The Matt Damon Column: December 2003 Archive

Updated 12/30/2003


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12/30/2003
  • A summary of the Stuck on you program on Reel Comedy was kindly provided by Lisa.

    Michael Ian Black's interview with the cast of "Stuck On You" on Comedy Central's "Reel Comedy."

    Michael: The Farrelly Brothers call, and say "We've got the conjoined twins' movie", you signing up?
    Matt: Well, the first thing you gotta do is kill all the other conjoined twin movies you have in development...
    Greg: It's about time, is what he's saying. (laughing)

    They show some clips from the movie. Then Michael does this funny thing in which he uses his pen in a "very serious news reporter" type way and acts like he's asking a very intelligent question.

    Michael: In this cinematic enterprise you play Walt (pointing to Greg) and you play Bob (pointing to Matt and then he leans back and puts his pen up to his mouth). Tell me about these characters.

    Matt and Greg look at him for a moment and then start laughing.

    Matt: That was very talented. I like the W.H. The random W.H. for no reason.

    The laughing continues for a bit, then Matt answers the question. Which is basically describing the movie as we know it. Then after a clip Greg starts to talk more about what the film is about when Michael notices Greg's foot rubbing on his knee.

    Michael: You're kinda playing footies with me Greg. You know that?

    Greg messes with him some more and the tries to keep going with his comment, but Matt makes a joke out of it.

    Matt: (in his sexy deep voice) Work it, work it. Don't give it all away. Do it softly.

    Greg tries to finish his comment, but Matt keeps the joke going.

    Matt: You're asking a question, not sending a message. Do it softly.

    They all start to laugh after he says that. They show some clips. Michael asks them if they ever stayed at a place like the motel in the movie. Matt says he, Ben, and another friend stayed at a place just like that when they first moved to L.A.
    During an interview with Eva, she said she thinks her character was into the conjoined twin thing. She thought her character wanted to have sex with them. In another funny moment that catches Matt and Greg off guard, Michael ask them about playing conjoined twins in the movie.

    Matt: His character is more open and I'm the shy one so... we just tried to play what was real.

    Michael gives Matt a funny, serious look.

    Michael: Are you shy in real life Matt?
    Matt: (caught off guard) No.
    Micheal looks at him.
    Michael: Matt...are you shy in real life?
    Matt thinks and turns to Greg.
    Matt: I'm shy..
    And then they all start too laugh. Matt's facial expressions were really funny.

    Michael asks them to tell the difference between the two brothers and they give him a very good answer.
    Matt: We kinda decided that Greg will kinda face the world head on-- uh- because I'm kinda off to the side a little bit, and kinda have to walk side ways and keep up with him.
    Greg: ...He sees that we're conjoined all the time. And it's kinda in his eyesight, but for Walt he's kinda straight down the line.
    Michael: You guys actually thought about this.
    Greg: Yeah it's kinda scary, isn't it?

    Michael starts nodding his head in agreement and looking at both of them. They stare at him for a moment and then Greg looks at Matt. Matt starts laughing.

    Matt: Is that the part where they cut back to you...
    Michael: In my head that's what was going on. It was a funny reaction shot of me going (starts nodding his head again).
    Matt and Greg start laughing.
    Matt: (laughing) This is the most bizarre fucking interview I've ever done in my life.

    Michael: (to Greg) 8 years ago you were on basic cable and now you're an Oscar nominated movie star. 8 years ago I was on basic cable and still am, what am I doing wrong?
    They start laughing.
    Michael: (to Matt) God, 8 years ago you were nobody, and I had my own fucking television show.
    They continue to laugh.
    Greg: I think it's all about representation. Who you with?
    Michael looks at him.
    Michael: I don't even understand the question.

    They laugh. While Matt was talking about working with Cher the power went out, which was a very funny moment. During the interview with Cher, Michael asked her who did she like most, Greg or Matt.

    Cher: Depends on the day.
    Michael: Lets say Wednesday.
    Cher: Greg.
    Michael: See I was going to say Greg, too, because Matt seems like a prick.
    Cher starts laughing.
    Cher: No he's not, he's a sweetheart. Are you allowed to say prick on this show?
    Michael: I don't know.

    And at the end of the show Matt and Greg did a plug telling people to go out and see the movie.
    Matt: We're whores. We're such whores. (In a gay voice) Please, please go see our movie.

    Very fun interview to watch and Michael Ian Black is a very funny guy.

  • In a Newday article, Jan Stuart listed her top films of the year, and her pics for next year:

    8. Gerry. Gus van Sant returned to the experimental roots of his career with two formidable works. The attention-getter was the mosaic-like "Elephant," an implacable meditation on the shootings at Columbine High School. Even more elusive, at least to the millions that gave it wide berth, was this curiously hypnotic and haunting improvisational drama starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as two buddies lost on a desert hike. The idiosyncratic Affleck proved to be vastly more interesting than his mystifyingly famous big brother.

    Things to Look Forward to in 2004
    The Brothers Grimm. Having recently been joined at the hip (or wherever) with Greg Kinnear in "Stuck on You," Matt Damon does another kind of brother act, co-starring with Heath Ledger as the famous spinners of dark children's tales. Terry Gilliam seems the perfect director for this mix of tall-tale-telling and souped-up biography.

  • From yet another interview with Matt and Greg in the Daily Record.

    Working a Farrelly Brothers movie presumably you have to be prepared to go on and have a laugh at yourself?
    Matt: Oh yeah. This was as much fun as either of us had ever had on a film.
    Greg: They host a hell of a party. This movie takes place in LA and they should have shot it in LA and they lost production days because they went to the studio and said "We don't want to be in LA, everybody works in LA, at six o'clock they all want to go home and we want to go out." So we ended up shooting in Miami. They do it from the standpoint of their family and friends. It's a family atmosphere down there and everyone is welcome and if you haven't been in a Farrelly Bros movie yet, just wait, you will.
    Matt: It's funny. One day I showed up for work and Greg goes 'Morning' and 'I'm like "How are you?" and he goes 'You are doing a five-page monologue with Bobby and Pete's mom today."

    Are there any actors you wouldn't want to be joined up with?
    Matt: I could think of a bunch right off the top of my head. There are people with horrible reputations and that's the last thing you would want to do. I mean, if you were stuck to an a****** for 12 hours a day that would be a miserable experience. That's a different movie, Stuck On An A******.

  • An article comparing Stuck on you and Paycheck from a Matt v Ben v Boston perspective is at the Boston Herald.

  • Erin sent in the text of an article in Jane magazine about Matt's former girlfriend Odessa (the photo at right is from the recent Elle magazine article).

    There is a blurb in the January/February 2004 issue of Jane magazine about Odessa Whitmire. The page is about non-famous celebrity exes and how people still wonder about them. There's a picture of Odessa and Matt and it says:

    Name: Odessa Whitmire, 28, boutique chick.
    Split from: Rumored fiancee Matt Damon, after two years.
    Known for: Being Ben Affleck's and Billy Bob Thornton's personal assistant. Supposedly, J.Lo was jealous of her gig with Ben and requested she get axed.
    Working on: Recently opened a store called Some Odd Rubies in New York with Summer Phoenix and Ruby Canner. So, do people come in to get a look at her? "Not really. If they do, they don't say anything. I hope they come in to shop."


12/28/2003
  • From the Sunday Herald Sun (Melbourne) last week:

    Matt's family affair

    Matt Damon will spend Christmas in his home town of Boston, Massachusetts. "I think I have about nine or 10 days off so I'll fly back and go home and see my family," says Damon, who has been in Germany, Holland and India working on The Bourne Supremacy.

    Damon's mother, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, and his father, Kent Damon, have been divorced since 1973, so he describes getting around to everyone at Christmas as "kind of like family gymnastics". He adds: "When we were kids everybody buried their differences in order to get together for our sake, but now we're adults my brother and I have to schedule, like, from 5 until 7 we're with this family member, and so on. It's very different from when I was a kid. But, having done Stuck On You and then gone straight into The Brothers Grimm in Prague, I haven't been home for almost a year so I'll just be happy to get some face time with my family."

  • The following was the concluding paragraph in NY Daily News critic Jack Mathews' preview of 2004 movies:

    A tale of Grimm and bear it

    For me, the year's most enticing pro�ject is Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm," a fantastical look at the lives of the authors of those wondrous 19th-century fairy tales. It stars Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as the brothers and Monica Bellucci as the sorceress they encounter in the haunted woods. In full disclosure, I wrote a book that was both about and supporting Gilliam's fight with Universal over the final cut of "Brazil," and I'm on record as saying he's the most visually gifted fabulist working today (sorry, Tim Burton fans). The evidence is there, in fits and starts, in "Time Bandits," "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" and "The Fisher King."

    But the former Monty Python illustrator has never had a budget to match his imagination, until now. We'll soon find out where his imagination takes us as the Grimms enter the world of their own tales.

  • My thanks to Lisa for sending in an interview with Matt from the Chicago RedEye newspaper. Here's an extended response to a question we've seen before:

    What was it like working with Cher?

    What was interesting about Cher in this movie is that she was to play a diva named Cher. She'd come and hang out on the set in sweat pants, a real normal person. Then they'd come and say, "In 20 minutes, we need two more shots," and she'd say, "OK." In her trailer were all these costumes; she'd put them on, and a crazy wig and do these wild scenes. She said, "I can't go halfway; I have to really go for it." She was fun to be around; I think we bonded.

  • Here's a fantastic interview from the UK Times which covers a wide range of subjects, including an admission from Matt that his relationship with Odessa broke up four months ago, but that nobody found out. However, the author still gets the Minnie Driver 'break-up story' wrong - see the site FAQ for more information.

    Breaking through the pain barrier
    He starved himself for one role, and practised piano rigorously for another. But is Matt Damon happy in his choice of career, asks David Eimer

    You know you are a star when two unknown actresses take the story of your early life and how you became famous, then turn it into a successful play. But for Matt Damon, now half the subject of the off-Broadway production Matt and Ben, it's another unnerving example of what happens when your life becomes public property. So, though the critics have been kind to the play, and he lives in New York (where we meet), he has no plans to catch it.

    "It's two women playing us," he shrugs. "I'd never hold it against two young actor/writers trying to put themselves on the map, but it strikes me as bizarre. That we would rate a play that people would actually want to see isn't so much cool to me as worrisome, in terms of the direction of pop culture in this country."

    The irony is that the two actresses are only doing what Damon and his best friend, Ben Affleck, did when they were struggling actors in LA. Back then, tired of watching movies rather than making them, they wrote their own film, Good Will Hunting. It went on to become a worldwide hit, won them an Oscar for best original screenplay and started the media's fascination with the pair. Now, thanks to Affleck's romance with J.Lo, that attention has reached epidemic proportions.

    "From the moment that movie came out, the whole thing became so bizarre," recalls Damon, between puffs on a cigarette. "Everything in my life changed so much, and there was so much glare for a couple of months, it cut me off from having normal conversations. If people only want to talk about you, you'll never learn anything. I would rather have a normal life. I think that'll give me the chance to play more roles and to understand more human beings."

    Apart from relationships with Winona Ryder and Minnie Driver, whom he famously dumped on the Oprah Winfrey show, Damon has been more successful at keeping out of the press than his mate has. That's not Affleck's fault, though, according to Damon. "He has no control over being on the cover of magazines every week. They just use photos they have taken of him before. I know for a fact that he's called and said: 'Will you please not put me on the cover.' But that's not the way it works."

    It's hard to see the fresh-faced Damon, who is now 33, but still dresses like the student he once was - in jeans, a casual green shirt and boots - adorning the cover of gossip mags. But his profile has been rising lately, and for the right reasons. While Affleck has gone on to big-budget blockbusters like Armageddon, Damon has taken a worthier route, appearing in the literary adaptations The Talented Mr Ripley and All the Pretty Horses, as well as Robert Redford's Legend of Bagger Vance.

    Despite his impressive performances, particularly as Ripley, none of those films were big hits, which left Damon in the unenviable position of being a name who couldn't open a movie. Things started to change with Ocean's Eleven, but it was only when 2001's spy thriller The Bourne Identity drummed up more than $150m in America that Damon established himself as a genuine star. The sense of relief on his part is obvious. "Once The Bourne Identity came out, I started getting more offers again. Before that, the phone wasn't really ringing," he admits.

    One of those offers was Stuck on You, a typically broad comedy from the Farrelly brothers, who gave us There's Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber. Along with Greg Kinnear, he plays conjoined twins who abandon their humdrum lives as diner cooks on the East Coast to head to LA to make it as actors. It's the cue for much slapstick and some decent jokes, but, like all the Farrellys' films, it walks a fine line between laughs and bad taste.

