse of it in some of the behind the scenes footage. It would be a natural extension of the scene around the piano. There was also the complete description of Freddie's murder, including taking the car out of town, drops the body, and being seen by a couple amongst the tombs. He then drives towards Mongibello, and dumps Freddie's car over the side of a cliff.

• Kristin wrote:
  I'm not sure if anyone else noticed but the Today Show played one of the musical scores from the Good Will Hunting Soundtrack during their 9/11 coverage this morining at 7am. Funny, whenever I hear a song from that cd I can immediately picture the part in the movie that corresponds. God Bless America and let's pray for a safe day all over the world!
• Erika wrote:
  There is a very interesting article from an on-line magazine entitled "Hype Movie News: Project Greenlight Shirks The Screenwriter and Minorities. Michelle's View" located here . I love Matt, and I think Project Greenlight is awesome, but I kind of have to agree with the author on some points.
• Sent in by the Big Matt Fan:
  Matt came to Berlin one day early and spent the day sightseeing before two days of interviews. here (in German).
  Here's that German interview, imperfectly translated by Babel Fish.
  Hollywoodstar on Sightseeing route
  More art-interested matt Damon came specially one day in former times, in order to admire the beautifulnesses Berlin
  Matt Damon let prepare its Germany travel plans specially in such a way that he has a day completely off for itself in Berlin privately. The art-interested Hollywood star ("Oceans eleven "with Julia Robert) landed in the Sunday evening in Berlin, checkte in the hotel Adlon in, welcomed a grape/cluster of fans, whom well-behaved before the hauptportal to Paris place waited and was pleased then, which it still another whole day off has for the Sightseeing before itself.
  Before it is to the media today starting from 10 o'clock for the presentation of its new motion picture film ("the Bourne identity") for Fotoshootings and interviews in the small winter garden and the Beletage of the Adlon at the disposal, it could be chauffieren yesterday by the whole city.
  The Brandenburger gate wanted to see matt Damon from the proximity, like it recently its president George W. Bush could, the citizen of Berlin cathedral, the museum island with the Pergamonaltar, the gendarme market, the memory church, the realm day and naturally the area of government administration with the chancellorship. The architecture of the increasing city and the art galleries would have particularly interested it, were from the closest circle of its attendants to be heard. Not only Damons brother Kyle , which is a sculptor, artistically talented and interests. Also a boat travel on the Spree, of where out one can see the historical bridges just as good as the enormous area of government administration, stood on the trip program.
  Matt Damon had luck. Berlin showed up owing to the sunshine yesterday from its most beautiful side. It was a wonderful autumn day in the capital. The star expenditure-cost it fully. Today and tomorrow the 31-jaehrige actor will have no more time to throw itself in the capital life. Its management and the film company United internationally Pictures zugemutet to it a strict Arbeitskorsett. An interview will line up to the next. Without pardon. Finally the beautiful matt Damon is to bring in its face and his character-strong radiant emittance profitably as advertisement for the new motion picture film. In the film "the Bourne identity" plays matt Damon beside Franka potent one the main role. Former citizen of Berlin the play talent tummelt itself straight in Hollywood and cannot be therefore with the presentation of the film in the Adlon today not thereby. The turning work for the film began in October 2000, cinema start is on 26 September. "the Bourne identity" acts of a man, who is saved with shot wounds from the Mediterranean. It lost and does not know its memory no more, who it is. In its bank safe deposit falsified passports and its dwelling in Paris are turn out as case.
  The Suite in the Adlon against it is matt Damons retreat oasis. Even if the American canvas hero selected not, how many of his colleagues in the Praesidentensuite descended, but a smaller variant, he enjoyed the view of that Paris place and the Brandenburger gate its bed in Berlin is built from Kirsch and Myrtheholz, the pads and curtains from heavy, goldfarbenen linen materials. On the marble soils flauschige, cosy carpets lie.
  Completely secretly early arriving should be in Berlin to remain. Thus it had wished itself matt Damon. And he succeeded also nearly. Yesterday only few fans before the Adlon, the Hollywood MIME were located had in Berlin this time not many autographs to give. An official film premiere with red carpet and fan quantity is not planned. courage
• From Felicity:
  • There was an interview with Matt in the September edition of the UK "Glamour" magazine. It's still relevant and interesting, despite the recent media blitz.
    Matt's new identity
    As well as taking on top Hollywood roles, Matt Damon has been trying his hand at sitcoms and the London stage. He talks to Deborah Joseph about films, his family and the future.
    If you thought you'd seen a sexy Matt Damon lookalike walking the streets of London's Soho recently, with broad, slouchy shoulders, a rugged all-American baseball body and a snug-fitting khaki cap - it wasn't a lookalike at all. It was the man himself.
    He's been living in London, doing that hip Hollywood thing of coming over to appear on the West End stage. Matt was starring in "This is our youth", with two of his best friends, Summer Phoenix and Casey Affleck. But instead of staying at a top-class hotel, he rented a flat on Dean Street, among flashing neon 'Models inside' signs and men holding hands. He loved it. Loved the buzz of it. It reminded him of 'home' - Manhattan.
    "I bought an apartment in New York a couple of years ago," he reveals, "and I'm finally starting to make it into a home. I'm filling it with all my childhood books and loads of CDs. They're the things I can't live without."
    Until now, Matt hasn't been the kind of guy to settle down. He's been gypsy-esque, living out of rucksacks for the last five years. He's just spent six months in Prague and Paris filming TBI, a dark adaptation of a Robert Ludlum novel. He plays Jason Bourne, a man who wakes up on a fishing boat with a couple of bullet holes in his back and a bad case of amnesia. As the weeks go by, he rediscovers his past - that he was a cold-blooded murderer unable to put down roots. The new Bourne hates his life and years for stability and children. This broodiness and a craving for some kind of settled life is something Matt admits he can relate to.
    "I would love to have kids one day - my brother has two and I spoil them rotten but, when things go wrong, I can hand them back. I'm not quite ready for my own yet. I want to be able to give them all my attention and a stable foundation. I don't want to feel they held me back."
    Born in October 1970 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Matt's parents divorced when he was young. His mother, Nancy, is a child psychologist who "spent her life making a difference, writing books and giving lectures. My mother is a feminist. She taught me and my brother tat everything we could do, women could do just as well. She made us cook one night a week and wash the dishes." He must be a good cook, then? "No! I'm terrible. The minute I left home I never wanted to cook again."
    His mother also shaped a strong view of women and relationships. "She bucked the traditional romantic idea that my job as a man is to ride up on a white horse to a woman who's helplessly lying in wait. Of course, I don't mind if a girlfriend needs my support. But that's not the only role a man has. I don't believe men have to be the rock. I'm not afraid to show vulnerability and cry in front of people I'm close to. It's very important in a relationship to be able to open up like that."
    The current rumour is that he's engaged to Odessa Whitmire, Ben Affleck's personal publicist. Is it true? He shakes his head. "No, it's not." But are they still going out? "Yes." He cringes at having to answer questions about his love life - it's just not cool - but is too gentlemanly to refuse. In the past, some of Matt's well-documented relationships with famous women - including Minnie Driver and Winona Ryder - ended badly, but could the fact Odessa isn't famous and understands the 'business' be the secret of their success" "I've had wonderful relationships with people who are famous, and those who aren't," he answers diplomatically. "She understands the lifestyle of an actor." So what qualities does he look for in a woman? "The usual stuff. A great sense of humor. But mainly someone who can be my friend."
    It's hardly surprising that he's still upset over the 'love-rat' label that stuck to him when he supposedly dumped Minnie Driver on Oprah. He flushes when reminded, but more out of annoyance than embarrassment. It's hard to picture him - down to earth, family-oriented - being such a cad. "It's weird that I still get asked this, because Minnie debunked the myth [by admitting they'd already split] a couple of years ago. I really don't know where it came from. But no," he screws his face up in distaste, "I"m not like that. It's not something I would ever do. And it was a bummer. It was the first time I'd experienced that kind of attention. It made me much more guarded about my personal life. I don't really read papers now. I'm walking around in ignorant bliss."
    Matt swears he didn't even read the reviews of his play, but you know what the critics say must both him really. He's too ambitious for it not to. You can tell by the way he puts everything on the line for his roles. He lost so much weight for Courage Under Fire that he came dangerously close to shrinking his heart, and swung a golf club so hard while training for TLOBV that he displaced a rib. "It's OK now, I think."
    It's a fear of losing out that makes him such a workaholic. "I'm in an elusive business. It could all go away, to better and newer actors. So I have to keep going because I'm scared not to. I was going to take time off, but I took this play instead."
    Alongside the theatre, the films, a multimedia website and working on Project Greenlight - a 13-week TV contest that will give the winner (an unknown) the opportunity to make a film - Matt found to play a cameo in smash-hit sitcom Will & Grace. He plays a straight guy pretending to be gay so he can gatecrash Jack's choir group because he loves the music. He reveals he has 'a steady' - his old school friend - Ben.
    'Ben' is, of course, a reference to Affleck, the old school friend with whom Matt co-wrote the script Good Will Hunting, which won them an Oscar for best screenplay in 1998. The two were inseparable. Ridiculous 'are they gay?' rumours started to flitter around. Perhaps Will & Grace was Matt's way of laughing at the time when he was the tabloid's whipping boy. "Yeah, it's great to be able to laugh at yourself in public. I've never done it before."
    With that, Matt pulls down his caps and steps back onto the streets of London, and back to anonymity.
• From a Big Matt Fan:
  ... The fact that (Matt)'s leading in the Yahoo voting seems to be a sign of that. (I'm a bit shocked, but gratified.) Just a couple of months ago, he beat out actors such as Ben and Will Smith in Zap2It's "Battle of the Summer Movie Stars," losing in the semi-final round to Tobey McGuire, I believe. Also, I've noticed increasing approval on several movie message boards. Amazing what a hit like "Bourne" can do. I hope that Hollywood decision-makers are taking note.
• Laura wrote:
  my page link of matt : here.
• Allison wrote:
  I saw this article on Entertainment Tonight's website and thought you would be interested. Matt and The Bourne Identity are nominees for best actor and best film at the Hollywood Film Festival in October. Plus, he and Danny Glover are going to host a benefit screening of "My Khmer Heart." Here's the link to the article here and the article has a link to where you go to vote.
• Constanza wrote:
  Hi again! :) I am the one who emailed you in the beginning oif August about the play Matt starred in in London. :)
  Anyway, I am a huge Matt fan, you know that, and besides The talented Mr Ripley's my very fave film ever. I know ther are cut scenes, in all films there are. I have seen pics of some scenes that are NOT in the definitive version, like one with Ripley very ruffled and not shaved, calling from a public phone, I know this scene exists in the book (I am huge Highsmith fan as well and I know her books over Ripley rather good). Now, surely Minghella modyfied the story and the story meaning quite a bit, the result was excellent indeed even if differerent from the original, but yet wonderful. MIghella's an awesome director, besides. Another scene that I know has been is the one with Fausto (Dickei's Italian friend) who's asked by Ripley to sell Dickie's (now already sectretly dead) boat. I read Fiorello (the Italian actor playing Fausto) spekaing about it and about the fact it was cut in the final version. I think I recognise some scene around Freddie murder in Rome from a few shots, that I can't recall to have seen in the movie. They must have been cut as well. Also another scene featuring Gwyneth. But a few days ago I was reading the most interesting interview Matt gave to The Advocate a few years ago (stunning pics BTW :). And he mentioned yet more scenes I didn't know of, like a romantic sex scene with Peter (Smith Kingsley).
  Can you tell me more about the cut scenes in the film? are there more than the mentioned?
  I have only 2 copies of the VHS and no DVD but I reckon there aren't cut scenes featured on the DVD. Please let me know whether it exists a collectors edition of the DVD featuring those or if there's some other way to get to know about those if you don't know it directly.
  If you have answers to Constanza's questions, please write me.
• Bec wrote:
  Here's just a few bits and pieces from the SA Uni radio interview (done via Satellite)
  Sequel?
  "I'd do a sequel if we could make it better than the first one." Doesn't want to "milk the cash cow." Doesn't want to "squeeze money out of kind moviegoers."
  Reading the books...
  Had read the books and really liked them. "At the time I couldn't get a job as an actor to save my life, so I certainly wasn't thinking about playing the role, I was just kinda reading it as a diversion to my sorrows." Talked about reading them on flights to visit his girlfriend back in 1993, said he "blasted through the trilogy."
  Hobbies?
  Hasn't had enough time in the past few years to invest in a hobby. Spends most of his time doing movie related things, writing them, acting in them. "I know it might sound boring, it's certainly not a hidden talent." "I certainly have no musical talent and never could have made it as a professional athlete."
  Fave Locations?
  End up in incredible locations, but never get to explore them. More fun for his family. His brother and sister in law are constantly taking 2nd and 3rd honeymoon's, when he gets a movie. Every place in Europe he's shot in he'd like to go back and explore.
  September 11......Would he consider doing a project about the events? How has it affected him?
  Not only is he living in New York, the plane's came from Boston, heading to LA, and anyone going to LA has been on those planes. "I've been on each of those flight's a bunch of times. So's Ben. So's Casey." He would do a project on Sept 11, based on the quality of the project and screenplay.
  The reaction of the events of the day surprised him. People were hysterical. Clearly fragile. Has odd memories of the day. Worst day in New York, that brought the best out of New York. Is now a stronger sense of community. "Life is fragile and we actually all are in that city together."