    "When I first heard the idea, I was a bit leery," Damon confesses. "But the Farrellys have this kind of goodness that the humour can't hide." It is a strangely touching story, and he is funny, but you wonder whether Damon, who dropped out of Harvard to become a full-time actor, prefers more sophisticated comedy in real life. "I have pretty broad taste. I can laugh at these guys' movies. At the same time, The Office is one of my favourite things that I've seen recently. It's f***ing brilliant."

    He's been working for the past six months with Mackenzie Crook, who played Gareth in The Office, on Terry Gilliam's Brothers Grimm. Inspired by the tales rather than an interpretation of them, it sees Damon and Heath Ledger playing the brothers as medieval con men who stumble into an enchanted forest. "It's going to be spectacular, but I don't know what the tone of the movie will be. There are moments straight out of Python, then there's all this fairy-tale imagery, with moments of tragedy." In other words, like all Gilliam's films, it's a bit of a gamble.

    Having just collaborated with Gus Van Sant on the impenetrable and little-seen Gerry, Damon seems to be jumping to and fro between the mainstream and the less commercial end of the film industry. "It's not as calculated as 'one big one, one small one'," he claims. "It's more whatever's out there in any genre that I haven't done before. You always have to be careful you don't make a movie that's too similar to the last one or you get pigeonholed."

    Damon has always taken the job seriously. He and Affleck started acting in commercials in their home town, Boston, as teenagers, and he made sure the money he earned was put aside to pay for trips to New York for auditions. By the time he reached LA in his early twenties, he was crossing the line between dedication and obsession. When he played a heroin-addicted soldier in 1996's Courage Under Fire (his breakthrough part, along with the title role in 1997's Saving Private Ryan), he starved himself to the point that he became seriously ill. "That was a desperate attempt to get more work," he grins. It succeeded, but for 1999's The Talented Mr Ripley, he was still spending his spare time running himself into the ground and endlessly practising the piano, while his co-stars hit the local bars and restaurants. It led Anthony Minghella, Ripley's director, to observe that Damon seemed to believe that "good acting was only possible through pain", and his rigorous physical-training regime for The Bourne Identity backs that up.

    "Maybe I do equate acting with pain. I hope that doesn't always have to be the case, otherwise I'm just going to be miserable. I am trying to grow out of that. I think it's a need to feel that I've explored every avenue and really given it a good shot, because I know that it will go away. It goes away for everybody. I've seen other actors' careers run their course, so that's given me a realistic perspective on the business, and I just want to leave it without regret," he says.

    Does he work so hard in order to assuage any guilt he might feel at making so much money? After all, he got $10m for The Bourne Identity and will receive more for next year's sequel, The Bourne Supremacy. "Yeah. I feel a need to earn it, but I was working hard before I made a lot of money. There's always something."

    Certainly, he isn't the type to just sit around. It's the reason he came to London last year to appear in the play This Is Our Youth, with Casey Affleck, Ben's younger brother, when the film work had dried up. "It was idyllic. I lived with Casey in Soho, so we could walk to the theatre." At the time, he was seeing Odessa Whitmire, Ben Affleck's former assistant. "We broke up four months ago, but nobody knows that." He's pleased it didn't make the papers. "I think it helped that she wasn't famous. It doesn't matter who you are: if you start dating Demi Moore or Jennifer Lopez, these high-profile women, people will want to know about it."

    Now that Affleck is busy with Lopez, he sees less of him than he once did. "In my heart, we're as close," Damon insists. "We stay in touch by e-mail, and we talk occasionally, but it's always been that way. Whenever we got jobs, we'd disappear for a few months and then come back with a bunch of stories." They are extremely loyal to each other, a result of spending so much of their early lives together. "We enabled each other," Damon points out. "We were two kids from the exact same neighbourhood who had this common dream, and I'm sure our love of acting became more intense because we talked about it so much. There was also a certain amount of unquestioning drive, and I think, in the past few years, we've stopped and considered: 'What the hell were we thinking, and is this really what we wanted to do?' In my case, it is, but I think for far different reasons than when I was 16."

    With Ocean's Twelve, the sequel to Ocean's Eleven, set to shoot next year, as well as The Bourne Supremacy, Damon has little time to ponder the implications of his choice all those years ago. In any case, these days he is more interested in simplifying his life. "I just want to have a career. My role models are people like Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall and Paul Newman, people who have been in the industry a long time and are still doing great work," he asserts. He's doing the right things to achieve that.

12/26/2003
  • Here's a photo of Matt at his brother Kyle's home on Christmas Day. While I do not support the Boston Herald invading Matt's privacy on a day with his family, I am just bringing the photo to your attention. The following text accompanied the photo:

    Cambridge homey Matt Damon, who spent much of the fall filming "The Brothers Grimm" in the Czech Republic, toasts Christmas Day with a glass of o.j. while home for the holidays at his own brother Kyle's very un-Grimm abode north of Boston. (Herald photo)

  • Additional text from the Herald's item Wednesday was found at the Teen Hollywood site.

    From the Hub to Hollywood; They're Stuck on Matt, Too

    Matt has some down home fun. "Stuck on You" star Matt Damon gets a grip on a couple of Abercrombie & Fitch gals - Brittany Dietz and Hannah Lategan - after he tucked into lunch yesterday at Joe Fish Seafood Restaurant in North Andover. The Other Cambridge homey - who really doesn't get enough attention in the Track - broke bread with the Vinings of Medford, who bid $5,500 at a recent Boys & Girls Clubs of Middlesex County auction to dine with Damon. Matt, who just wrapped up "The Brothers Grimm," spread cheer for three hours, chatting up the eight Vinings, as well as his fave Teamsters Local 25 movie captain, Bob Martini; Joe Fish GM Jim Dietz, who happily got Stuck with the tab; and Boys & Girls Clubs cheese Gary Gartland. After the hols, the Tinseltown It Boy is bound for Berlin to film "The Bourne Identity II" and then it's on to the "Ocean's Eleven" sequel. He's a demon that Damon!

12/24/2003
  • Matt's back home in Boston. From the Boston Globe:

    STUCK ON HIM
    Local-boy-made-good Matt Damon was in town yesterday for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Boston -- and all he had to do was have lunch. Well, that and promote his latest film, the Farrelly brothers' "Stuck on You," in which he stars with Greg Kinnear. Damon had lunch with a lucky unnamed bidder at Joe Fish restaurant in North Andover as part of a benefit for the Boys and Girls Clubs. It was an interesting twist for Joe Fish's owner Jim Dietz. He had worked with Damon and his friend -- perhaps you've heard of him -- Ben Affleck, when the pair hosted a party at Sonsi, where Dietz was a manager, on New Year's Eve 1999.

    The caption to the Boston Herald photo at right is:

    "Stuck on You" star Matt Damon gets a grip on a couple of Abercrombie & Fitch gals - Brittany Dietz and Hannah Lategan - after he tucked into lunch yesterday at Joe Fish Seafood Restaurant in North Andover.

  • From a USA Today story where they asked the stars if they had been naughty or nice this year:

    Matt Damon:"I think I was nice this year. I was too busy to be naughty. Maybe next year I can be a little bit more mischievous when I'm not working this much."

  • This is the final item in Movieline magazine's list of 33 events they're looking forward to in 2004 :

    33: Don't worry, be Grimm
    Terry Gilliam's visions are hit (Brazil) or miss (Fear and loathing in Las Vegas), but they're always interesting. The director's latest - and first since his infamously ill-fated Don Quixote project - is the all-star fantasty The Brothers Grimm with Matt Damon and Health Ledger as the story-spinning siblings. Watch for it in the fall. (MGM/Dimension)

  • A funny story from an interview with and Greg Kinnear and Bobby Farrelly at mymovies.net.

    Q: Greg, You look scarily efficient flipping burgers. Is that something you inherited from a previous career prior to acting?

    GK: I waited a lot of tables but somebody was back there cooking the burgers for me. (starting to laugh) We got some jugglers sent to us from Hollywood. They flew out to Miami and? Can I tell?

    BF: Yeah, this is typical of what a half-ass set we were running.

    GK: These guys are working with Matt and me while we're not shooting and he was telling me how to do it but he'd be dropping things and it was a little strange. So I went up to Matt and said "How's your juggling coming?" and he was like, "Not very good. I can juggle better than him and I don't juggle." So finally we tell Bobby and Peter and they do a little research. It turns out they were dancers from Hollywood - no juggling experience whatsoever. They were con-men basically, who had come out to teach us how to juggle but they didn't know what the hell they were doing.

    BF: They were there about a week and a half! Every time we'd ask to see some juggling they'd be like, 'Yeah, tomorrow afternoon."

    GF: Meanwhile they're out on the beach and ordering room service!

    BF: You remember how many times they'd be in front of a room full of people saying, "Let's see what you've got," and somehow they'd wiggle out of it and fool us for another day. When we finally caught them we weren't mad, we were kind of impressed!

  • A French article on Prague's Barrandov studios talks about Brothers Grimm and other productions here.

12/23/2003
  • Christmas greetings to all readers. There's not much news around, but here's a few stories, mostly Ben-related.

  • Ben talked with the Boston Herald's Inside Track gossip column:

    And speaking of his childhood, Affleck said he hopes to get together with his boyhood bud, Matt Damon when he returns from Iraq. The two haven't spent much time together over the past year because Damon has been in Europe filming ``The Brothers Grimm'' and then ``The Bourne Identity'' sequel.

    But Affleck said he has seen Matt's new flick ``Stuck On You'' and gives it a big thumbs up.

    ``I liked it, it's funny,'' he said. ``It's the best comedy of the year, unless you count `Gigli.' ''

    Affleck said he's aware of the inevitable comparisons between him and Damon and that they will crop up again when movie grosses come in for ``Paycheck'' and ``Stuck On You.''

    ``I hope Matt does really well, and I hope I do too,'' he said. ``I root for Matt and want nothing more than for him to succeed.''

    He's heard the rap: Damon's an actor and Affleck's a movie star. But he doesn't buy it. He says it's interesting that when he and Matt started out in ``Good Will Hunting,'' Matt was the bigger star. Damon had a lead role in ``The Rainmaker'' on his resume while Affleck had been in small independent flicks like ``Chasing Amy'' and ``Glory Daze.''

    ``I think we both want to work and we both want to be good,'' he said. ``I think everyone recognizes that Matt is a great actor and I think so too. As for me, I always felt I had more to prove commercially in order to get offered roles. That if I didn't do `Pearl Harbor' I wouldn't get `Changing Lanes.' And as for Matt, he just did a Farrelly Brothers movie. So I think that Matt is an actor and he's also a movie star and I'm a movie star and also an actor.''

    Affleck is 31 years old and he's made 42 films. But his favorite is still ``Good Will Hunting,'' the made-in-Boston flick that made he and Damon superstars.

    ``It's the closest to my heart, definitely,'' he said. ``It's about where we grew up, who we grew up with, we wrote it, labored over it the longest and it means to most to me. I don't know how else to explain it.''

  • A snippet from an interview with writer Andre Dubus III in the Boston Globe about his novel, recently turned into a film, titled House of Sand and Fog.

    After the post-Oprah blastoff, the telephone started ringing. "It's nice when you get a call from Hollywood," Dubus says. "I thought, `We can bring in a little money.' We've always struggled. My wife is an artist, and I'm in the arts. I started getting four or five calls a week for a year and a half. Julianne Moore wanted to play Kathy. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's company called."

  • Bourne Supremacy secondary casting from the Hollywood Reporter:

    Tomas Arana and Tom Gallop have been cast in Universal Pictures' "The Bourne Supremacy" for director Paul Greengrass. Arana plays the head of the CIA who oversees Joan Allen's character as she tries to find the elusive Jason Bourne. Gallop plays an agent who reports to Allen. Arana has appeared in "Gladiator" and "Pearl Harbor" and is shooting "Bayou."

  • Gerry and Stuck on you are both making some end of year "best of" film lists. New York Daily News critic Jack Matthews placed SOY eighth on his top ten films of the year listing.

  • Jennifer passed on a review for Stuck on you from selfmadecritic.com, in which the author expresses his reluctance to see the film, and his pleasant surprise at the outcome:

    And yet, somehow, Stuck On You delivers. It is not insulting. It is heart-warming. It is funny. Lord, is it funny...

    All that makes for one funny film. Are the main characters conjoined twins? You bet. Does that mean this is a mean-spirited farce? Heck no. We rejoice in these characters because THEY rejoice in themselves. They see no reason why they can't do things everyone else does, who are we to think any less of them?

    Like the Lionel Ritchie song of the same name, Stuck On You delivers a feeling down deep in your soul that you just can't lose. It'll bring a smile to your face, if you let it, and put a song in your heart. Probably a Cher song, but you'll get over it.

  • More on the future of Project Greenlight from an interview with Ben at Cinema Confidential.

    Q: What's the status of 'Project Greenlight 3'?
    BEN: It's going to Bravo. I don't know if there's a press announcement yet but it should basically be there. We locked in some really great sponsors, including Hewitt Packard, and we're talking to some more. Bravo's really aggressive in trying to do it and they really get the spirit. We're going to make some changes to the contest this year. This year, it's going to be more like the Hollywood Greenlight. With 'Greenlight,' I think what we've kind of shown is how people have made the true process of making an independent movie. We're going to show what it's like how to make a movie in the studio system this year. So it'll have different demands and constraints on the filmmakers. Chris [Moore] didn't want to do it this year so we need a new bad guy. So we figured the movie studio is a good bad guy. The movie studios are the ones who are saying "You have to do this, you have to have these commercial constraints. You can't play this. No, this joke is too smart." [These are] all the things that you get from studios who think that dumbing a movie down appeals to a mass audience. There's a lot of stuff that we haven't worked out but it's really exciting and something that matters a lot to Matt [Damon] , me, and Chris. Who knows? Maybe people will go to this movie this year. (Laughter) Everyone always asks about 'Greenlight' but did you guys buy any g*ddamn tickets for the movie when it came out? (Laughter)

12/20/2003
  • Here's the Us Weekly story about Matt's rumored new girlfriend:

    Damon's New Girl? A Single Mom!

    Sorry, ladies: It appears Matt Damon is taken again. Hot Stuff has learned that the actor has been seeing a dark-haired woman--who has a child from a previous relationship. "Matt has really taken to the kid," a source says. "They are like a family." Our source says Damon, 33, may have met his Florida based friend as long ago as fall 2002 when he hosted a leukemia fundraiser at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. The woman is believed to be in her late twenties and "she goes back and forth from Florida to visit him."

  • Ben talked about Matt's involvement with Paycheck in this comingsoon.net interview:

    It's been reported that Matt Damon recommended Affleck for the role. "In fact John really dug the 'The Bourne Identity, you know, sort of naturally and wanted Matty for this thing," says Affleck. "Matt was pleased and honored, of course, to talk to John Woo, but he read the script and said to him, 'You know, I can't just be amnesia movie guy, you know what I mean, or that's all I'll do.' But he called me right after his meeting with John and said, 'You gotta get on this script, man, this is really, really good.' As luck would have it for me, John flew back from the meeting in New York on the plane to LA and they were showing 'Changing Lanes' on the plane. When he got here I got the part. It was great. It was serendipitous for me. I like to think though that it was 'Changing Lanes' that did it and not Matt, therefore I'm not giving him a cut."

  • From the Boston Herald's Inside Track column:

    Matt and Ben balk at buying piece of Sox
    By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa
    Friday, December 19, 2003

    Turns out, maybe Matt Damon and Ben Affleck aren't such big Red Sox fans after all. Seems the ``Stuck on You'' and ``Paycheck'' stars were offered a chance to become one of the many Boston big shots who own a piece of the Sox - and both Hollywood hot shots took a pass!

    Now we ask you, what red-blooded Red Sox fan wouldn't give their eye teeth to own a piece of the Olde Town Team???

    Besides the obvious perks - the front-row seats, the parking passes and the opportunity to yank Nomar's chain - you would get to tell the real owners, the boy GM and the manager how to run the ball club. And they'd have to listen, and nod and pretend to take it all under advisement! Ben has revealed the new owners of the Sox approached him and Matt back when they were completing the sale and asked if they wanted in. But Affleck said he crunched the numbers and figured it wasn't worth it.

    ``I mean, the team's over $600 million,'' Affleck tells Carson Daly during a taping of ``Last Call with Carson Daly,'' scheduled to air Dec. 26 on NBC. ``So it's $300 million for 51 percent, so in order to have 1 percent, it's $6 million.''

    Actually, Ben, the team was over $700 million, but we get the drift.

    ``I wouldn't have gotten anything,'' he continued. ``I mean, you wouldn't have a vote. I mean the only thing I would have gotten was a bunch of (bleep) in the Boston papers every time the Red Sox lost. `How come Matt (bleeping) Damon can't do something?' You know, so it's like not worth it.''

    But, Ben, the bragging rights - priceless!

  • LivePlanet's General Manager project, where viewers have a role in making strategic game decisions involving an independent baseball team, will be based in Chicago - details here.

  • Another interview with Matt and Greg is at tiscali.co.uk.

  • Here's a question posed to Lorrie Lynch in USA Weekend:

    We lost four great entertainers in 2003. Who do you think has the talent to become the next Katharine Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Bob Hope and Gregory Hines? Ros Patterson, Indianapolis

    Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones have the talent and the will to reign as long as Hepburn did, and the handsome Matt Damon just might become another Peck.

  • A note on Bourne Supremacy filming dates from the official site of Julia Stiles.

    Filming for Julia in THE BOURNE SUPREMACY will start in Berlin at the end of February through the end of March.

  • An article about the store owned by Matt's ex, Odessa, is at Elle.com.

12/18/2003
  • From the Boston Herald's Inside Track column. The fundraiser for Rainmaker crew member Lisa Maniscalco at the Fort Lauderdale Festival was held on 8 November 2002.

    Matt festive with galpal

    Sorry gals, word out of Tinseltown is that Cambridge cutie Matt Damon is hooked up again.

    Us maggie reports the ``Stuck On You'' star is Stuck On a 20-something single mom from Florida. Damon, who split with longtime galpal Odessa Whitmire, reportedly met his new paramour at a leukemia fund-raiser at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.

    ``Matt has really taken to the kid,'' said one source. ``They are like a family.''

  • The very positive reviews for Stuck on you from Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper on their TV show are available as an audio clip here.

  • Here's a sweet story about some Stuck on you extras, from the Independent Florida Alligator Online.

    Standing beside Matt Damon on the set of "Stuck on You," UF student Lindsey Nemeth listened to her brother, who suffers from cerebral palsy, talk to Damon about his connection to the Farrelly brothers.

    Nemeth recounted her summer vacation spent with her best friend, Amy Komarin, as extras in "Stuck on You," a movie directed by the Farrelly brothers starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins. Nemeth said her brother told Damon, "My sister thinks you're really hot."

    Damon leaned over to Nemeth and confirmed that she was Nick Nemeth's sister.

    Damon asked, "Are you going to take that from your brother?"

    Speechless and blushing, all Nemeth could say was "yeah."...

    When extras weren't needed, the women hung out on the set, Nemeth said. "We sat in the directors' chairs," she said. "We were right there watching the monitors."

    Most actors just go back to their trailers when they aren't filming, but not Damon, Komarin said.

    "He introduced himself as Matt," Nemeth said. "Matt Damon is the nicest man I've ever met in my life."

    Damon sat with her brother Nick and talked for about 20 minutes, she said.

    "He assumes you don't know who he is," Kromarin added. "I think he had a halo around his head."

  • A note for Australian readers: Matt's appearance on Letterman won't be aired locally in the near future. Programmers at Channel 9 decided to jump ahead and air new episodes from Monday, completely missing Matt's episode and all shows from the previous week. A spokesperson told me the program may air on a Sunday or Monday night at an unknown date. Helpful.

12/17/2003
  • On Tuesday's Entertainment Tonight it was reported that Us Weekly's upcoming issue will have information about Matt's new girlfriend. As stated by Bob Goen: "Not many details are known about her, but she's a single mom and met Matt at a fundraiser in Florida".

  • Dark Horizons has details on a possible new project for Matt, although an originating source was not provided. Elizabethtown is a romantic comedy from Cameron Crowe due to shoot in Kentucky or Oregon next Spring, when Matt would/should be filming Ocean's Twelve.

    Elizabethtown: Matt Damon is tipped to be taking over Ashton Kutcher's role in the Cameron Crowe movie but his schedule may prevent it. Seann William Scott & Colin Hanks are said to be runner-up choices.

  • Matt's included in the Italian Donna Moderna calendar, which raises money for emergency services, and the picture is below. My thanks to Costanza.

    • At right is a photo from WENN of Matt at Berlin club 90grad on Friday night.

    • The start of filming for Ocean's Twelve has been delayed according to George Clooney, who spoke with Variety columnist Army Archerd.

      George's next film, "Ocean's 12," is delayed until April, he says, because of Brad Pitt's Achilles' heel injury on "Troy".

    • A few quotes from Stuck on you co-director Bobby Farrelly, from the UGO interview linked yesterday.

      UGO: You and your brother do comedies without standup comedians as your lead actors. Is that a conscious decision?
      Bobby Farrelly: Yeah. When we did Dumb & Dumber, we had Jim Carrey and we were trying to think of who should play with him. The studio came up with names, and they were all stand-ups. Then Pete thought of Jeff Daniels. The studio said he was a serious actor, but Pete had it in his head that he was the guy. It worked and, ever since then, we don't want to confine ourselves. We want the best actor, and that's why Matt Damon worked so well in this role, because he's a great actor.

      Question: Was there ever the idea of getting Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as the brothers in this movie?
      BF: It came up in casting, but no. But then, you wouldn't think they were the characters.

      UGO: This is your first movie where the main characters are good all the way through the movie. They're not shallow, idiots or stalkers. What made this different?
      BF: I think it was a mistake [laughs]. The movie came out different than we thought it would. It had more heart than we thought. But that's the way the guys played it, and they did right. They have to consider the other guy before they consider themselves. They can't be selfish and that came through. It was a total shift that happened because of casting and their chemistry.

    • Below is the People mini interview with Matt and Greg, with thanks to Sandi.



    12/15/2003
    • A report on the weekend's box-office from the Hollywood Reporter:

      The latest film from Bobby and Peter Farrelly, 20th Century Fox's "Stuck on You," was attached to the third spot with a debut of an estimated $10 million. The opening for the comedy about conjoined twins, starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, was in the vicinity of what the studio expected. The Farrelly brothers' highest-grossing film, "There's Something About Mary," opened with $13.7 million in July and went onto take in $176.5 million in 1998.

      While it wasn't a breakout opening, executives at Fox were nevertheless satisfied with the debut of "Stuck on You." "We knew that this wasn't going to the be highest grossing weekend of the year, so we're pretty pleased," said Rick Myerson, executive vp and general sales manager at Fox.

      Myerson said that the film's main audience, those under 25 years of age, were not readily accessible this weekend, since for the most part, they were still in school and preoccupied. He said that the studio considers this more of a sneak preview week. "We're setting it up for the holiday season when our audience is available," Myerson said.

    • Details about Matt visiting a Berlin club on Friday night are at the Berliner Zeitung.
    • I missed a good interview with Matt in the Boston Globe's Magazine.

      ENCOUNTER WITH MATT DAMON
      Good Job Hunting: There's no shortage of roles for the actor, nor of demands on him by the entertainment media. On one day alone, he did 94 interviews.
      By Mark Pothier, Globe Staff, 12/7/2003

      You've been working constantly -- from Stuck on You, opening this week, to The Brothers Grimm and The Bourne Supremacy. And Ocean's 12 starts filming after Bourne. Is it hard to go from one character to another without a break?
      On paper it looks more schizophrenic than it really is. Each project is a kind of stand-alone event that takes roughly six months.

      Still, you can't have much time for anything else.
      For certain chunks of time, I kind of go off the grid. But when I'm not working, I'm really not working.

      Do you need to take on as much as possible while the spotlight is shining?
      These projects are all really good; I couldn't turn them down. Before The Bourne Identity [2002], I was in some trouble by industry [box office] standards, but I've never taken a job for money. I expect [success] will go away someday, but I'm pretty calm about that. In the meantime, I just want to do good movies.

      But you must dread the pre-release publicity -- sitting in a room to face a parade of reporters.
      In terms of the ways I'd like to spend a few days off, it's not on top of my list. For domestic television, you probably end up doing 100 [interviews]. The most I ever did in one day was 94. You find an answer to a question that's the right answer, but you end up feeling like a fake because you say the same thing 90 times in a row.

      Can you walk through your hometown of Cambridge without being accosted?
      Yeah, I can do that, but there's no reason for me to; once they ended rent control in Cambridge, everybody I knew moved out. I'd more likely be walking down a street in Somerville or Medford.

      Your career and Ben Affleck's are invariably compared. Is that irritating?
      It doesn't affect Ben and me personally. He's my best friend. It was probably more annoying at first, because there was just so much when [Good Will Hunting] came out. When Ben's name is mentioned now it's with Jennifer [Lopez's]. She's kind of gotten me off the hook.