• David wrote:
  The BBC World Service programme is up on their website to listen to (it starts about 1'30" in). here.
• A Big Matt Fan wrote:
  here's a box office update from today's Variety:
  "In its first Euro engagement after blitzing Taiwan, 'Bourne Identity' commanded $3.3 million on 425 in Blighty, including sneaks. Matt Damon starrer also looked sharp in the Phillippines with $330,00 on 66."
  BTW: Looks like Bourne opened with $422,906 in Tawain, considerably more than XXX, Signs, and Sum of All Fears. As of September 2, it had grossed $953,546 in Tawain. (No figures on last weekend yet.)
• Our thanks to Blakeleigh, who wrote:
  Hi! On September 18,2002, Matt will be on the Bernie Mac show! Saw a commercial for it. Just thought I'd let ya know! :)
• Bec wrote: Way hash
  Hi, just found this review of Sum of All Fears......highlighted the bit I'm annoyed at!
  Armageddon Outta Here
  A big-budget nuclear thriller is a disaster area in more ways than one. Thank goodness that the Spy Kids are here to save the day, says Barbara Ellen
  A famous comment was once made about how one could throw a pebble on Miami beach and hit several Robert Redfords. Would it be too cruel to suggest throwing this same pebble actually at Ben Affleck, in the hope that it might hit him between the eyes and stun him to the point where he can't "act" in and ruin any more movies?
  Lest we forget, the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting, about a really poor boy (with a $400 haircut) who was really good at sums, and which launched the careers of both Affleck and Matt Damon, was one of the most risible, sentimental pieces of tripe ever made.
  Affleck's other big movie outings have included Armageddon and Pearl Harbor (affectionately known to cinemagoers as Armageddon outta here!), which hardly helped to rehabilitate him. Yet again and again we are asked to buy into the idea of Affleck as the charismatic lead, when his biggest achievement to date has been to manage to appear wooden and plastic at the same time. It wouldn't bother me so much but it's like we're supposed to accept Affleck as the new Robert Mitchum when, most of the time, he acts like Jean-Claude Van Damme with food poisoning. The moral of the story becomes clear: Never trust a man whom Jennifer Lopez seems to find attractive.
  Watching Affleck ... in Phil Alden Robinson's nuclear disaster movie, The Sum of All Fears, merely confirms his mediocrity. The film itself is a weird affair. A confusing kind of prequel-but-set-in-today for Tom Clancy's CIA agent, Jack Ryan (previously played by Harrison Ford in Patriot Games and Clear And Present Danger, and Alec Baldwin in The Hunt For Red October). Which, correct me if I'm wrong, means that when Baldwin and Ford were playing Ryan in the Nineties the character was older than he is now played by Affleck in 2002. Or weren't we supposed to notice? ...

• Goodies from Felicity:
  • From yahoo's Deauville wrap-up:
    Some complained about the lack of stars coming to support their movies, but with Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sylvester Stallone, Matt Dillon and Matt Damon all dropping in during the 10-day event, there was just enough to satisfy the crowds outside the Deauville hotels. Among premiere screenings in the latter half of the festival, "The Bourne Identity" was well received and provided one of the rare parties at this year's Deauville, attended by director Doug Liman and star Damon, who chatted with Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein, in town for the French premiere of Shekhar Kapur's "The Four Feathers."
  • Another profile from the Belfast Telegraph, in two parts: here, and here.
  • A positive review of Gerry from Boxoffice Magazine: here.
  • A transcript of part of the London press conference is at: here.
  • Funny, blunt quote from Franka in a Mirror interview:
    It would be hard for a little known actress to measure up to Hollywood' s Matt Damon. But Franka Potente, who is nearly 6ft tall in her stocking feet, was more concerned about towering over him. When she arrived for her screen test alongside the Good WillHunting star for the big budget thriller, The Bourne Identity, she made sure they didn't end up looking like Little And Large.
    ``You know, for some reason American actors have a tendency to be short, which doesn't matter to me, but it seems to matter to them, '' the German actress admits frankly. ``I just thought, `Please God, let him be as tall as me'. So I put on these sandals, completely flat, which I'm not used to wearing, and the first thing I do as I walk into the audition is fall down the stairs. I thought the scene went really well, but all I could think about afterwards was falling down.''
    Despite the fall, she got the part. And the experience of working with Matt on set in Europe turned out to be a pleasurable experience.
    ``He's tall and a nice guy too,'' laughs Franka, 28. ``I wasn't sure I could work with stars, but he was great. There were times in the movie when we were stuck with each other for hours on end and couldn' t go anywhere between takes. It's so much more pleasant if you get along. Not that I ever wanted to marry him or anything.''
  • Here's an interesting quote about "The Fountain", the former Brad Pitt project now in limbo - from AICN. Three of the stars suggested earlier were Russell Crowe, George Clooney, and Mel Gibson, and I don't think the fourth was named.
    The fact is that Warner Brothers will not go ahead without another big-name star. Aronofsky said there are only four other big names that are of Pitt's box-office caliber, all of whom are unavailable at such short notice.
  • "Nick Adams Confirmed":
    Hollywood's Finest to Perform Live - For One Night Only!
    Copyright �2002 PR Newswire Association Inc. All Rights Reserved. A United Business Media company. Distributed by FluentMedia, a service of Tribune Media Services. Copyright �2002 by Tribune Media Services.
    Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Goldie Hawn, Kevin Kline, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Brian Dennehy, Morgan Freeman, Danny Devito & More to Perform 'The World of Nick Adams' Monday, November 4, 2002 in Hollywood
    Evening to Benefit The Painted Turtle Camp, The Newest of Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Gang Camps for Children
    LOS ANGELES, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Some of Hollywood's most celebrated actors -- including Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Goldie Hawn, Danny DeVito, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Kevin Kline, Brian Dennehy, Morgan Freeman and more -- will take to the stage for one night only with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in the staged reading of 'The World of Nick Adams' to be held on Monday, November 4, 2002, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood!
    "There is something special, something electric, about a group of esteemed actors navigating such an energetic plot and bringing it to life in front of your very eyes," said producer Lou Adler. "'The World of Nick Adams' will be a rare treat and a one-time-only opportunity for all of Los Angeles to witness a great performance -- while contributing to a very worthy cause, the launch of The Painted Turtle Camp."
    Produced by Lou Adler and Kevin Duncan, 'The World of Nick Adams' is based on Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams character, and is adapted by novelist A.E. Hotchner. Conductor Miquel Harth-Bedoya will lead members of the philharmonic orchestra, which will include a score by renowned American composer, Aaron Copland. The score for 32-piece orchestra is a nod to Copland's award-winning film and incidental music of the 1930's and 1940's, and features "stand alone" music, under-scoring and evocative mood pieces.
    A.E. Hotchner, Hemingway's friend and biographer, also adapted "The Battler," one of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, for NBC in 1956 -- a production that starred a then-unknown Paul Newman. Newman will re-create his role in 'The World of Nick Adams' performance.
    Funds from 'The World of Nick Adams' performance will help launch The Painted Turtle Camp, in Lake Elizabeth, California in 2003. The Painted Turtle Camp will be the only multi-disease camp of its kind on the west coast, serving 3,500 chronically and terminally ill children and their families each year at a no-cost, one-of-a-kind family support center.
    Located on an exquisite 179 acres nestled against rolling foothills, The Painted Turtle Camp will also be home to year-round programs, including family weekend, camper reunions, sibling camps and medical research conferences. The site is currently being transformed into an "oasis" of wildflower meadows, organic fruit orchards, secret gardens and more. For additional information on the camp, log on to www.thepaintedturtle.org .
    The Painted Turtle Camp is part of the Association of Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, a coalition of camps that have served more than 50,000 children between the ages of seven and 16. Founded by Paul Newman and A.E. Hotchner in 1986, the Hole in the Wall Gang Camps host thousands of children around the world, free of charge, for camp experiences that focus on rebuilding the self-esteem of ill children and offer programs for parents, siblings and caregivers alike.
    Individual tickets for the event range from $40 -- $500 and are available through Ticketmaster beginning 12:00pm PST on September 15th by calling 213-480-3232 or by logging on to www.ticketmaster.com . For premium seats starting at $1,000 and multi-ticket sponsorship packages, please contact Harvin Rogas at 310-559-9334, ext 162.
• It is interesting to see that Matt's been swearing more. Haven't seen that much since his early US Magazine interview back in '98. Maybe he feels it's more acceptable in international publications. Curiously, here also seems to be a lot more candor coming through.
  Will be interesting to see the European reaction to "Gerry." One would think they would be more accepting of experimental filmmaking. Let's hope that kudos abroad will spur sales and interest in the US. "Gerry" won't be a blockbuster, but it would be nice to have it make a justifiable profit.
  I'm also intrigued that there still is no release date on a Bourne Identity DVD. My guess is that they're delaying the release date because this film still seems viable in theatres, while the international release is just getting started. Speaking of which, from Variety:
  Elsewhere, auds in Europe embraced "The Bourne Identity," "Signs" and "Road to Perdition," while Aussies woke up to "Insomnia."
  In its first Euro engagement after blitzing Taiwan, "Bourne Identity" conquered the U.K., fetching $2.3 million Friday-Saturday from 414 locations, including sneaks. Its Saturday figure was 20% bigger than "Panic Room" and 90% up on "The Sum of All Fears," Universal's Randy Greenberg said Sunday.
• Laura wrote:
  this is the link to my Matt Damon Fan Club .

• Our thanks to David M., who responded to Chad's enquiry about the Bourne DVD as follows:
  How quickly a cinema release makes it onto DVD is often down to the film's popularity at the box office. Films which quickly burn out often make it onto DVD fairly quickly. Whereas a film like Bourne which has been enjoying a long run at the US box office with people going back for repeat viewings, will likely take longer to make it onto DVD. It's also worth noting that the film is only just starting to be released internationally.
  With regard to possible DVD content, both Doug Liman and Matt Damon have recorded commentary tracks before and are both very vocal about this movie and the delays surrounding the production. I wouldn't be surprised if both guys (having been doing loads of work publicising the film around the globe) were keen to put their own views about the movie on disc aswell. There have been loads of rumours in the press about the problems on this production and the DVD would be too good an opportunity to miss for the studio and director to put the record straight. I don't know if any of the other proposed endings were shot, but there are certainly some deleted scenes in existance. Doug's previously included a whole bundle of such scenes on the "Go" DVD.
• From Felicity:
  • Gerry screened at Deauville today, and there's a poster of the film on the festival's site - it's strange a little 70s.
    small size: here.
    A-4 size: here
    Beautiful colours in another image from the film: here
    Information about the film: here
  • Photos from Deauville:
    Good photo of Matt from the French yahoo site at the Gerry premiere: here.
    Signing autographs at the Bourne screening: here.
    Great pic with Doug and Frank Marshall (see right): here.
  • The German poster for Bourne has Franka in the background, and her name in equal billing. From the German UIP site: here
  • Doug Liman conducted the interviews for Bourne in French at Deauville.
  • Here's the page on "Gerry" from the Toronto Film Festival.
  • There have been some great interviews - the Guardian and The Age certainly were the best. Very honest, self-deprecating about himself and his movies - even attacking The Rainmaker's Grisham origins for the first time. Whether it is tiredness or simply boredom with the continuous interviews, Matt's telling stories and acting differently than in the US, or just being more aware and willing to play along with the target audience. He's also swearing a lot more, or the press outside the US are being more open about covering it (even doing interviews while drinking beer and smoking). No puritan attitude here.
    Matt was often seen by press outside the US as just another faceless American movie star - bland, preppy and mass-marketed. The tour has been a chance for him to show he's actually got a personality, and happy to talk on just about anything. Although the press reps may not have been happy with Matt's comments criticising Bourne's rating in the UK - they keep defending it, of course.
    And hopefully if Bourne goes well internationally, there will be more interest and press coverage in the future - there certainly will be in Australia after his popular visit here. Another reason to thank some deity for Bourne turning out OK.

• Bec wrote:
  For Aussies, 5UV (a Uni radio station) will be having a Matt interview on Wednesday night, at 9 pm (SA time)......so if anyone's interested in listening, you can hear it on the net. Here's the link.
  Obviously, anyone in the world can listen to it....if you can convert our time into yours......
  Just thought I'd pass that on.
• From Felicity:
  • From ET's Newslink - looks like Nick Adams is back:
    JULIA JOINS NEWMAN
    September 6, 2002 | ET has learned that megastar JULIA ROBERTS will join MATT DAMON on November 4th for a live performance in Hollywood to benefit PAUL NEWMAN's latest Hole in the Wall Gang Camp called Painted Turtle Camp, located north of Los Angeles. Each summer the camp will be home to about 1,000 kids facing a life-threatening illness. The children will able to swim, fish, horseback ride and get to know other kids facing similar challenges.
  • TV Guide's summary of the Bernie Mac episode on September 18:
    Bernie Mac
    
    Keep It on the Short Grass 30 min.
    �The backdrop for this year is Bernie and Wanda's relationship,� says producer-creator Larry Wilmore, �and how having the kids creates conflict.� But in the second-season opener, the conflict comes from Bernie, who acts like a kid when Wanda (Kellita Smith) teams with him in a charity golf tournament. Bernie sees it as a grudge match against the host, Matt Damon, who has been claiming he consistently outshot �Mac Man� while they were filming �Ocean's Eleven.� Bernie savors the thought of beating the Oscar winner in public, but his confidence wavers when he learns that Damon's warriorlike playing partner in the best-ball event is Lucy Lawless. Jerry: Rick Hoffman.
  • Bernie Mac will be on Leno Monday 16 September to promote the season opener. There's also a pic of Matt on the show's website: http://www.fox.com/berniemac/
  • Good quote in a video interview on the Deauville official site, when asked about a sequel to Bourne:
    "I asked a friend of mine about sequels, a very smart friend, and he said only three sequels in history are better than the original. The New Testament is better than the Old Testament; "Huckleberry Finn" is better than "Tom Sawyer"; and "Godfather 2" is better than "Godfather 1". The odds are against you."
  • I didn't link the really honest and interesting Age interview: here.
    It includes this summary of the Bourne production:
    "It was a lesson in how not to do things," Damon says frankly, "and yet it does hold together extraordinarily well, even to somebody like to me who has seen it so many times through so many different stages. I'm glad it's as cohesive and as coherent as it is, given all the different pieces that we had to put together."
  • From a Brad Pitt site:
    Two Norwegian papers, BA and NRK, publish interviews today with Steven Soderbergh in which he speaks about making a sequel to Ocean's Eleven. He says all actors from the first one, among them Pitt, Clooney, Damon and Roberts, have agreed to participate in the sequel, which if everything goes to plan will start filming in Europe in 2004. To BA he says ""I know we can make a better film than Ocean's Eleven. I've been playing with ideas in my head, but nothing is materialised. I know we'll shoot in Europe and that all actors are in on it." Asked whether the actors will get better paid this time around Soderbergh laughs: "On the opposite. I'll make a sequel that'd be cheaper to make than the first one. The actors took large pay cuts to make the first one, this time they work for free. And none of them has protested against that"
  • A radio interview with Matt from a "serious" morning program in Melbourne: here.
  • bworld.com interview:
    Q: You also have a small movie coming out in October with Ben Affleck's brother, Casey, called Gerry.
    A: Yeah, I'm really proud of it. For Gerry, we went without a script and we improvised the whole thing and Gus Van Sant directed it. I love the movie, but it's not a multiplex movie at all. I don't know if anybody will go see it. Well, my mom will see it. The ideal life for Ben and Casey and me would be to make things together that we like, as much as possible, because that's what's fun. As long as people are letting us do it, we will.
• Chad wrote:
  Have you any idea how long we'll have to wait for the DVD release. I keep checking Amazon (I've got to stop doing this every day) to see if they have a release date on it yet.
  It s..s b/c movies like "Sum of All Fears" have November release dates (I think). That only came out 2 weeks before "Bourne." "Deuces Wild" came out on May 3rd w/"Spiderman" and that got released on DVD in early August!
  It's usually a 5-6 month wait, but sometimes it's a bit quicker.
  I have a feeling that this one will be longer (January or something). I'm soooo looking forward to this release! I hope they have commentaries and trailers and good stuff........I hope they don't just release a vanilla version.