      You spent most of the last six months filming The Brothers Grimm in Europe. What's America look like from there?
      It's not good. People don't understand why we don't understand we're part of the world and not the center of it. The perception is we're bullies.

      And Governor Schwarzenegger?
      You would think that the humiliation factor alone would keep us from electing him. Then I figure, why not? We're careening down this path to extinction -- just make Arnold president.

      So we won't see a Senator Damon someday?
      I'm so disillusioned with politics now, I can't imagine wanting to join that field.

    • There's also a fun interview wtih Matt and Greg at UGO.com, and a few excerpts are below. The site also has a collection of other interviews for the film here.

      Featured interview by Daniel Robert Epstein

      Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear made me laugh harder than I have in a long time, both in their new Farrelly Brothers movie, Stuck on You, and in real life. Never have I seen two male actors have such good chemistry both on and off the screen.

      UGO: Did anyone float the idea of putting you and Ben Affleck in this movie together?
      MD: God, I hope not.
      GK: Are you talking to me or him? All that bullshit about Matt and Ben. I'm Ben's oldest friend, and I'm getting more and more freaked by those kinds of questions. People really see you guys as pals.
      MD: It's just the media image. You've been there from the start.

      Question: Greg, you have lots of experience doing comedy. But Matt, this seems like a departure for you. Was that part of the appeal?
      MD: Definitely. If the only movies were the Ripleys and Auto Focus, we'd probably go crazy. Conversely, if we could only do this kind of movie, we'd go crazy as well. The great thing about our job is that we can do all this stuff and avoid being categorized.
      GK: As long as you don't do a sequel to a huge worldwide action picture, I think you can keep mixing it up and try different things. Oh, shoot.
      MD: What happens if I do two big sequels?
      GK: Then the equation goes back to zero, so you're fine.

      UGO: Your careers both got big at the same time, in 1997 [with Good Will Hunting and As Good As It Gets]. Did you meet a lot around that time?
      MD: The first time we met was at the National Board of Review awards in New York. But Greg was really aloof, and wouldn't talk to us.
      GK: He was hanging out with Ben. They looked at me like I wasn't in their friendly club of friends.
      MD: Hey, man, we knew you were Robin's competition. Careful, Kinnear. Watch your back.

      UGO: What superpower would you want to have?
      GK: Um. Anytime you want to jump in, Matt, that's fine. Oscar winner writer can't come up with an answer.
      MD: Go with flying. Everyone goes with flying.
      GK: Of course, he's right.

    • A late report on the Baltimore premiere from the Baltimore Sun.

      'Stuck on You' stars stuck on Baltimore
      By Sloane Brown, originally published December 14, 2003

      Hollywood had nothin' on Baltimore last weekend at the premiere of the new Farrelly Brothers comedy, Stuck on You. Bobby and Peter Farrelly, Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear and Wen Yann Shih mingled with a crowd of several hundred in a tent next to The Senator Theatre. And we do mean mingle. The gang was totally low-key, chatting with folks, signing autographs and posing for snapshots. Proving that B-more has it all over Tinsel Town - very charming and and not smarmy.

      That fact was noted by the stars, according to Trish Fallon, executive director of the Carson Scholars Fund, one of the two beneficiaries of the event.

      Trish says the Farrellys, Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear told her they were thrilled to be in Baltimore, "around regular, real people, not the jaded Hollywood group" they usually deal with at movie premieres.

      The whole shebang can be credited to Baltimore's world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Seems Ben was brought on board, courtesy one of the Stuck On You producers, Baltimore native son Bradley Thomas. Brad's brother, Preston, dated local gal Robin Zimmerman a few years back, and Robin has stayed close to the Thomas family ever since. When Brad was back in town for a family dinner about a year ago, Robin says, he was talking about this movie about conjoined twins (Damon and Kinnear) who get surgically separated. Robin suggested Brad might consider using someone with real-life experience in that area. That someone being Ben. He liked the idea. So did the Farrellys. And Ben agreed to play himself in the movie if the Farrellys did the premiere here to benefit his two nonprofits, the Carson Scholars Fund and the BEN Fund.

      Not only does Ben appear in the movie, so do his wife Candy (as a nurse) and his sons Rhoeyce and B.J. (as guys in the waiting room). That's apparently one of the Farrellys' MOs, according to Oxford-ite Pucky Lippincott who is an old friend of Peter's. Pucky says the Farrellys love putting family and friends in their flicks. She and hubby Richard have their own cameos in previous Farrelly films Kingpin and Me, Myself & Irene.

      Another bit of inside scoop from Pucky: Peter told her Ben Carson actually came up with a laugh line that Peter and Bobby loved. So they had him use it in the movie. (You'll have to see the picture to hear it!)

      Lots of laughs in the premiere screening and at the live auction that preceded it. Two items - a walk-on role in the next Farrelly Brothers movie, about the Three Stooges, and a day of golf in Los Angeles with Kinnear and Damon - brought in $210,000 by themselves! The premiere grossed almost $400,000, a record for a Senator Theatre bash.

    • To affirm that many critics really did enjoy Stuck on you, here's a summary of the Ebert and Roeper show from the weekend.

      Ebert and Roeper just gave two thumbs up to SOY. They really like it! Roeper called it hilarious. Ebert really liked it also. They think Matt and Greg did a great job creating two fully realized characters. And the movie had lots of heart and was very sweet. They actually gave it a better review than Cold Mountain.

    12/14/2003
    • From E Online's Movie Scoop about Stuck on you, with thanks to Jennifer:

      Weirdly, the earnest Damon seems to go deeper here than in his more serious work. The twins expect stares when they move to Los Angeles to pursue Walt's dream of becoming a movie star (with a little help from Cher, who nearly steals the show). But mostly people either don't care (it is L.A., after all) or believe they had plastic surgery to join them together.

      Stuck on You is the Farrelly brothers' sweetest, most consistently funny movie so far--but it has more heart and soul than a lot of "dramas" (Mystic River, anyone?). And you're in for some wicked, wicked surprises and cameos.

    • From an interview with the SOY cast in the Chicago Sun-Times:

      "The main chemistry issue that we were concerned with was how are we going to find two guys that we can strap together for three months without them really driving each other crazy or irritating each other?" recalls Bobby Farrelly.

      Combining equal parts Damon and Kinnear turned out to be the right formula.

      Working so closely has had a lasting effect on the actors. They have an easy, playful rapport, almost like brothers or an old married couple.

      "Matthew, would you like to be on my left or my right, dear?" Kinnear queries. "Which is it? You've been complaining all day. I mean, seriously, don't try to put on your happy face now."

      After some shuffling, Damon takes a seat to Kinnear's right. Like his character in the movie, Kinnear is the more boisterous of the two. Their age difference -- Damon is 33 and Kinnear is 40 -- is accounted for in the movie with the explanation that Damon's character got most of their shared liver, so he's in better shape than his brother.

    • Here's a partial transcipt of the Today Show interview with Cher:

      Katie: What was it like working with Matt and Greg?

      Cher: Well, they're both adorable, but Matt is very sweet. He's sensitive and it kind of shows, ya know? He's got other things happening inside, but the outside thing is sensitive and sweet. Greg is kinda like funny, and you know, a little acerbic, but then he's really sweet inside too. I never worked with them when they weren't conjoined. We'd be sitting around on breaks and they'd get up and start tapdancing, they'd say, "maybe we can hopscotch" and they just sit around making things for themselves to do. They would be, "maybe can we do this in our suit..."

    • Here's part of an interview with Ben Affleck in the Daily Record:

      Interviewer: So, why weren't you strapped to Matt 14 hours a day to play his conjoined twin in the new movie, Stuck on You?

      Ben: Because I actually feel like I have been before. Actually, there's no one that I'd rather be strapped to really. I mean, he's the one guy that I could probably bear it with. I love the movie, though. It's hysterical. You've got to go see it.

    • And a summary of Matt's appearance on Conan O'Brien from the Big Matt Fan:

      Matt came out, as usual, to explosive cheering. Conan even commented that, "That doesn't get old, does it? Ladies! There's a thing that happens when people see us together!" Conan then went on to talk about how Matt worked "insanely hard," and that he was overseas a lot. He then launched into a discussion about strange "Euroholidays" like "today's the day we put a sausage under your pillow!"-- a discussion that seemed to be more of an excuse for Conan to practice a comedy routine.

      That went into the response of people to celebrities in Boston. Matt said that people would say, "Are you big timing me?" Conan then unspooled his story about how people heckled him when he accidentally went to the front of a taxi cab line. They talk about the film, and of course, they have to go through the requisite bathroom discussion. Matt talked about how funny Greg was, and how hell would have been to be harnessed to someone who was a real jackass. Conan said he read for the part, but they said, "No chance. That you turned me down."

      Conan seemed surprisingly determined to dominate the conversation. In fact, there was a part where both he and Matt were trying to talk at the same time, and Matt had to say, "No, you go ahead. It's your show." Conan answered, "Hey, you got the Oscar. I got nothing. I got a bowling trophy from 1978." Still, Matt looked adorable dressed in the blue shirt and dark suit he's been wearing to everything. He was funny, articulate, and charming, but not as much as he could have been if Conan had just been a little less hammy.

    • Magazine alert: People magazine has a one-page Q&A with Matt and Greg. One of the questions is: Did you know each other before the shoot? The answer is : We had met at a few events and lied and said we liked each others work.

      There's also a two-page Matt v Ben chart in Us Weekly magazine. It's a comparison of their lives and loves, starting with vital stats: age, birth place, salary. Then it listed biggest movie hits, education, famous girlfriends. Then relationship style: Matt is discreet and behind closed doors, and most recently has been spotted with a "brown-eyed girl next door type"; Ben's romantic life is public. Then it just went on about their latest movies, where it stated that Matt spent the last year in Europe bowling and taking yoga(!) They showed some pictures of Ben and Gwyneth, Ben and Jen, Matt and Winona and Matt and Odessa and compared the body language. Matt and Winona were "not connected in their photo" and Matt was not comfortable in his pic with Odessa. So they say.

    • My thanks to the Big Matt Fan for her review of Stuck on you. Reviews from other readers would be welcomed and appreciated.

      Now, I'm not sure if this is the typical audience for this film, but I was surprised by how many people were women, at least 60-65%, actually. More surprisingly, quite a few were older women in their 50's and up. Farrelly brothers movies are supposed to appeal primarily to young males, and there were plenty of young men at the theatre, but not in the percentage you'd expect. I overheard a 60+ woman behind me tell her friends (also seniors), that she really liked Matt Damon. Hmmm...

      On to the film itself. Funny. Often, screamingly funny, although it's not really a laugh-a-minute movie. The sight gags of the two performing a variety of activities from sports to cooking to lovemaking really work, thanks in large part to the impressive coordination of Matt and Greg Kinnear. You really do get the sense that these characters have been connected to each other their entire lives. In many ways, their conjoined condition is actually portrayed as more of an advantage than a disability, so laughs are never at their expense. Anyone worrying that this may be an offensive, exploitive film should cast all fears aside.

      Matt, as you'd expect, seems a natural in comedy, and his innate air of innocence serves him well in his role as the shyer, more nervous brother. Now, I must say, this is not one of Matt's hunkiest appearances. Sporting a "Dumb and Dumber" haircut and carrying a few extra pounds than what we've seen in Bourne, he's still adorable, but not blindingly so. My suspicion is that this was a deliberate decision on his or the filmmaker's part, because it's really Greg Kinnear's character who is the ladies man who wants to be an actor. If we were to see Matt, trimmed and groomed to brilliant perfection, his character would lose all credibility. Kinnear is attractive, but let's face it, a bit more ordinary when compared to Matt shined up in all his movie star glory.

      Now, the film does have its flaws. The pacing can be a bit uneven, and some scenes are less successful in the comedy than others. The brothers' relationships with their love interests are shallowly developed, especially the one between Kinnear and Eve Mendes. Without giving anything away, I must say that the ending was surprisingly weak, as if the Farrelly's couldn't really figure out how to conclude the film, and settled for something that was less than it should have been.

      However, there is a substantive universality to this movie in the way it deals with close relationships. The Farrelly brothers have admitted that people who know them say this is really their story, and in some ways, it's also Matt and Ben's. It's about having to share an identity with someone else, the stuggle to establish independence, and at the same time, maintaining an appreciation for the teamwork that got them where they are.

      The people at my screening really seemed to enjoy the film. There was a lot of laughter, and people were talking about it on their way out. Stuck on You will never win any awards. It probably won't even win the box office battle this weekend. However, it's really sweeter and less crass than many people may fear. Definitely worth a look.

    12/12/2003
    • To state the obvious, Stuck on you is now showing in US and Canadian theaters. Many prominent critics and papers have given the film a positive review, including Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Boston Herald, NY Daily News, Salon and the Wall Street Journal. Here are some selected excerpts from reviews:

      Boston Herald
      None of this would have worked without the camaraderie and genuine affection Damon and Kinnear bring to their roles, amazing considering the uncomfortably close quarters they shared making this film. Damon has never been in a broad comedy before, but no one who has seen his appearances on ``Saturday Night Live'' will be surprised by his knack for it.

      CriticDoctor.com
      Another reason why "Stuck on You" works is that instead of casting straightforward comedians (who might have been tempted to play up the silliness), the Farrellys have cast, in Damon and Kinnear, two actors who are funny enough to score big laughs but who are skilled enough to make their particular situation seem perfectly normal. In fact, there are times throughout the film where I actually found myself beginning to forget the fact that they were harnessed together and was simply amused by their by-play. Although this is hardly the type of film that one would look to as an example of great acting, I submit that their performances are as impressive as anything that they have done before because making an absurd concept seem ordinary is a far greater challenge than most "serious" roles offer.

      Newark Star-Ledger
      Though the Farrelly brothers have softened somewhat from their days of stuck zippers and hair gel in "There's Something About Mary," the new comedy is broader than anything Damon or Kinnear has done. The two Oscar-nominated actors have a field day with the whimsy and slapstick. More importantly, they give the characters emotional heft, transforming what could have been a one-note onslaught of absurdity into a funny, heartfelt and joyous picture.

      Pittsburgh Post-Review
      The secret to the movie's success, however, is the casting of Damon and Kinnear, two good actors who can play comedy without relying solely on their groins. The actors were literally harnessed together while making the movie, so their compatibility was crucial. They work together beautifully -- Kinnear as the more outgoing sibling, Damon as the shyer one -- and pull off some physically impressive stunts.
    • There's a lengthy and fun interview with Matt at the Toronto Star, and it includes a comment that Matt has talked with writer/director Kenneth Lonergan about being cast in his next film. That project is probably Lonergan's upcoming Margaret, in development at Fox Searchlight, and produced by Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack and Scott Rudin. The film was described in Variety thus: "Story centers on a 17-year-old girl who witnesses a bus accident, and what seems like a simple issue of whether it was or was not accidental slowly spreads out to affect many people." Here's part of the Star interview.

      Damon didn't have to act to get the brotherly connection right. He's "very, very close" to his own brother Kyle, who is three years older than him. Kyle came to New York to spend some time with Matt, along with their father, and the three sneaked into the back row of the press screening of Stuck On You.

      Damon is a bona fide celebrity, the kind that inspires hotelkeepers to send up complimentary pitchers of margaritas. But he's seriously worried about becoming an actor who looks too much like an actor. This thought came to him only recently, when he was in discussions with the writer/director Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count On Me), who is currently casting for a new film. Lonergan wants Damon to play one of three roles, and Damon agreed to sign on without even asking for a script - he's a friend and admirer of Lonergan's, having starred in one of his stage plays, This Is Our Youth.

      Damon is pleased that his name on the film might assist Lonergan in getting production money. But he's also worried that he might dominate the cast of a small-budget film. He's still not sure what he'll do.

      "It's like a curse," Damon says. "Part of why I'm trying to do really different stuff is an attempt to defy categorization. I don't want people saying, `Well, he's this guy and he does this kind of movie.' Each time I end up at a press junket, I want people to say, `Hey, I never thought you'd do this kind of movie.'"

    • A story on the Woonsocket Rhode Island premiere is here.

    • Matt's pre-taped appearance on Regis and Kelly aired yesterday, and here's a report from the Big Matt Fan.

      Matt was great on Regis and Kelly today. Basic rundown:
      1) Loud enthusiastic reception by the audience. He always seems to get a great response wherever he goes.

      2) Regis began by mentioning that last time he was on the show, he was off to shoot the Bourne Identity. Now, he was off to shoot "The Bourne Supremacy" in Berlin and that he'd been travelling. He asked Matt where home was, and he answered, "New York." When asked about who's in the apartment when he's gone, he mentioned that he had a lot of friends who all had keys, and they all seemed to know when he was out working.

      3) Much humorous discussion about the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. Always love it when Matt talks sports, because it's obvious that it's a real passion for him. He mentioned that during the playoffs, he would wake up early in the morning to watch before going to work at five.

      4) Asked about holiday plans, he said he was going back to Boston for a week and a half before returning to the shoot of the Bourne Supremacy.

      5) Regis mentioned that his mother was there the last time. Last time, his grandmother called her and said, "A little lipstick wouldn't have been bad." Said Matt, "I love my mom more than anybody in the world....I actually did have the best mom in the world. Ben loves my mom more than he loves me."

      6) Of course, he was asked about how Ben was doing. Matt talked about how "that level of critical mass is hard," but didn't really get into it that much.

      7) After commercial (yes, it was decent sized interview!), they talked about "Stuck on You." Matt talked about the harness they used when they wore clothing, and the fake bodies they put on for other scenes, which took 12 hours to do. He mentioned the constancy of being together, and of course, the requisite bathroom situation. He talked about how he was leary at first when he heard about the project, but he read the script and it turned out to be the opposite of what he feared, in that it was a very sweet, positive film. They then showed the clip of Matt and Greg fighting each other.

      8) They brought out his mother, who was with him again! He kissed her, and she looked at the camera and said with a smile, "They gave me lipstick."

      All in all, a very sweet, friendly interview. Matt looked great and seemed very comfortable. It was also a delight to see his mother there.

      And from another reader:
      Regis points out that Kelly always misses Matt. Regis asked about Matt's apartment, and who lives in Matt's apartment while he's out of town. Matt says lots of friends stay at his place and they all have keys to the apartment at this point. Then they talked about the Red Sox, baseball and player trades. Asks about holiday plans. He's home for a week and half at Christmas. He's going to spend Christmas in Boston and then come to NYC to visit friends before heading back to film.

      Matt's mom is with him. Matt says he loves his mom more than anyone in the world. Regis asks if Matt loves his mom more than he loves Ben. Matt says yes, and Ben loves Matt's mom more than he loves Matt. Then Regis asked how Ben's doing? Matt said it's hard when the publicity reaches critical mass. Matt points out that Regis knows Ben. Regis says of course they know each other, Ben loves to do him. Matt does a doubletake. Regis clarifies that he means Ben likes to do Regis impressions and warns Matt he's not with the guys from Boston. (They are having a great time. Matt and Regis have been on a roll since the first minute. Matt is laughing a lot and so is Regis. Matt seems completely relaxed and not worried.)

      Back from commercial they mentioned all the other movies, Grimm, Bourne, Oceans. Then they talked about SOY and the harness and then the make up-scenes. Regis asks if they got on each other's nerves as they were together all day. Then talked about the bathroom scenes and Regis asks "How'd you'd handle that?" Matt cracks up again. Regis asks if he said that wrong too! Then talked about the Farrellys and what was Matt's reaction was to the initial pitch. Matt said at first he was afraid it would cross the line, but it was very sweet.

    • Billy Bob Thornton talked (again) about his disappointment with the studio's release of All The Pretty Horses at Channel4.com.

      Billy Bob Thornton is refusing to release his All The Pretty Horses movie until studio bosses show his director's cut on the big screen. The Oscar winner was upset when his version of the 2000 film, which starred Penelope Cruz and Matt Damon, was severely edited, and Daniel Lanois' score was cut completely. And now he's standing by his pal Lanois, who refuses to release his composition for a DVD release.

      He says, "They (Miramax) said that I could do my own cut and put it out on DVD. I wouldn't do it. People deserve to see that movie in the theatre, the way it was made. "My version is 75 per cent better. The movie wasn't about a teen romance. The movie was about the end of the West, and that's the movie I made. "The last scene of the movie, they made me cut it out - maybe the most important thing in the movie... These days they want to cut everything like a rock video."

      But Thornton does have Matt Damon's praise to fall back on - the actor is convinced the movie is one of the finest he'll make. Thornton adds, "I guess I have enough satisfaction when Matt Damon calls me up and says, 'You know what? Thanks for the best experience I ever had making a movie. That movie we cut, originally, was the best thing I've ever been in.'"
    12/11/2003
    • Matt didn't attend the Lord of the Rings premiere in Berlin, but was expected at the party afterwards. Here's part of a translated interview from the German magazine Gala.

      Gala: You're currently filming "The Bourne Supremacy" in Berlin. Where do you live?
      DAMON: I have had enough of hotels. For the three months I rented myself an apartment in Mitte.

      Gala: Do you know the city well?
      DAMON: No, unfortunately not yet. I had only one filming-free day, however I was so tired that I completely overslept. If I do not film, I try very hard to do simply nothing. But in two weeks I have finally one weekend free and want to go out in Berlin.

      Gala: Are you also in Germany for Christmas?
      DAMON: No, over the New Year we pause, and I will fly to Boston to be with my parents. Afterwards I will come back. And perhaps also the sequel to "Oceans eleven" will be filmed in Babelsberg: "Oceans Twelve".

      Gala: You don't film very much in your homeland?
      DAMON: That's correct. But I film in Prague more frequently than I do in Berlin. I am already half Czech! (laughs)

    • Entertainment Tonight is promoting an interview with Matt and Greg on Thursday's show. A related online story is here.

      And only our STEVEN COJOCARU can get to the bottom of the story with Matt and Greg, including whether they think this flick could earn them joint Academy Awards come February!

      "Well, I don't know what Greg's people are saying," jokes Matt, "but my people are telling me I'm a lock!"

    • Another response to the Letterman interview in Salon, thanks to Jennifer.

      Letterman has wedding suggestion for Ben and Matt
      By Karen Croft
      Matt Damon was on David Letterman last night and Dave asked Matt what was up with his buddy Ben Affleck and that chick J.Lo. Matt said, "Hey, I was just in a writing class with Ben for six weeks, then the movie came out. I don't know the guy." Damon said it was great to meet huge superstars like J.Lo and Cher (who is in Matt's latest movie "Stuck on You") and find out they are just regular people. "Hey," suggested Dave, "why doesn't Ben marry Jen and you marry Cher?!" "Yeah," replied Matt, "and we can all have a nice quiet double wedding somewhere." It's late-night TV banter at its best, folks.

    • From a BBC Radio 1 interview:

      But Matt reckons being stuck to your co-star for over 12 hours a day is no fun at all: "We were falling, bumping into things. I kind of felt like we'd each have lasting back injuries by the end of it, but the scenes where we're in swimming trunks, all of that is fake - our chests and the backs and obviously the piece in the middle is all sculpted on by these guys."

      "We would get up at three in the morning and they actually had to do all the hard work. We just had to kind of stand there and not move for 12 hours which was kind of an exercise in patience I guess. But I hate it when actors sit and complain."

    • This was included in an interview with Eva Mendes at Jam Movies.

      Mendes said the experience of working with the Farrellys and her co-stars, Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, far exceeded her expectations. They play conjoined twins who come to Hollywood to find fame and fortune. "We had such great fun every day. Matt and Greg were strapped together, so unexpected things happened on a regular basis. "It would break us all up, and then the Farrellys would find some way to incorporate the new business into the film. "After having worked with Matt and Greg, I understand what dream chemistry is all about. "Matt is one of my favourite people in the business. I adore and respect him and I feel our friendship is real, which means I would have no hesitation to call him up at any time, even just to say hello."

    • And from another interview with Eva:

      At first, she tried too hard to be funny for her dream directors, but then she learned by watching her co-stars, who play the brothers. She combines the subtle sarcasm of Matt Damon and the overt humor of Greg Kinnear.

      "I wasn't too sure Matt could be funny, but he has that dry wit that I love so much," she says. "And Greg is always theatrical and out there, I learned from both of them to relax and don't try to be funny."

      She says she was nervous at first to play the neighbor who thinks the brothers are the most normal people she's ever met, and she was afraid she wouldn't like her co-stars.

      "I clicked with them both, and I was so glad because it would have been terrible if one was a jerk. I was in La-La land working with them," she smiles.

    • Despite the comments in the Boston Herald story yesterday, reviews for Stuck on you are very mixed. Owen Gleiberman at Entertainment Weekly gave it an A-, concluding with:

      ''Stuck on You'' has a fractured fairy-tale charm, even if it isn't a nonstop laugh riot. It's really a love story in which Damon and Kinnear, playing what may be the closest buddies in buddy-movie history, bring off the resonant feat of making Bob and Walt genially devoted, slightly mad innocents who have to tear themselves apart to put themselves together.

    • More positive comments from a New City Chicago review.

      Four words sum up my reaction to the story line of "Stuck on You," when it was first announced (as a vehicle for Jim Carrey and Woody Allen), as well as during long stretches of the movie itself: "This. Should. Not. Work."