• Sarah wrote:
  i went to the johnny vaughan show in london onb september 5th. i replied to the message posted on your board. (Thanks 4 that!) newayz after a couple of emails i got given tickets to it. u have to be 18 to go but as it was my birthday i got to go!! ( it was my 16th birthday!) matt was so funny and gorgeous in a blue shirt whcih really made him look even more gorgeous. i got to see the hole interview even though they only showed half of it on the tv. it was an excellent way to celebrate my birthday!!! Id juz like to say thankks for everythin ure doin on the column coz i get to keep intouch with all the matt news wich wudnt b possible ne utha way! thanks!!!
• And Dani wrote:
  I caught the Johnny Vaughn Tonight show on September 4, when Matt was one of the guests (we in the Netherlands get the BBC as well) and though regrettably short, I thought the interview was very enjoyable.
  I taped the show so I'd be happy to make a transcript if you guys are interested.
  (I promptly thanked Dani and asked for the transcript)
• From Felicity:
  • There's a great little piece in the latest "Who" magazine (Australia), which rated visiting celebrities on a 'Naughty - Niggling - Nice - Nirvana' range (10 in total). Matt received the rating as the ultimate visitor: 10/10:
    Matt Damon
    Master-guest Matt enthusiastically posed with fans when TBI last month. He climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, pulled beers in Melbourne and was the sweetest star ever to come ashore.
    (In Jerry O'Connell's summary - number eight - they also write: "... in the country for half of 2001, and lifting his profile to near Matt Damon niceness by going to the football and praising beer, Kylie and some lesser-known local lovelies.")
    We're getting some great interviews out of this latest round of press, including this one from The Age, Melbourne. I'll scan some photos from the paper later:
    First paragraphs:
    Acting normal
    September 6 2002
    For a Hollywood star, Matt Damon has a fine appreciation of the absurdities of Hollywood and stardom. By Jim Schembri.
    It's an unusual sight for Matt Damon. He's spent two solid days surrounded by fans and media, talking up his latest flick, The Bourne Identity. It's been a flurry of handshakes, photographs and microphones. Now he stares into a large, empty room, a secluded lounge tucked into the back corner of a subterranean bar at the Park Hyatt hotel. It's just him, me and the photographer, and soon it'll just be him and me.
    He poses for pics next to the fireplace, taking in the relative quiet, and smiles widely.
    "It's kind of like God reminding you it could get worse - a cold, empty room. That could be your purgatory. Nobody to talk to. See how much you like that!"
    A seat, a beer, a quiet cigarette.
    "You end up getting scrambled brains after doing enough," Damon quips. "I don't mind talking, I'm just sick of talking about myself, so if you've got any other topics �" he laughs lightly, "I'd be happy to listen to some of your opinions."
    We'll get to that, Matt. Great way to start an interview.
  • The Boston Herald takes issue with Matt and Ben supporting a local candidate: here.
  • Another mixed take on Matt and Bourne, from the Daily Telegraph, which includes the first still I've seen from the restaurant scene: here. The Bourne Identity (12A cert, 119 min)
    "Danger is Bourne!" advertised the trailer for The Bourne Identity, but I had my doubts. Danger, after all, is not obviously Matt Damon, who adorns the poster in a stressed, anxious fashion, as if late for a maths test.
    To give him his due, Damon is an actor who never quite looks comfortable in his own body - a quality cunningly exploited by Anthony Minghella when he directed The Talented Mr Ripley a few years ago. That persona was a skin-crawling tour de force, not at all true to Patricia Highsmith, but unexpected and fascinating in its own right.
    Cast as Jason Bourne, the amnesiac assassin of Robert Ludlum's 1980 pulp thriller, this toothy, boyish leading man is a misfit to puzzle over. Evidence of iron-pumping doesn't suffice to make him an instant action hero; his neck muscles look like they're on loan.
    But this story is about a man waking up bit by bit to his murderous past, and the idea of Damon's Bourne as a little boy lost uneasily rediscovering his killer reflexes - and being forced to exercise them - is one that powers some of the best scenes in a perfectly sturdy popcorn entertainment.
  • ET is promoting a story about Matt at Deauville on Friday's show.
  • Here's a here's a Norwegian interview (I think), with a new photo of Matt - maybe old?? Story: here
    Photo: here.
  • Strange interview from The Daily Record: here.
    He admits: "I regret doing All The Pretty Horses. It was the most disappointing movie ever for me, because they never released the movie that we made.
    "That really bummed me out. To see it get slaughtered is kind of horrible. I still know what we did. I saw the version of what we did."
    Matt, who won an Oscar with Ben for Good Will Hunting, hasn't made a film for a year and a half and is desperate to start writing again.
    Even The Bourne Identity, which has proved a success, was a gamble.
    Although he had been offered Mark Wahlberg's role in Planet of the Apes - Matt turned it down to play Jason Bourne, an action hero very different to Matt's usual thoughtful, character-driven roles.
    But Matt has no regrets.
    He said: "I still would really love to work with Planet Of The Apes director Tim Burton some day. I think he is incredible.
    "But I had to choose between one or the other. I made a really big deal of it to Doug Liman - the director of The Bourne Identity - because he really admires Tim. So he said, `I understand what you have given up, so I won't let you down'."
    Doug has been true to his word.
  • The complete interview at Empire Online is now up: here.
  • The BBC "interview" of readers questions is also available: here
  • There are over 60 thumbnail pics of Matt (some with Odessa) at the Deauville Festival - press call and red carpet - at wireimage.com
    Yahoo also has three, including this one with Doug Liman and Frank Marshall: here.
  • Another good still from Bourne - before the hair-washing scene: here.
  • Roger Ebert on Gerry at the Toronto Film Festival - love the title
    Off to a roaring start
    Already the festival has its gems ... and then there's Gerry
    Roger Ebert
    Friday, September 06, 2002
    If the 27th Toronto International Film Festival closes after two days, it will have shown six wonderful films and one magnificently bloody-minded one -- and I do not exclude the possible greatness of entries I have not yet seen.
    The wonderful films are Nowhere in Africa, Personal Velocity, Respiro, Russian Ark, Secretary and Talk To Her. The defiantly screwy one is Gerry, which after it played at Sundance had people standing face to face in the snow trading praise and denunciation.
    And now to Gerry. You may hate it, but you may want to see it, because your fellow moviegoers will be talking of nothing else. Directed by Gus Van Sant, it was written by and stars Casey Affleck and Matt Damon as two young men who get lost on a hike in the desert. And there you have it. They remain lost for a very long time, and they talk about a good many things, at first in good cheer, later in desperation. There are moments of humour worthy of silent comedy, as when one gets atop a big rock and is not sure how to get down, and monologues of droll wit. But to describe the film in those terms is to miss its heart, which is silent and empty and lost and thirsty and despairing. Gus Van Sant is one of the few directors with the nerve to point his camera into the desert and just keep walking, and Affleck and Damon achieve something in their performances that is existential grandeur, if you like the film, and transcendent stupidity, if you don't.
  • Doug Liman interview at the BBC:
    Matt Damon seems an unusual choice for a leading action hero. Why did you choose him? I met with a wide range of people when casting for the film, people like Russell Crowe and even Sly Stallone at one point. But when I sat down with Matt and explained that I wanted to take on an action movie but do it in a different way, I got the sense that he understood. He was coming from the same place I was coming from and I felt we could become partners on this. Plus, I'm a big Matt Damon fan. From the National Post:
    No, really, you've got a shot
    How to marry a movie star
    Friday, September 06, 2002
    There is no better time than the 10-day film festival to snag a movie star. Herewith, then, is the lowdown on some of the stars expected to be in Toronto over the next week or so. In order to befriend them or, perhaps, even marry them, check out the cheat-sheet info that follows, including important dos and don'ts.
    MATT DAMON
    Starring in the movie Gerry, which plays at the Uptown at 9:15 on Sept. 6. Will Matt Damon ever grow up? The actor with the rosebud cheeks and the nice-as-Nestl�-tea good looks perpetually gives off the winsome vibe of a kid who's lost his mom in the shopping mall.
    The name, Matt, pretty much says it all: It's a Joe Schmoe, knapsack-carrying, find-me-a-good-pub kind of name. But this Matt, thankfully, has some acting chops. And if you, the civilian, are interested in hunting down Good Will, you're in luck. After dating a series of high-profile Tinseltown starlets, Matt is probably ripe for a low-key, non-industry love interest.
    Do: Tell him he's the smartest Harvard drop-out you've ever met. Mention that you thought The Bourne Identity was "layered" and "very Euro."
    Don't: Ask him about his buddy, Ben Affleck and his luscious new Latina lovebomb, J.Lo. Diss the Boston Red Sox (baseball is Matt's one true love).
    Previous entanglements: Minnie Driver, Winona Ryder.
  • There was a taped interview with Matt just on "FlyTV", a local music program. The interview wasn't special, apart from an arm-wrestle, but the host raved about Matt in a radio promo yesterday, saying "He's gorgeous, he's lovely, he's a very, very sweet guy."