      But, miracle of miracles, it's their funniest movie since "Dumb and Dumber," and its unlikely mix of slobbiness and sentiment kept me both in stitches and in tears. Simple as that.

      There are jokes that are shockingly great, exploiting structure, context, intelligence, character, the best of which closes with the seeming non sequitur, "You need stamps?" I'd say there are at least a dozen perfect gags in "Stuck on You."

    • A new review from Aint-it-cool-news discusses the conflicting responses to the film. Some excerpts:

      Damon and Kinnear are nothing but sheer charisma in this movie, doing what the two of them do best: Being likeable and gut bustingly funny. Putting these two together as brothers was a masterstroke. Their comedic stylings and timing work together so well that you forget for a moment that Matt Damon really is a conjoined twin (but the special effect guys are so good that you don't see Ben anywhere.) And the humor styles were across the board, from very subtle jokes that only hit a few members of the crowd to insanely hilarious sight gags like Siamese Fu (honest to god the greatest fighting style of all time). This is, in my opinion, the single greatest Farrelly Brothers ANYTHING to date.

      However, there were a couple of Farrelly fans who I must say were a slight bit disappointed walking out of Stuck on You. While they enjoyed it for the most part, they felt that it just wasn't a Farrelly Brothers movie. And that's the single greatest problem that this film will have to overcome. This is a Farrelly Brothers comedy for people who hate Farrelly Brothers comedies, and the people who will find themselves the most entertained are those people who think that There's Something that's not Funny About Mary and that Me, Myself and Irene is three protagonists too many.

    12/10/2003
    • More pictures from the NY Stuck on you premiere Monday.

    • The most interesting and personal interview with Matt from the current press blitz is at USA Today.

      Damon: Nice and tired
      By Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY
      NEW YORK - Mention Matt Damon's reputation as one of Hollywood's most down-to-earth guys, and he just shakes his head.

      "When you're famous, you get a lot more credit for simple things," Damon says. "I'm not the nicest guy in the world. I like to think of myself as a nice guy and maybe, compared to these others, I am. Being polite to people and being professional doesn't take much energy."

      On this Sunday afternoon, Damon musters what little fuel he has left and flashes that killer smile of his. In reality, he's wiped out. Hungry. Jet-lagged. He gets back on a plane in six hours to fly to Berlin and start shooting The Bourne Supremacy, the sequel to the 2002 hit thriller that re-established Damon as a leading man.

      Yet aside from the occasional yawn, you'd never know that Damon, 33, would rather be napping on the couch in this Manhattan hotel suite than chatting about his comedy Stuck on You, which opens Friday. He plays the conjoined twin of Greg Kinnear. The two spent three months strapped together at the hip, a bond made bearable by Damon's "totally level disposition," says Bobby Farrelly, who co-directed Stuck with brother Peter. "He's happy to be alive."

      Sure, he threw his back out after manning a grill and playing tennis while harnessed to Kinnear. But Damon doesn't want pity. "If you've ever held a real job, you know what a hustle it is to get paid this kind of money to do this kind of work. I love my job."

      He has starred in the hit thriller The Bourne Identity, the high-brow but little-seen dramas The Legend of Bagger Vance and All the Pretty Horses, the ensemble smash Ocean's Eleven and, now, a comedy by Tinseltown's gross-out gurus. But Damon says he has "always wanted to do as many different things as possible. Why be an actor if you can't do that?"

      While his hometown Boston buddy Ben Affleck has been generating headlines for his relationship with Jennifer Lopez, Damon has been quietly making back-to-back films. He has an apartment downtown, near Washington Square, but he has spent the better part of this year in Prague shooting The Brothers Grimm, a historical drama about the fairy-tale-writing siblings.

      "I didn't get recognized once," Damon says with relish. "I forgot what it was like until I came back here."

      Here, people stare when he goes out to buy cereal and milk, even though Damon goes to considerable lengths to blend in. "He's not Joe Hollywood," director and friend Kevin Smith says. "He is genuinely one of the sweetest people I've met in my life."

      By all accounts, he has stayed that way, even as his star has soared. As a kid, his mother, a child-development expert and college professor, encouraged him to be imaginative. "My brother would make costumes and I would wear them," Damon says. "So he became an artist and I became an actor."

      The family remains tight. His mom, as well as his older brother, Kyle, and his two sons, crashed at Damon's place for the Manhattan premiere of Stuck. "We have to be vigilant, stay in contact, see each other as much as we can," Damon says. "When I'm not working, I'm just your average run-of-the-mill actor who goes home and hangs out."

      The fact that he's not hanging out with Affleck much has fueled speculation that their friendship is kaput. Damon calls the rumors "cynical. I don't know how they keep the story alive." Damon and Affleck won screenwriting Oscars for 1997's Good Will Hunting. They'd like to write another movie together, Damon says, "but we haven't been in the same place at the same time for the last five years."

      Smith, who has been friends with Affleck and Damon for a decade, concedes that "those dudes rarely see each other anymore. Both work insanely, but when they're together, they're totally friendly. I've never seen them fight."

      And no, Lopez did not tear them apart: "Matty hasn't spent enough time with Jen to even form an opinion about her," Smith says.

      Unlike Affleck, who can't apply for a gun license in Georgia without igniting a paparazzi firestorm, Damon has managed to live something resembling a normal life.

      "I truly feel bad for him," Damon says. "I know it makes him miserable, but there's nothing he can do. It's so beyond his control at this point. He didn't go into his relationship cynically. He went into it because he fell for someone and she fell for him."

      Damon wants to eventually have a family. But the guy who was linked with Winona Ryder and Minnie Driver, and who parted ways with non-celeb girlfriend Odessa Whitmire, won't discuss his romantic life. He swears, though, that he'll never date another star: "That would be a dealbreaker."

    • Another interview with Matt, by the always complimentary Amy Longsdorf, is at the Bergen Record.

      If Hollywood is all about image, then Matt Damon hasn't quite gotten the message. Walking into a Manhattan hotel suite carrying his own steaming cup of Starbucks and dressed in blue jeans and a beige shirt with the tails hanging out, he looks more like a grad student than a movieland mover-and-shaker.

      Unlike most actors, who meet the press with an air of fatigued resignation, Damon acts as if he's just won the lottery. Given his affable demeanor, it seems fitting that he's found his way into a high-concept comedy. His latest flick, "Stuck on You," is a typically out-there entry from the Farrelly Brothers ("There's Something About Mary," "Me, Myself & Irene")...

      With "Stuck on You" about to open, Damon wants to continue in the funny vein, at least for a little while. He recently completed "The Brothers Grimm," a dark comedy from Terry Gilliam about the 19th century writers of folk tales. Even though the movie's in the can, Damon is at a loss for how to describe it.

      "It's very funny but dark," he says. "I'm just so happy to be in a Terry Gilliam movie that got finished. He's such a great director, a master."

      Next Damon takes on "The Bourne Supremacy," a sequel to the $100-million-grossing "Bourne Identity."

      "It's another good story, and I think it will be well-executed stylewise by the director Paul Greengrass," he says. "He's fantastic. He did 'Bloody Sunday.'"

      After Damon completes "Supremacy," he'll jump aboard "Ocean's 12" alongside original cast members George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts.

      "George called me up out of the blue and said, 'We're doing the sequel and we're doing it for less money than the first one so that no one can say we're doing it for the money.'" Damon laughs. "How could I resist? I said, 'All right. Count me in!'"

    • The NY Times report on the premiere includes the following:

      "Stuck on You" stars Mr. Damon and GREG KINNEAR as conjoined twins with conflicting career goals, a problem we at Boldface very much relate to, except for the conjoined part. Mr. Damon is a shy short-order cook; Mr. Kinnear is an aspiring actor; there are cameos by CHER, GRIFFIN DUNNE and MERYL STREEP. And what a contrast to Mr. Farrelly's red carpet behavior was that of Mr. Damon.

      (Hmmm, come to thing of it, everybody's behavior on the red carpet was a contrast to Mr. Farrelly's.)

      Mr. Damon, in a good-boy haircut, overcoat and gray suit with pinstripes, looked like an investment banker. He even brought his MOM. He has disarming blue eyes and speaks - as they say of HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON - in full paragraphs, though he shifts from side to side a bit as he talks.

      Both he and Mr. Kinnear, who came with his wife, HELEN LABDON, said the two actors had no problem being harnessed to each other. "Good hygiene," Mr. Kinnear said of Mr. Damon.

    • The Boston Herald's Inside Track column compared Stuck on you with Ben's new film Paycheck:

      Good advance reviews are Stuck On Matt's new film

      By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa
      It's a very Matt & Ben Christmas as the Cambridge homeys release two big holiday flicks with huge career implications - Matt's hoping for his first comedy hit while Ben is hoping to stave off Hollywood hari-kari!

      First up is Damon, who opens in the fab Farrelly Brothers' "Stuck On You" with Cher and Greg Kinnear Friday. The advance buzz on the Siamese twins comedy is almost all good with some movie mavens saying it may be the South Shore bros' best effort since "There's Something About Mary."

      "People say it's hysterical and see it as a huge mainstream hit," said Us maggie film critic Thelma Adams.

      Variety begged to differ, calling "Stuck" 'spectacularly unfunny' yesterday, but the show-biz bible seemed to have issues with the non-P.C. plotline. As for Affleck's "Paycheck,"' the John Woo-directed sci-fi thriller that co-stars Uma Thurman, the reviews are also mixed.

      "Word is the movie doesn't pay off," said Adams.

      But critics who've seen the flick are kinder and the film buffs at aint-it-cool-news.com called it "entertaining" and "fast-paced." Of course, Affleck's last outing - the mega-bomb "Gigli," which co-starred his off-screen honey, Jennifer Lopez - was box-office poison. And although most of Ben's previous flicks made lots of dough, he has yet to achieve the critical acclaim that's showered on his best bud, Damon.

      "Matt Damon's career is in very good health," said one industry insider. "He's shown a lot of versatility, and he's taken some chances. Ben seems to be going the mainstream leading-man route with uneven success."

      Affleck's star turns in "Daredevil," "The Sum of All Fears" and "Pearl Harbor" were nearly universally panned by critics. And "Gigli"marked the first time the public appeared to agree.

      "He's got a lot riding on his next couple of movies," said our spy. "The rule is you're allowed three flops in a row before you're toast. But then again, these stars always seem to come back from the dead. Look at Eddie Murphy..."

    • Positive reviews for Stuck on you are at the Village Voice, The Onion, and filmcritic.com, including this part:

      There is a wonderful charisma to each of the characters that makes them enjoyable to watch apart from the sight gags of seeing two guys having to maneuver together out of necessity, though their barroom brawl is highly amusing. Damon's shy Bob is truly endearing, and it's hard to believe that this is the same heroic Damon from The Bourne Identity or the walking pal in Gerry. The juxtapositions of his resistance to the change in scenery with his encouraging sarcasm when Walt thinks of giving up are genuinely touching. Kinnear never fails to impress either. His instantly outgoing charm provides plenty of reason that he could get laid while his brother sits on the floor with his notebook computer. They play off each other, physically and conversationally, with perfect pitch.

    • Roger Friedman's report on the premiere and party is here, and includes this review:

      "Stuck on You" is less like any other Farrelly movie. There are few real gross out jokes, for one thing, even though you might like to hear one or two. They try for a different kind of tone, mixing freak comedy with poignant moments and insider Hollywood jokes. It's quite a strange m�lange. Sometimes it works; at other times, who knows what's happening? But Damon and Kinnear are oddly charming together. Even when you can't follow the film, they've got a weird chemistry.

    • There's an Edmonton Journal junket interview with Matt and Greg here. And the text of Matt's interview on the Early Show is here, including:

      For the movie, Damon had to get accustomed to losing his personal space because he was stuck to Greg Kinnear for the majority of time on the set.

      "I was saying to Greg yesterday that I remember picking out the color of the drapes that he and his wife were talking about for their house," Damon laughs. "You just can't help but be in the conversation."...

      From his days growing up in Boston with buddy Ben Affleck, Damon says his goal has been to be a working actor. Since his film debut in 1988's "Mystic Pizza," his choices have been in hopes of career longevity.

      "It was never a paycheck for me; it really wasn't," he says. "I'm paid way more then I ever thought I would be. It was a career choice."

      Early in their rise to stardom, some may have thought Damon and Affleck were conjoined. But, that is not so today.

      "It's just become hard logistically for us to find time, Damon says. " I think we over-romanticize the past and look back and go, 'Boy, wasn't those the good 'ole days.' But, there is some level of truth to that. Things were a lot simpler then."...

      Damon has just started filming the sequel to last year's "The Bourne Identity." That film took in over $200 million worldwide at the box office and was a career-changing hit for Damon.

      "It was hard work and really rewarding," the actor remembers. "Within the industry, nobody saw it coming."

      After working on the stage in London, Damon returned home and found dozens of phone calls with movie offers because of the commercial success of "The Bourne Identity."

      "That was how fast that movie changed my life," Damon says. "It was over the course of a weekend."

    • Summaries of yesterday's entertainment shows have been provided by readers including Sandi, the Big Matt Fan, and Jeri Jo.

      Today Show
      Matt Lauer teased him a lot about the fact that this was a lowbrow movie for an Oscar winner. Matt said he wanted to do it because he liked the Farrelly's and it was good hearted. He acknowledged that it was a sensitive subject, but not meant to offend anyone. The Farrelly's are the last people who would offend anyone. These guys are kind of heroes in the movie. He and Matt talked about the same bathroom and make up issues. Matt says they had no secrets from each other. They heard all the phone calls and personal business during the times they were together. It was really a quick and business like interview covering much of the same ground as the rest. Then they showed clips.

      They talked about the harness, and Matt explained there were a couple of them, and one of them was a prosthetic that took 12 hours to get into. Matt laughed and said "It was a sink or swim proposition, we realized that if one of us fell, the other was going to." Then Lauer talked about the problem if Matt and Greg didn't like each other, and having to be hooked up together for 70 hours a week would suck, and Matt laughed and said "Yeah, I'm sure every actor who sees this movie is going to have one other actor in their head that they hate and think 'I could never do that with so and so".
      Late Show with David Letterman
      Short version
      Matt was delightfully funny; he even had Dave laughing and if you can make Dave laugh...

      They had a wide-ranging chat, talking about Bourne 2 (he got clocked in the mouth),Yankees/Red Sox baseball (big 90 year rivalry), hiking with his mom and brother, his brother being in Iron Man contests, Xmas with his nephews, Bennifer (Dave hadda ask), and meeting an old baseball icon named Ted Williams.

      Longer version
      Matt was on for two segments I believe. Dave made quite a show of saying that he was going to ask about Ben and Jennifer before Matt even took the stage. Matt came out and they chatted about general topics. Matt talked about growing up wanting to be an actor. He and Ben lived around the corner from each other and enabled one another to keep dreaming. They were obsessive.

      They talked about Survivor a bit and Dave asked if Matt ever did anything like that. He said he hiked Mount Washington as a kid. His mother brought them to the mountains in NH and they would walk for hours eating granola. As city kids they weren't that interested in walking and walking and going nowhere for hours. (Made me wonder about Gerry!) They did it and finally on the last day they reached the top of Mount Washington and to Matt's dismay, at the top of the mountain there was a parking lot filled with station wagons and people were eating snack food. Matt and Kyle didn't know there was a road and they could have driven to the top. Their legs were like jelly. People were buying T-shirts that said I climbed Mt. Washington. But Matt said it's good to have the experience.

      Dave asked Matt if his family gets together for holidays. Matt says they do. He spends holidays with his brother's family when he's in town. His nephews are four and six. They younger one just had his birthday today. They are old enough to know what Christmas is and they get up earlier and earlier every year to open their presents. The rule at the house is that no one can open presents until everyone is in the living room. His nephews come and jump on his bed at about 4 AM, screaming "Wake up Uncle Matty, Uncle Matty wake up!" Matt said that fortunately the rule only says that eveyrone has to be in the living room, but there is no rule against being in a coma. He sits unconscious with a cup of coffee while the boys open presents. Christmas is all about them now.

      Then they talked about baseball and the Red Sox. He watched the games at bars in Prague. They started at about 2 AM and ended around 6 AM and he would go straight to work from the bar. He couldn't get over how all the Yankees fans were so worried about losing. The Yankees never lose. The Red Sox always manage to lose in the end, and this year was no exception. They did just get a good player though.

      Matt also talked about meeting Ted Williams a while back (when he was still alive) He and his father went up to the box and met Ted Williams and his son, John Henry. Matt said if he had known how the guy was going to act after his father died, Matt would have taken him out back then. Anyway, Ted Williams had a hot dog and was amazed at how good they were. He asked his son what they were, and they told him those were Fenway franks. Mr. Damon told Ted Williams that they were part of the deal for everyone else. (Meaning fans who come to Red Sox games) Since he had always been playing, Williams had never tried the hot dogs. They talked a little more about Ted Williams and how he was always teaching people how to improve their swing.

      Then Matt talked about Kyle and how he trains for triathlons. Matt goes along to watch when he can. He is feels guilty and unhealthy because he stands on the sidelines and smokes and drinks and coffee while his brother is in great shape.

      They talked about Matt's training for Bourne. Matt said he'd been boxing to get in shape and it was a good workout. He had just had an accident with another actor who had punched him in the face. His lip had swollen up, but was back to normal finally. Dave asked him if he was any good. He said he's good for an actor, but not for a real boxer. Matt said he gained 20 lbs on SOY. He and Greg played short order cooks who can feed anyone in three minutes or it's free.

      He talked about Ben a bit. He said Ben didn't enjoy all the publicity. That he, Matt liked Jennifer. He doesn't know her well, but she's always been very nice and sweet. Ben is in love with her, so he's happy for him. I think they also talked about the fact that he had made a couple of flops before the first Bourne and his career was in trouble. Then when Bourne came out and was a hit, he had offers pouring in.

      In the second segment he talked about SOY. He wasn't sure how it would turn out, but he liked the Farrelly brothers and decided to do it. He told the story about the apartment and the brother who took a shower. Then he talked about the make up and the harness. He and Greg wouldn't go to the bathroom and do number two together. Then they showed a clip of the movie.

      Various entertainment shows

      Matt has rarely looked and spoken better. He looked a bit scruffy on the Today Show (as usual), but he'd definitely shaved and cleaned up for the Letterman and Early Show.

      Not surprisingly, the entertainment news shows all covered the premiere. Not surpringly, the bathroom question seems to be a popular one. On E! News Live, he was shown saying, "For guys, it's not that big a deal. But we did have the Oath of #2, which was... I don't care if it's Montezuma's revenge. I will not sit next to you for that!"

      Also, the announcer declared, "Good old Matt gave E! exclusive plans about the wedding?" Matt: "Now that they got it through Massachusetts and Barney Frank and everyone did all that work, Ben and I are going to just go for it. This whole "J-Lo/Ben" beard thing that's been going on, it's about enough of that!" They they said, "Think we're kidding?" and had footage of Ben saying, "Now that it's legal in Massachuetts, Matt and I are very close to an engagement, and we'll let you know." The male anchor started guffawing, while the female said, "Were they serious?!" To which the male said, "No."

      Access Hollywood first had a brief clip of Matt at the premiere saying a few nice words about Gwyneth's pregnancy. "She's going to be such a good mother. She's such a good human being. She's going to be great at it." Later, in a separate segment on SOY, they showed footage of Matt with Cher and his mother. When asked about who he'd like to be conjoined to, he said, "Heidi Klum?" The show then said that "Matt, being the quick wit, and keeping a joke rolling, couldn't help but address his pal and, er..fiance, Ben's wedding news to Pat O'Brien, yesterday." Matt: "I can't believe he gave that up! I told him to keep it a secret." Footage is then shown of Ben saying, "It's now legal in Massachusetts, so Matt and I have set a date." Then, regarding the honeymoon, Matt is then shown saying, "I don't know. I'm going to leave it up to him. He's kind of had a rough year in the media, and I just want some place where we can get away."

    • Finally, Matt's won a survey, and that's very rare - details here.

      Yahoo! Personals, a leader in the online dating market, surveyed more than 1,000 singles across the country to get the latest truths on being single during the holiday season. Singles rang in on dos and don'ts, and offered insight into what is on their wish lists for holiday party dates, meeting the parents, celebrity mistletoe encounters and more:

      Hollywood Holiday
      -- Beating out other hot stars by more than 2:1, Matt Damon was the celebrity that women across the country are hoping to meet under the mistletoe this year.

    12/09/2003
    • The New York premiere of Stuck on you was held Monday night at the Clearview Theater in Chelsea, with an after-party at the Deep club. The eclectic bunch of attendees apart from cast and crew included Kevin Pollak, the Queer Eye guys, Hanson members, Tina Louise, Jules Asner and Lara Flynn Boyle. Lots of photos are at the usual places, including Wireimage and Getty Images.

    • The first report on the premiere at Newsday has pretty standard stuff, except for...

      Damon says he's glad he was teamed with Kinnear, but he's got his heart set on a co-star if they ever make a sequel.

      "That's easy," he said. "Heidi Klum."
    • Here are some stills of Matt on the Today Show and Letterman Monday. A full recap of those shows will be provided tomorrow. On Letterman, however, Matt said that he would be leaving NY soon afterwards for Berlin, so all remaining television appearances for the week must have been pre-taped. Matt is therefore likely to attend the Lord of the Rings European premiere on Wednesday, as he mentioned last week.

    • Further details about the Rhode Island premiere of Stuck on you on Thursday are at the Woonsocket Call.

    • An article about the sports cameos in Stuck on you is at the Boston Herald. An extension of the Toronto Sun interview below is at the Calgary Sun.

      Both actors laugh when someone asks if they did any research to play conjoined twins.

      "Research for a Farrelly brothers movie? You've got to be joking," says Damon, adding, "research is what we do for other movies. For a Farrelly brothers movie you just turn up and have fun."

    • International release dates for Stuck on you, from this Fox site are the following:

      Austria 01/15/2004; Belgium 01/07/2004; France 01/07/2004; Germany 01/01/2004; Italy 01/16/2004; Norway 12/26/2003; Spain 01/23/2004; Sweden 12/25/2004; Switzerland 12/31/2003; UK 01/02/2004; Australia 02/13/2004; New Zealand 01/22/2004; South Korea 03/19/2004; Taiwan 02/28/2004; Brazil 01/09/2004 and Latin America 12/12/2003.

    • Here's a good interview (with minor spoilers) from the Toronto Sun.

      A STICKY SITUATION: Stars Damon and Kinnear spend a lot of time 'working together' in new comedy

      By LOUIS B. HOBSON, SUN MEDIA
      NEW YORK -- Playing conjoined twins in Stuck On You didn't make Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear feel dumb and dumber. It was more like grumpy and grumpier.

      In the latest comedy from Peter and Bobby Farrelly, Damon and Kinnear play Bob and Walt Tenor, twins joined at the waist who share a common liver. The brothers leave their secure life in Martha's Vineyard for Hollywood because Walt has always wanted to be an actor. No sooner do they reach the west coast than Bob and Walt slip into swim trunks to soak up the warm California sun.

      "Those were the absolute worst days. It's an understatement to say we had our testy moments," Kinnear says. "We're essentially wearing a full rubber body suit that went on in pieces. It took the makeup crew 12 hours to apply it."

      Damon explains he and Kinnear would arrive at 3 a.m. and would be greeted by a team of makeup specialists.

      "They built these little arm rests for us to use because we had to keep our hands and arms away from our body as they applied the pieces."
      Kinnear says it was Bobby Farrelly who added the final humiliating touch to the full body suit. "The rubber suit had chest hair on it but Bobby came by and insisted we needed some on our shoulders and backs so he started adding it. Matt and I are going to have to explain for the rest of our careers that those bodies are not ours."

      After working for about five hours in the body suit, Damon and Kinnear would return to the makeup trailer where it would take up to three hours to remove the body pieces. For the scenes in which Bob and Walt wear clothes, Damon and Kinnear are in a harness.

      "It took us about 25 minutes to get into the harness," says Kinnear, adding that "unless we had a couple of hours between takes, Matt and I would stay in the harness for the whole day. We were strapped in there pretty tightly but it worked to our benefit. Some of the comic business resulted from us just trying to adapt to the harness."

      In the movie, after a couple of weeks of auditioning, Walt is cast opposite Cher in a TV drama reminiscent of Moonlighting. Bob is dressed in a blue suit, which makes him invisible to the camera.

      "The scene in which Matt and I are goofing around beside the TV monitor was just that, Matt and I goofing around. The Farrellys loved it so much we kept it in."

      Damon is particularly proud that the Farrellys included a moment in which the brothers go to bed and he rolls onto his side. This causes Kinnear to flip into the air, sleeping sideways on top of Damon.

      "Greg and I thought it was really funny, but I obsessed that audiences weren't going to get the joke and there would be dead silence in theatres across America," Damon says. "Fortunately, when I saw it with an audience they laughed as loud as Greg and I did (when) it actually happened."