• David wrote:
  Just to let you know that there's a feature on The Bourne Identity featuring interviews with Matt and Doug Liman on the BBC World Service's On Screen programme throughout the next week.
  You should be able to tune in anywhere in the world as it's on the BBC global radio network.
  Check out www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice
• From Felicity:
  • IMDB:
    Matt Damon has confessed his parents let him smoke cannabis with them when he was a teenager, to discourage him from abusing the drug. The Oscar-winner - who grew up in a community house with his mother, child psychologist Nancy Carlsson-Paige and stepfather - happily confesses having used the drug in the past, adding that his early experiences were intended to help him form a sensible attitude towards drug use. Damon told British broadcaster Johnny Vaughan's BBC chat show Johnny Vaughan Tonight, "The first time I smoked was at home with my mother and step-father. They were like, 'If you are going to do this, we'd rather you did this with us.'"
  • Photos of Matt (with Odessa and Doug Liman) outside the Ivy Restaurant, London: here.
  • From The Mirror:
    Paul Martin column: Damon's Dublin welcome Matt
    Date: 09-04-2002; Publication: The Mirror; Author: Paul Martin
    HOLLYWOOD superstar Matt Damon is set to splash out on a dream home in Ireland, I can reveal.
    The multi-millionaire actor told me of his plans yesterday when we met in London's plush Dorchester Hotel.
    The 31-year-old believes that Ireland offers the perfect retreat for him to escape from the showbiz world.
    He said: "I've been over a couple of times and I really enjoyed every second of it.
    "The thing about Ireland is you can escape from everything and you don't have to be a superstar around the clock.
    "In America people are watching you all the time and they expect you to act in a certain way but in Ireland you get a chance to be yourself and that's something I could do with in my life."
    Damon has become one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood with roles in films such as The Talented Mr Ripley and The Bourne Identity, which is released on Friday.
    He added: "I'm heading over at the end of the year when I get a bit of time off the movie schedule so it should be fun.
    "I'll probably rent a place in the middle of Dublin for a few weeks and have a look around.
    "By the time I leave I want to have somewhere that I can come back to every now and again and really unwind."
    The star is also considering taking a break from making movies altogether and said that he'd love to do another theatre production.
    He added: "I've had a couple of offers in London and I don't really know what the theatre scene is like in Dublin but I'm open to offers if the script is good enough.
    "I'm going to keep my whole visit very low key. I won't be running around promoting anything which will make a nice change."
  • Great interview from the Guardian that's worth repeating in full - some of the comments would never have been made at the start of a press tour: here. $10 million and he's still not happy
    Matt Damon needed a hit movie. With The Bourne Identity he's got one. But, he tells Danny Leigh, he doesn't feel any more comfortable with Hollywood and stardom
    Danny Leigh
    Thursday September 5, 2002 The Guardian
    Matt Damon has been up since 4am. It's the jetlag. Three days ago, he was in Australia; the day after, New York. Now it's just after 10am in London and his body clock is in meltdown. "It's weird," he says, coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other, "but I actually feel really good" And for a second his focus slips, eyes threatening to roll up above their bags before he snaps to and leans in, the model of spry professionalism. "So, do you like the movie?"
    The movie in question is The Bourne Identity (its promotion his reason for flying halfway around the world in 72 hours), a craftsmanlike take on Robert Ludlum's airport novel in which Damon stars as amnesiac secret agent Jason Bourne, on the run in Europe from his own nefarious paymasters. This is not the most innovative premise, but it does end up supporting an unusually intelligent genre piece. It's fairly violent - Damon thinks its 12-certificate should be a 15 - but Ludlum's gung-ho excesses are undercut by director Doug Liman's astute handling and there is a refreshing lack of jingoism.
    "Well," says Damon, "obviously action thrillers aren't known for their originality, so we did try and make this at least a little smarter than the norm. Doug and I talked a lot about how to give the film some integrity, rather than just constructing a lot of unlikely pretexts for blowing some fucking buildings up. You know?"
    Another cigarette, another cup of coffee, and he grins the grin of a consummate movie idol; courteous, amiable, justly proud of his latest project's runaway success in the US ("it's insane, but the white noise of advertising the studios mobilise for their real behemoths means our $60m thriller ends up like the underdog"). But he is also a man palpably relieved that the talk is of potential sequels now that his $10m salary has already been recouped a dozen times over. Because, while he has hardly been on the breadline in recent years, he is still conscious that (discounting Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven, in which he appeared alongside a gang of fellow stars) it has been a long stretch since his last major contribution to a studio's coffers.
    "Yeah, I certainly knew having a hit would be... useful , and that another huge failure could have drastic repercussions. I mean, after Good Will Hunting, I settled on the number of scripts I was getting sent as a gauge of how highly I was regarded commercially, and though most of those scripts were terrible, I still noticed that they'd started dwindling."
    All of which might come as a surprise to anyone who witnessed Damon's initial, dazzling emergence. First came Good Will Hunting, written to showcase his and Ben Affleck's until-then unemployed talents: the result made stars of both, winning a Best Screenplay Oscar en route. Then came the lead in Francis Ford Coppola's courtroom drama The Rainmaker and a prominent role in Spielberg's epic Saving Private Ryan. And so the movie-going world became familiar with the then-27-year-old, beaming rosily from the covers of countless glossy magazines.
    Too familiar for his tastes, you sense. Despite the occasional open invitation to press attention (chiefly through high-profile relationships with Winona Ryder and Minnie Driver), there is still something of the rabbit in the headlights about him, a rippling disorientation at the fame that found him - by Hollywood's standards - late.
    "Yeah, disorientation pretty much sums it up," he says. "And it's weird, because as an actor fame is at the least a by-product of the success you're pursuing, so you kind of assume you'll be ready for it. But I wasn't. Now, I just deal with it. If I go to a premiere, I know I'll be standing on a red carpet feeling embarrassed and there'll be eight people around me I don't even know muttering into their headsets, and I just think, 'OK, this takes 10 minutes, then I can leave.' But until I figured that out, the urge to walk away was intense."
    And, in one sense, he did walk away, retreating into five years of making movies back-to-back, the odd occasions not on set spent "living out of a duffelbag" in his elder brother's spare bedroom. Most of the films that resulted served - deliberately or not - to remove him from the public eye: Billy Bob Thornton's troubled adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses; the ill-fated golfing drama The Legend of Bagger Vance; Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr Ripley, in which his role as a sexually ambivalent sociopath appeared designed to alienate the mainstream.
    Given the chance, he says, he would make the same choices again. But what followed was a marked decline in profile, often compared unfavourably with the rise of Affleck, who parlayed his supporting role in Good Will Hunting into a lucrative career in blockbusters. Despite the pair remaining close - they are, he says, planning another screenplay next year - Damon admits to a certain fatigue at "the Matt and Ben thing": Hollywood's most visible male friendship was scrutinised by the media as ardently as any industry romance.
    "It's one of the odder sides to the whole experience," he says. "I remember when Good Will Hunting came out, some executive told me that our being best friends was the most incredible story he'd ever heard in his entire life. And you think, well, these two guys who met as kids are still friends. It's not, in itself, that astonishing. I mean, with hindsight, we could have been more circumspect about letting it become a marketing angle. But everything's easy with hindsight."
    This time, the weariness in his voice runs deeper than mere jetlag. And, as he moves on to rail against the more grating aspects of celebrity and "this all-consuming fixation with box office figures", part of you can't help thinking it all sounds a bit rich coming from a guy who's just made $10m.
    And then he says the same himself. "Of course, I'm also aware that I've been treated very well within this industry, so it always feels strange when I end up talking like this. It's an ongoing conflict. So I do try and remember their decisions are rarely personal. They're business and nothing else. And you just have to analyse that process and keep hold of your own logic."
    Analysis and logic: not skills often found in Hollywood actors. At which point you recall that Damon was, at one point, the recipient of a Harvard education (albeit abandoned before graduation), and had been raised among liberal academics in a six-family Massachusetts commune. His mother, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, is a noted professor of child development who once spoke of her unease at her son "being used to sell products [and] becoming a cog in the capitalist system."
    Hence, you suspect, both his own misgivings about his trade and the zealous attraction to what actors refer to as "good work".
    Mention of his recent stint in Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth at the Garrick Theatre in London provokes a blaze of teeth and animation; as does talk of Gus Van Sant's forthcoming Gerry, a spartan two-hander in which Damon and younger Affleck brother Casey get lost in the desert for 103 frequently silent minutes. "It's going to really piss people off, but I'm proud of it. And you know, if in 20 years I'm finished, then I'll be able to think, well, at least I did something challenging instead of a bad movie I took for the money."
    So, the celebrity is a trade-off, the concession that lets him do English theatre and the esoteric likes of Gerry? "Right. Like most adult transactions, there's a compromise involved." A large part of that compromise appears to involve a strenuous commitment to character research. For almost every role he has played, there has been some self-inflicted physical discomfort carried out in the name of authenticity - in the case of The Bourne Identity, a fearsome regime of martial arts and firearms training. Even his more sedate assignments have taken their toll: while practising his golf for Bagger Vance, he managed to separate a rib working on his swing. I mention Minghella's remark after making The Talented Mr Ripley (crash diet, months learning the piano for a scene eventually cut from the film) that his star seemed convinced "good acting is only possible through pain."
    "Yeah," he says, "but I always attribute that to my lack of imagination. I mean, if I was Anthony Hopkins I could show up and just draw on this amazing talent. But I can't, so for me it's a question of researching the shit out of something, and sometimes it works, and sometimes I end up with something I can barely bring myself to watch."
    So he still suffers from a lack of confidence? By now he's rubbing his eyes, the caffeine wearing off. And he answers like it is obvious. "Oh, sure. Every time before a film and every day I'm working I'm terrified that maybe I can't do it. It's the rare occasions when I realise I might have been wrong that I look forward to."
  • Interesting bit in a Scotsman review:
    As a leading man, Damon is unusual. There is a runty ugliness to his face and though he is almost six feet tall, his posture contrives to make him look short. He is most often cast in a role that places him to the left of centre: in the overrated Good Will Hunting he was an accidental genius; in The Talented Mr Ripley, a picture of anonymity whose character thrived by virtue of his facelessness. Here, for the first time, Damon begins to look handsome. The boyishness of his features has flattened out and his body has been knocked into athletic shape. Certainly, Damon looks more comfortable in this role than does his old mucker, Ben Affleck, in his thrill-free thriller The Sum of All Fears, though both actors are younger than their characters were in the novels which spawned the films.
  • From thisislondon.co.uk:
    Damon, had earlier told how he spent the summer walking the streets of London and was never once recognised by fans. The 31-year-old actor took his strolls on nights off from his West End show, This Our Youth."I loved just walking about the streets with my head down," he said.
  • Another pic from the London premiere: here.
  • A list of Bourne's international release dates:

    Sweden 6 September 2002 
    UK 6 September 2002 
    Denmark 13 September 2002 
    New Zealand 16 September 2002 
    Iceland 20 September 2002 
    Belgium 25 September 2002 
    France 25 September 2002 
    Germany 26 September 2002 
    Argentina 3 October 2002 
    Russia 3 October 2002 
    Estonia 4 October 2002 
    Poland 4 October 2002 
    Ukraine 4 October 2002 
    Israel 17 October 2002 
    Netherlands 17 October 2002 
    Italy 8 November 2002 
    Spain 8 November 2002 
    

  • More on the support for the local Democrat, from the NY Times: With Friends in Politics
    MATT DAMON and BEN AFFLECK have landed bit parts in Massachusetts politics. They are helping MARJORIE DECKER of Cambridge, a friend from high school who is campaigning to be a state representative. Mr. Damon taped a phone message that urges voters to support Ms. Decker, a Democrat who is now a Cambridge city councilwoman. Mr. Affleck is featured in campaign literature talking about the Little League team from their childhood.
    "They've been following my political career just as I've been following their acting careers," Ms. Decker said. "Matt and Ben have a social conscience. They share in my values. If they're involved, it helps people pay attention, and what a fun way to be able to do it."
    But she is not counting on their votes. "I believe they legally have residency elsewhere," she said. "We're waiting for the day when they come home."
  • There's a two-page story on Matt in the Australian "Rolling Stone" magazine - will check it out soon.
  • Did a British reader catch the Johnny Vaughan show?
  • And now to Deauville!

• It's another blue shirt for the London premiere: here.
  Video footage of the premiere is available at Sky News: here
• Another UK interview from Teletext:
  Damon dreamily doodles at Dorchester
  By Victor Olliver
  At his meeting with the UK press for his latest hit movie, action thriller The Bourne Identity, Matt Damon doodled his way through the questions. After the conference, for which he was fashionably 15 minutes late, Teletext inspected the pencil doodle on a sheaf of Dorchester letterheaded notepaper.
  He'd drawn a shaded-in square box with a huge cross in the middle. What did it mean? That he felt trapped? Answers on a postcard please...
  Even with his newly beefed-up bod, Matt Damon, 32, does not look like an action hero. Slight and still preppy-looking, he stands about 5ft 10ins in his black shrift shop-looking walking shoes.
  For his meeting with the UK press he turned up in old jeans and grey-blue shirt over a white vest - as white as his fabulous, smile-friendly teeth.
  In Bourne, he plays a CIA operative who's lost his memory. He excels as a martial arts bone-breaker.
  Damon isn't into "macro-strategising in my career," he claims. By which he means: "I'm a material whore". By which he means: "I'm project-specific".
  OK Matt, we know you went to Harvard. What he's trying to say is he's choosy about movie roles. He can afford to be.
  "I haven't done a movie in over a year," he said. "I wanted a break". His next project could be with Good Will Hunting pal Ben Affleck - they're planning to write another screenplay.
  Action rival's still a great pal
  Matt Damon may not have a career-plan but he's savvy about Hollywood. "Headlining a movie has a greater bearing on your career than appearing in a play."
  He's thinking of his recent West End appearance in This Is Our Youth. "In Hollywood they didn't even know I was in a play," he added. Yet "I'd love to do another play."
  He admits he and pal Affleck were "mortified" when their two action films came out within weeks of each other.
  Affleck's The Sum Of All Fears and his own The Bourne Identity are coming out in the same season, with the risk of either knocking the other out.
  Damon said: "We were mortified it worked out that way. It's beyond a joking stage. If a film doesn't work out at the level we have reached, it can be bad for our careers."
  There were even reports that the two men had fallen out - untrue if they hope to work together again.
  Damon says he is not in line to star in Batman Vs Superman - the film may be shelved anyway - and no, "I was not thrown out of The Ivy" - the celebrity-packed London restaurant.
  These stories loomed out of the newspaper fiction departments. Is he ashamed of any of his films?
  "Not ashamed," he said, after taking a swig of Coke, "but there are two films I wished I hadn't made - I won't name them." What a perfect star he is.
• From the BBC:
  Actor Matt Damon has said children under 12 years old should not be allowed to see his new film The Bourne Identity despite it being rated as 12A in the UK.
  Speaking to BBC Radio Five Live, he said he thought the film was too violent for children aged 14 and under.
  The thriller is one of the first major films to be given the new 12A rating by the British Board of Film Classification and can be seen by children under 12 if accompanied by a parent.
  Damon won an Oscar for Good Will Hunting
  Mr Damon said that his mother, who is a child behavioural psychologist, had also criticised the rating in UK and the US, where the film was given the similar PG13 rating.
  The actor, recently seen in Ocean's 11, has said that real-life violence, like the Columbine school shootings, can be linked to violence on screen.
• From yahoo:
  People in the News
  CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have landed bit parts in Massachusetts politics.
  The two actors are helping high school friend Marjorie Decker, a Democratic city councilor from Cambridge, as she campaigns for state representative.
  Damon has taped a phone message that urges voters to support Decker. The messages will be sent beginning Wednesday.
  Affleck is featured in Decker's campaign literature, in which he talks about the Little League team they'd played on together.
  "Until now, I never admitted she was a better hitter than I was," Affleck says in the mailing.
  Decker and Affleck, both 30, were classmates at Cambridge's Rindge and Latin School. Damon, 31, also attended the school, but was a year ahead.
  Decker, a two-term councilor, is challenging incumbent Democratic Rep. Paul Demakis ( news, bio, voting record) in a district that includes parts of Boston and Cambridge.
  Brian Eiler, Demakis' spokesman, said Demakis was campaigning "with his own voice."
  No Republican is running in the race. The Democratic primary is Sept. 17.
• The first quote I've found from Brit actor Clive Owen on working with Matt - and it's not much - interview in The Mirror 1 June 02:
  Clive is equally non-committal when pressed on what Hollywood hunk Matt Damon was like to work with. "Matt seems really nice," is all he will volunteer, perhaps for fear of sounding like he is trying to hitch a ride on his coat-tails.
• And from an interview with Matt in the Mirror:
  Is it true you fell out with director Anthony Minghella because Jude Law got the lead in his new film?
  MD: That's just not true. After The Talented Mr Ripley we want to work together again, but it's got to be the right project. We said to each other back then that we'd never let any weirdness creep in, because we're friends. I'd never want a role just because a friend felt he had to cast me out of some sense of loyalty.

• Sent in by Rutso (thanks!):
  Gerry will be screening just once at a festival of The Films of Gus Van Sant at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. The Oct 4 showing is described as "pre-lease."
  Pre-Release Screening Gerry (2001, 105 min.). At once compellingly complex and mesmerizingly simple, this minimalist, existential film was largely improvised by co-stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. One day two guys named Gerry hike into the wilderness, beginning a trek that is both real and allegorical. Lost in the hopelessly disorienting wasteland, the two Gerrys are unable to find their way back. Brilliantly photographed by Harris Savides, this visual masterpiece is propelled by the power of its imagery. Gus Van Sant explores a generation�s angst and searching in a work that is reminiscent of Antonioni and the 1960s, but simultaneously contemporary and relevant.
• From the Big Matt Fan:
  Anyone notice that domestically, Bourne made over a million dollars over the 4-day holiday? In it's 12th week?! Apparently, it's actually picked up 36 new theatres. With a current total of $118,131,305, it's charging hard on Sum's $118,471,320 gross. At this rate, it will definitely pass it, something I really wasn't sure of until now.
• From Felicity:
  • An interview from the London press conference is up at Empire, with more to come later in the week: here.
  • A basic interview at the BBC: here.
    And Teletext: here
  • EW online's summary of the summer movies:
    THE SPY GAMES
    The most muscular new superagent was ''XXX'''s Vin Diesel, but he wasn't the only budding Bond. ''Good Will Hunting'' pals Ben Affleck and Matt Damon -- who have charted different careers, with Affleck drawn to summer behemoths (''Pearl Harbor'') and Damon to thoughtful dramas (''The Talented Mr. Ripley'') -- released spy thrillers within two weeks of each other. Surprisingly, Affleck's ''Sum of All Fears'' (Paramount) and Damon's ''Bourne Identity'' (Universal) will both top out around $119 million, though ''Sum'''s $31.2 million opening bested ''Bourne'''s $27.1 million debut. Perhaps ''Sum'''s post-nuclear plot limited its appeal over time. Says the marketer, "After September 11, I'd rather watch Matt Damon drive a Mini Cooper down the stairs in Paris than watch triage in Baltimore." For his part, Affleck says he isn't threatened by Damon's franchise potential: ''We're probably going to see 'Bourne 8: Bourne Returns to the Nursing Home.'''
  • First Australian Bourne reviews from Urbancinefile.com.au - very positive here
  • There was a London premiere of Bourne Tuesday night, but I've yet to find any coverage.
• And a correction sent in by Caroline, who apparently knows Cape Cod well:
  The Squire is in Chatham, not Orleans. I've been going to Orleans for the past 28 years. Maybe the Boston Herald writers meant the Land Ho. Who knows...

• This is just strange - from TV Guide's listing of Entertainment Tonight for Friday 6 September:
  Also: Matt Damon discusses Ben Affleck's romance with Jennifer Lopez.
• Arena magazine (UK) also has an article on Matt in their October issue.
• Here's a photo of Matt on talk show "Rove" last week: here.
• From a Singapore TV site, a story about Bourne and photos from Taiwan: here.
• A UK website is requesting questions from the public to ask Matt when he's in London. here.
• Here's a very nicely designed Brazilian Matt site (but the text and photos have mostly come directly from our Column): here
• Newsaskew has posted the entire interview from Arena magazine (UK) on their site, including photos. Available at: here.
  One of the best Matt photos ever - with Matt in a white Tee. (see today's feature pic.)
• Posted in Darkhorizons - but false. I presume Matt meant he and Ben will start work on another script soon (but definitely not a sequel to GWH).
  Good Will Hunting 2: The Adelaide Advertiser indicates Matt Damon is keen to start work on a sequel.
• wedding Matt attended on the weekend will be the subject of a reality TV show, and was covered by the Cape Cod Times. It's a really sweet story, and Matt's friend (the groom), is an emergency room doctor in Brookline. here.
  There stands celebrity guest Matt Damon in the background, a bottle of beer in one hand, a glass of wine in the other, and bubbly hangers-on never too far behind... The upbeat wedding party loved every moment of the comic entrance - including Damon, who flew in from doing movie promotions in Australia just to wish Kelly, his former Harvard roommate, the luck of the Irish.
  "In the movie, Matt is playing me," joked Kelly, 31, an emergency room doctor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Brookline, clowning around with his celebrity pal.
• Also in the Boston Herald:
  Damon delightful as wedding guest on Cape Cod
  by Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa
  uesday, September 3, 2002
  Hollywood It Boy Matt Damon, who hasn't forgotten his pals back home, winged his way to Boston from Australia over the weekend to witness his old Harvard roomie tie the knot in Orleans.
  The Cambridge hottie was just another wedding guest at the nups of Dr. Sean Kelly and his bride, Dara Zall, at the oh-so-historic Captain Linnell House near Skaket Beach.
  Although Matt escaped the Aussie cameras at his ``Bourne Identity'' press junket for a couple of days, he couldn't dodge the crew from the Learning Channel's ``A Wedding Story,'' who were filming the festivities!
  So we guess that meant Matt didn't do the Hully Gully, baby . . .
  ``He was a perfect gentleman,'' said House honcho Charles Konner. ``He couldn't have been more polite. He even took the worst seat at the table for dinner.''
  Whatta guy!
  And apparently, Jason Bourne's alter ego is watching his waist line, reports other reception spies. Because although he hoisted a few brewskies to the happy couple, we hear that Matt ``ate like a model.''
  ``Just a little piece of chicken,'' said Deep Dish.
  But maybe the buff box-office biggie was just saving himself for a hefty dinner in the tavern at The Squire in Orleans, where he repaired with a big group to chew over the happy occasion.
  And since we're on a Matt's school ties jag, the Cantabrigian has tape-recorded a rah-rah message for his high school chum, Marjorie Decker, a Demmie running for state rep in the new 8th Suffolk District.
  His get-out-and-vote-for-Marjorie missive will start popping up on voice mail systems in Beacon Hill, Back Bay, the West End and in Matt and Marjorie's Cambridgeport neighborhood tomorrow. Now, there's a keeper!
• The Toronto Film Festival's director discusses Gerry, in the Toronto Sun:
  Some are known, such as Hollywood's Gus Van Sant, who contributed Gerry to the program.
  Even though it co-stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, the brother of Damon's longtime friend and collaborator Ben Affleck, "Gerry is so NOT Good Will Hunting," says Handling, with admiration

• From Bec:
  This is from my local Adelaide paper. There's nothing new here, but it's about Matt so it's good! LOL!
  The Adelaide Advertiser 31.8.02
  Life, Camera, Action
  Doing what you want to do, on or off the silver screen, is what it is all about, Matt Damon tels Mark Caro.
  Why had newly minted movie action hero Matt Damon never considered being in an explosive thriller before? The answer is simple. "This genre, in particular, is harder to be original in,� he says.
  �Suddenly you had Die Hard on a boat (Under Siege), and then Under Seige 2, which is Die Hard on a train, and then you had Die Hard on a bus (Speed). And, of course, Die Hard on a plane, aka Die Hard 2.�
  Since Francis Ford Coppola�s 1997 The Rainmaker, his first leading role, and Good Will Hunting, for which he and his childhood friend/co-star Ben Affleck won a screenwriting Oscar, Damon, 31, has eschewed formula while defining his own identity.
  Now he is the lead in The Bourne Identity, an adaptation of Robert Ludlum�s 1980 spy novel about a guy who wakes up with bullet holes in his back, no memory, deadly adversaries and his own set of lethal skills. Damon, in Australia, this week to promote The Bourne Identity, says he didn�t change his mind about action films; he just found one that seemed different.
  �Just the idea of a guy having a gun in a consulate and being converged upon by a whole team of Marines, and he throws the gun away and gets a radio and a map,� he explains the appeal of playing Jason Bourne. �There�s just a lot of stuff that I haven�t seen before that I really liked.�
  Plus, The Bourne Identity was directed by Doug Liman, whose previous films were the energetic, idiosyncratic, Go and Swingers, each made for a fraction of Bourne�s $US60 million ($AUS119 million) budget.
  �I wouldn�t have been interested in doing this movie if it were directed by the kind of people who normally direct movies like this,� Damon says, noting that few other film-makers would have cast the relatively obscure Franka Potente as the female lead, or would have insisted that the film be shot on location in Paris with a French crew.
  �He complained that movies shot in Europe by Americans tend to look like they were made by tourists.�
  Damon�s desire to stay grounded in reality carries over to his life off screen. On Project Greenlight, a series made by US cable network HBO about a screenwriting contest winner�s maiden attempt at film-making, Damon, who produced the resultant movie with Affleck, came across as the cool-headed one who injected logic.
  At a party after the premiere of Stolen Summer, the movie made out of Project Greenlight, Damon was mobbed by fans and graciously posed for pictures and chatted on a mobile phone thrust at him by a pushy mother trying to impress her son. �He does that everywhere he goes,� Stolen Summer director Pete Jones says.
  Damon certainly doesn�t appear to take for granted the privileged life he has been leading since he and Affleck, 30, made Good Will Hunting for the expressed purpose of getting them better roles.
  �I�ve been really lucky already. I�ve made all the movies that I�ve wanted to make,� Damon says.
  Yet while Damon has worked with an all-star slate of directors in compiling a varied resume, from Coppola to Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh, he doesn�t see himself as a huge star.
  �I love that I can walk around and live a fairly normal life,� Damon says. �I�m sure it�s not as easy for someone like Tom Cruise. I can�t imagine living at that level.�
  A reason Damon can still lead a �normal life� might be that the only true smashes he has been part of since GWH are big name ensemble films: Saving Private Ryan and Ocean�s Eleven.
  The Bourne Identity could stamp Damon as a major solo star, something Affleck has also begun to do. Damon�s previous attempts at the leading light in part were diluted by co-star power, such as alongside Cate Blanchett and Gwyneth Paltrow in The Talented Mr Ripley.
  The most frustrating failure, he says, was All The Pretty Horses, which Columbia Pictures ordered cut from its original three hour plus length to less than two hours. �That was probably the most depressing and painful thing I ever dealt with professionally.�
  No one would accuse Damon of just chasing the box office dollar. Beside his appearances in Kevin Smith films, such as Dogma, Damon made an experimental movie with director Gus Van Sant, Gerry, which received diverse responses at this year�s Sundance Film Festival.
  �We had everything from, �This is a masterpiece� to, �You will only ever see this movie if you are being tortured,�� Damon says.
  Beyond Bourne Identity, Damon is keen to start on a sequel to GWH and possibly have a stab at directing. Whatever he does, at this point he just wants to keep working. He wasn�t buying suggestions that while Affleck has been creating the career of a movie star, Damon has taken the route of a serious actor.
  �A good example,� he says, �is before GWH came out, I got cast in Saving Private Ryan, he got cast in Armageddon. Either of us would have done the other movie. We needed the job.�
• From Felicity:
  • A nice pic of Matt from the Sydney premiere: here.
  • Bourne Identity is now just over $1 million behind Sum of all fears in US domestic gross. Bourne: $117,127,270 v Sum: $118,300,384
  • A few bits from the social columns in the Sunday papers:
    Sun-Herald (with a good pic of Matt and Odessa I'll scan later):
    This scribe got up close and personal with visiting celeb Matt Damon last week - and what a superstar he is. Proving quite the film-maker, Damon was a dab hand at snapping shots on fans' cameras while he worked the red carpet. And he was on time!
    And:
    Australia's major theatre companies may be at the point of sending their completed 2003 programs to the printers, but should any acting roles suddenly become available there's an overseas name to bear in mind. It's Matt Damon. Before you dismiss him as just another Hollywood pretty boy, it's worth considering Damon's recent West End turn in the hip play "This is our youth." While fellow Hollywood names Casey Affleck and Summer Phoenix received a critical thumbs down, joining other movie actors such as Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow to have been slammed while slumming it in the West End, Damon received glowing praise. "Matt Damon is outstanding," leading London critic Charles Spencer wrote.
    Our companies should also take into account Damon's glowing praise for all things Australian, especially Sydney, and the fact that he is about to have an enforced break from the big screen because, as he revealed to this column, the scripts he has received since his star turn in TBI have been "crap."
  • And the Herald-Sun
    Stars fuel the fun
    Two top-shelf celebrities brightened up Melbourne this week and turned a couple events from ordinary into awfully good fun. Hollywood hearthrob Matt Damon shunned the fanfare and cruised into town.
    The Oscar winner's mission was to promote TBI and he totally won over the crowd at the movie's preview screening at the Rivoli Theatre in Camberwell. He was wonderfully obliging, signing hundreds of autographs and posing for numerous photos with his fans as he slowly made his way along the red carpet. It was one of the most impressive red carpet arrivals I have witnessed.
  • From a Sun-Herald interview with Franka Potente, on working with Matt:
    The two actors struck up a rapport during the four-month shoot in Prague, Paris and Italy. "He was a good partner," Potente said of Damon. "First of all, he's very relaxed. He doesn't request many things, he's very easygoing. I think if you work so long every day with each other, that's the best thing you can get. He's very focused and he always looks after his partners."

• From Felicity:
  • Here's another really fun radio interview from Melbourne station Triple M. It lasts for 15 minutes (in two parts), and there are some photos on the site. here.
    Matt was introduced as being one of Hollywood's most bankable stars, and then replied: "That's the first time I've heard bankable... For the first time since GWH suddenly I'm getting all of these scripts in the mail and I'm bankable again in Hollywood... this week."
    Also said that he's received more scripts since Bourne opened than in the entirety of last year (20 or 30).
    Asked if there was anything personal to him in Bourne: Matt said that when on the telephone in the apartment his character says "Bear with me for one second". This is something his dad says all the time, so he knows the line is completely honest and true, because he's heard it a thousand times.
    When told by the DJ that he should move to Melbourne, Matt said that literally the only thing stopping him is "Proximity to family and friends. You can't beat the people or the weather down here."
    Awww.
  • From the Marilyn Beck/Stacy Jenel Smith column:
    ON THE PERSONAL SIDE: Matt Damon has gone from Australia to Taiwan doing promotional chores for "The Bourne Identity" -- and his gal Odessa Whitmore has been right there with him. They'll be winging back to the States for the Labor Day weekend and then will jet off again to Europe for additional tubthumping for the flick. It's close to a year now since sparks ignited between the actor and the personal assistant of his buddy Ben Affleck, and it's been going strong ever since.
  • A pic from Hello mag online of Matt and Odessa at the Sydney premiere: here.
  • A story in the NY Post on the stars' favourite places in New York: MATT DAMON: "The running and bicycle path in lower Manhattan on the West Side. I ride my bike there all the time. I jog there and I also use it to take long leisurely walks. It's a great place to chill out - you really feel like you've gotten away from it all when you're there."
  • Brad Pitt has dropped out of "The Fountain", the project to be directed by Darren Aronofsky, and due to start shooting in Australia later this year (aka "The Beard Movie").
    From Variety: Studio executives have apparently placed calls to agents asking about the availability of several other top stars as replacements for Pitt in "The Fountain" -- but it's unclear at this point if the project will go ahead here.
    Matt has said a number of times that he'd love to make a film here, and he's definitely not overbooked. If the project doesn't crash, this could be a possibility.
  • There's a story on Matt in the new UK "Total Film" magazine (Bond cover): MATT DAMON Don't call him Ben's best bud... The Good Will Hunting star turns action hero for The Bourne Identity. He'll chat how the film nearly collapsed, re-invention and his career...
  • The October issue of UK's "Empire" has a story on the making of "Good Will Hunting" (retro piece!)
  • From the Herald-Sun:
    Matt shows his true identity
    It's always easy to tell when a star is going to a movie at the Rivoli; when Russell Crowe had his latest premieres there, or when Nicole Kidman came to the opening of "Moulin Rouge", the street was studded with fans.
    It was no different for the arrival of Matt Damon, who came to introduce a VIP screening of his new movie, "The Bourne Identity".
    And his fans aren't all school-aged: Fiona Darmody of Fox Sports arrived with model Ann-Maree Cooksley. Fiona says: "My parents are from the country, and when my mother heard I was coming, she said, 'You've got to get a picture with him!' So I did."
    And the star himself? Could not have been nicer. He was fab when I interviewed him in New York for "Good Will Hunting", and time, success and an Oscar hasn't changed him. He was completely charming to everyone, posing for every photo and signing every offered piece of paraphernalia, from DVDs to posters.
    His impressions of Melbourne? "It's great," he says, "though to be honest, I've seen a lot of the inside of radio stations, hotel rooms and the backs of cars." However, he adds: "Melbourne reminds me of Boston, which is where I'm from, so it feels very at home here. It's like a mild version of Boston. You guys don't quite get the winters we do."
    The Bourne Identity was a nail-biting thriller that did not let up on pace; after one incredibly riveting car chase scene, the audience burst into spontaneous applause.
    Writer Margaret Ambrose says: "When Matt introduced the movie, I thought, yeah, boyishly handsome, charming, humble, what you expect from a Hollywood star. But after seeing the movie, I wanted to hunt him down and stalk him! In the movie, he had everything a girl could want - sensitivity mixed with an ability to take out a room of police. You've gotta love that in a spy flick."
  • Daily Telegraph:
    Crazy over Matt's butt
    Perhaps it was the glare of the flashlights or the screaming fans, but Sky Channel's Graham McNeice became so caught up in the excitement of Monday night's screening of TBI that he took a tumble on the red carpet. Thankfully, McNeice wasn't injured and he was quickly helped back on to his feet by a very thoughtful young bloke - Matt Damon.
    The next day, during Damon's visit to Triple M's brekkie show, he snuck into program director Guy Dobson's office for a cigarette. When the star left the building, Dobson - holding the butt - said out loud: "Hey let's put this on eBay." Sanity prevailed, and now it's being framed for Dobo's office.
    Before leaving, the Talented Mr Damon shared with Peter Bernier the advice George Clooney gave him on how best to avoid jet-lag on the long flight to Australia. The Cloon-meister suggested he fly direct to Sydney a couple of days in advance, bring his girlfriend, spend a day on the Harbour and check out a few pubs. Damon did all of that, which is why he was so cheery as he hit the promo trail.
• From Bec:
  There are 2 photos of Matt with Kyle and Jackie O, from when he was on the Hot30 earlier this week. Go to here.

Please write fan mail to Matt to:
C/o Patrick Whitesell
Endeavour Talent Agency
9701 Wilshire Blvd.
10th Floor
Beverly Hills, CA 90212

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Click on a link

A very weird article, found on http://www.citypages.com, where this site was cited as the lead-in.
Universal applauds Damon's big help with big 'Bourne' opening, Jun. 19, 2002,By Martin A. Grove, Hollywood Reporter.
Still photos from Good Will Hunting.
2000 Jan. Premier magazine article
USA Weekly November 2000 article, "Ace of Clubs" y by Craigh Barboza.
Local boys making 'Good' a Boston Herald article from the GWH days
The Advocate (12/99) interview by Brendan Lemon.
Some of my personal favorite pictures of Matt
The Talented Mr.Ripley page
The All the Pretty Horses page
The Bagger Vance page
Matt at Fenway Park for the 1999 Major League Baseball All Stars
The Details magazine article, as appeared in the London Telegraph.
Janel Maslin's NY Times Review of GWH , in which she called Matt "very much the supernova".
An article about pre-GWH videos of Matt Damon/
Archive of Past Matt Columns

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I hope you enjoy this site. Sorry if you looked for Matt photos in vain. If you like photos, see Elise's site, which has an excellent photo gallery.
Some good sources of Matt Info
The greenlight project link: The site created by Matt and Ben for online screenplay submission.

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E-mail:	[email protected]
URL:	http://mattdamon.cjb.net

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