      Kinnear says when the Farrellys first approached him about starring in a movie about conjoined twins, he had some reservations.

      "I thought the idea was pretty out there, and I was a bit worried that it could be tasteless if we made fun of conjoined twins. As soon as I read the script, I lost all reservations. It's so funny and sweet and Bob and Walt are real winners. It really is a feel-good movie," he says.

      Damon says he didn't even ask to read the script from the Farrellys.

      "I was excited to get the offer because it is really different from anything I've ever done. I love their brand of comedy but never dreamed they'd think of me for one of their films."

      Damon is 33 and Kinnear 40, but their age difference is addressed in a comic way in the film. "The idea is that Matt has most of the liver so I'm aging faster, which is why Walt wants to go to Hollywood so desperately," Kinnear says. "He feels he may soon be too old to break into film."

    • From a Ben Affleck interview.

      Affleck, who joked that he and friend Matt Damon are so busy that they only see each other while working, said he and Damon plan on another script in the upcoming year. Affleck also is looking to direct that film.

    • Another article where Ben jokes about his relationship with Matt is at Jam Showbiz.

    12/08/2003
    • Here are the first pictures from the Stuck on you premiere in Baltimore, from wireimage.com. Attendees included Matt, Greg, Bobby and Peter Farrelly, co-star Wen Yann Shih, Dr Ben Carson, Chairman of Fox Films Tom Rothman, and Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley.

    • An article on the premiere from the Baltimore Sun.

      'Less glitzy' opening still has stars, Carson

      By Annie Linskey
      Baltimore's fast crowd braved frigid weather and icy streets yesterday to attend the Maryland premiere of the Farrelly brothers' comedy, Stuck on You, and meet the film's stars, Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear.

      In the movie, Damon and Kinnear play conjoined twins. Yesterday, the actors - no longer attached - signed autographs and posed for pictures with the predominantly female fans who huddled around them at The Senator Theatre.

      "My friend Ed Norton keeps telling me to get to Baltimore," said Damon. He and others from the movie arrived on Saturday night. They dined at Coburn's Tavern & Grill and hung out in Canton. The Baltimore screening felt different from traditional Hollywood openings, Damon said. "It is less glitzy, a lot more normal. That's a positive thing."

      The event also featured a silent charity auction, held in a white heated tent. Most people kept their coats wrapped tightly around them as they munched sushi, shrimp, salmon, cheese and sugar cookies.

      The premiere was in Baltimore at the request of Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson, who consulted on the film and has a cameo appearance playing himself. In lieu of compensation, Carson asked that the premiere benefit his charities, the BEN Fund and the Carson Scholars Fund. "I want people to see that Baltimore is not a hick town," Carson said.

      Carson hoped to raise $300,000 through ticket sales and the silent auction. All 850 tickets sold out in 10 days. Regular tickets cost $50. VIP tickets, giving access to a cocktail party with the stars, sold for $150.

      Wen Yann Shih, who makes her film debut as Damon's love interest, said she "couldn't book a sitcom to save my life - and I landed a lead role in the Farrelly brothers movie."

      She enjoyed working with the other stars. "Matt was surprisingly shy and Greg was a prankster off the set," said the actress, a Johns Hopkins graduate whose parents live in Hyattsville.

      Both Farrelly brothers, Bobby and Peter, also attended the premiere. Compared to other openings, Bobby Farrelly said, "It is more fun because this is a genuinely excited audience," he said. "In L.A., half the people are rooting for the film to fail."

      Not this crowd. Producer Bradley Thomas, a Baltimore native, likened the event to a wedding because so many friends and family were present.

      "The movie is full of heart, it is a love story between two brothers," said Tom Rothman, the chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment. "The parts played by Matt and Greg are winners. They overcome challenges and have not become victims."

    • A Baltimore sighting thanks to reader A1:

      Matt Damon and Greg were out in Baltimore Saturday night and went to a Bar called "Coburn's" in Canton. They were out all night hanging with the locals, having a good time, and Matt danced with some girls.

    • In her NY Post column, Liz Smith confirms details of tonight's New York premiere of Stuck on you.

      ENDQUOTE: "Who's hot? Who's not? I'll tell you who's hot: Cher, that's who. It says so right here!" So says Cher herself, in the Farrelly brothers' new comedy, "Stuck on You," which stars Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins. Cher appears in this movie playing . . . Cher (an exaggerated, ersatz version of Cher). In real life, she is mellow and un-hysterical about her "fame." The star is scheduled to attend the premiere of "Stuck on You" tonight at the Clearview Theater in the heart of Manhattan's "Boystown" - Chelsea. They better bring out the barricades.

    • A summary from a reader of the PGA Tour show on the USA Channel yesterday.

      The SOY visit was a five minute piece which featured a behind the scenes look at the filming of the movie's golf scenes. Greg and Matt are participating in some type of golf tournament where Greg is the golfer and Matt acts as caddy. It took practice for the two to perfect the golf swing so that Matt would not be decapitated by the follow through. Greg joked that Matt whispered in his ear that the club was only two inches from his head. Bobby Farrelly also spoke in the clip and explained that they always like to include some real professional athletes in their films.

      There were numerous pro golfers in the scenes with Greg and Matt. They critiqued the golfing style and said that the Matt and Greg need a lot of help! They all agreed that they think the guys can make this movie work. During a break from filming when Matt and Greg were unhitched, all the guys played a game of touch football. Troy Brown, a player for the New England Patriots, was there acting as a golfer for the movie. Matt tried to play defense against Troy in the football game. Matt's D was not great, but since the guy playing quarterback wasn't really on target, it was a wash and the football came close to ending up in the water hazard on the course.

    • Note for Australian readers: The Late Show with David Letterman on Channel 9 is currently about eight days behind the US.

    • My thanks to Costanza, who sent in a paparazzi-derived set photo of Matt and Monica Bellucci on the set of The Brothers Grimm from Chi magazine.

    • Photos of props, arms and armour used in The Brothers Grimm are at 3bros.cz.

    12/07/2003
    • Here's the full text of an interview from the San Francisco Chronicle.

      No half measures for Matt Damon
      By John Clark

      After a long weekend of interviews, Matt Damon is celebrating with a room service Bloody Mary at a Manhattan hotel. Damon's one of the most agreeable stars one could imagine -- he even invites a reporter to join him.

      This may be seen as an act of unparalleled generosity, at least as far as showbiz sorts are concerned. But Damon made an even greater show of heart while filming "Stuck on You," the newest comedy from Peter and Bobby Farrelly. He quit smoking for four months because he was attached -- literally -- to co-star Greg Kinnear, a nonsmoker.

      In "Stuck on You" (opening Friday) Damon and Kinnear play conjoined twins Bob and Walt Tenor, who run a burger joint on Martha's Vineyard. They use their joined-at-the-hip condition to their advantage, whether flipping burgers or playing goalie for the local hockey team. But problems arise when the brothers' interests diverge: Walt wants to go to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, and Bob has stage fright. Then Walt lands a job on a TV show starring Cher, who insists on hiring him because she hopes his attached brother will sabotage the show. Naturally, it becomes a hit. If this sounds ridiculous, it's supposed to be. After all, it's directed by the Farrellys, the gross-out kings of "There's Something About Mary" infamy.

      The challenge for Damon and Kinnear was to keep it real.

      "My common sense said that if this central conceit doesn't work, this is an absolute disaster, and it's a really hard central conceit," Damon says, laughing. "That was a conversation I had with (the Farrellys) early on. So they said, 'Look, play it straight, and the context we put you in and the tone we set will be where the laughs come in.' So creating those two characters was our focus."

      They came up with two very different people. Walt is outgoing, charming, good with women -- in fact, he beds them while Bob is on the other side of a makeshift curtain biding his time. Bob, on the other hand, is shy and awkward.

      His only real relationship is an online romance Walt forces him to confront when they move to Los Angeles. The brothers are even joined in such a way as to suggest these personality traits: Damon is front and center, while Kinnear is turned to the side, slightly behind him, hunched over.

      "Once Greg and I got through our initial growing pains and got used to the harness and got used to each other in the harness, it really wasn't that hard," Damon says of being tied to his co-star. "At one point I was harnessed to Greg's stunt man, and just walking to and from the set with him. That was when I really realized how good Greg and I had become at reading each other's bodies and moving as a single organism, because this guy was pulling me all over the place. He was a great athlete, but he just wasn't good at walking with me."

      Damon and Kinnear even carved out private space while yoked together, much as the brothers do. However, there were occasions when personal needs would trump the other guy's needs. As when Damon would lunge for the craft services table while Kinnear was talking to somebody. Or when Damon would eavesdrop on Kinnear's cell phone conversations with his wife.

      "I was like Charles Grodin in 'Midnight Run' going, 'Don't say that. You don't mean that. Helen, he doesn't mean what he's saying,' '' Damon says.

      There are half a dozen scenes in which the actors are shirtless and have to wear prosthetic torsos, which took 12 hours to apply, as opposed to 15 minutes for the harness used in the other shots. And rather than snooze in a makeup chair, they had to stand the whole time.

      "Greg is really worried that people are going to think he has a hairy back because we had fake hair put on the rubber prosthetic," Damon says.

      If there's one thing that's been consistent about Damon's career, it's that his choices have been eclectic, unlike those of his pal Ben Affleck, who's strictly a leading man onscreen and off. Since his 1997 breakthrough in "Good Will Hunting," Damon has appeared in many movie genres: war ("Saving Private Ryan"), mystery ("The Talented Mr. Ripley"), sports ("The Legend of Bagger Vance"), Western ("All the Pretty Horses"), caper ("Ocean's 11"), and thriller ("The Bourne Identity"). Of these films, Damon has a soft spot for "Ripley" and "Horses," neither of which fared well at the box office.

      "Billy Bob (Thornton's) cut of 'All the Pretty Horses,' which no one ever saw -- I was really proud of that one," he says. " 'Ripley,' I don't know what it was. I think that movie is beautiful. Maybe the subject matter was too challenging for people. I remember seeing the marketing ploy that Paramount did, where they tried to make it look like the movie was about (my character) wanting to steal Jude (Law's) lifestyle because I was in love with Gwyneth (Paltrow), when in fact he's in love with Jude. You can only push so far selling a movie as what it isn't before people really start to hold it against the movie."

      Damon doesn't seem too concerned about how "Stuck on You'' will be perceived. He has moved on. He's just finished Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm," which, he promises, will "either be great or at least interesting." Tonight he flies to Prague, where he will begin shooting director Paul Greengrass' sequel "The Bourne Supremacy." And then it's off to Italy to shoot Steven Soderbergh's sequel "Ocean's 12."

      All of this work in Europe is a coincidence, Damon insists.

      "Despite the fact that I disagree with our muscular foreign policy, I just happened to get some really good jobs over there," he says. "It's a good time to be out of the country, too."

      On that note, a publicist arrives with a tray of margaritas.

    • There's another interview with Matt and Greg at the Boston Herald, and a long interview with the Farrelly brothers at the NY Times. This short interview is from the Herald-Sun.

      Rug pulled from under Matt

      THE rose-coloured glasses have come off for actor and Academy Award winning writer Matt Damon following a year during which he was ignored by the people who make or break Hollywood careers - the money men.

      And Damon, the 33-year writer and co-star of Good Will Hunting and star of The Talented Mr Ripley, is under no misapprehensions about why he suddenly was on the outer.

      "After All The Pretty Horses and The Legend of Bagger Vance (both 2000) came out, my phone had stopped ringing," he said. "I had opened two movies that were flops. I had The Bourne Identity in the can and the word on that was that it was going to be a flop and so, suddenly, that coincided really nicely the fact that I wanted to take a year off. The only thing I did was a play in London."

      The play closed on the same weekend The Bourne Identity opened in the US and Damon suddenly received a spate of trans-Atlantic phone calls.

      "I got woken up by people going, 'The movie's a hit! We can't believe it! It's much bigger than we thought it was going to be'," he said. "We flew home to New York the next day. I got home late Sunday night and went to sleep. Monday morning I had 35 movie offers.''

      Now back in demand, Damon stars in the new Farrelly Brothers comedy Stuck On You, in which he plays the conjoined twin of Greg Kinnear. He has just finished shooting Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm, opposite Australian Heath Ledger.

    12/06/2003
    • Here's an article about neurosurgeon Dr Ben Carson in advance of the Baltimore premiere of Stuck on you Sunday, which aids his charitable organisations.

      But Carson, who will attend a sold-out gala premiere of the movie tomorrow at Baltimore's Senator Theatre, describes the new comedy as a "sensitive" one that will help open people's eyes to the difficulties conjoined twins face...

      Rather than being paid for his role, Carson got the filmmakers to agree to premiere the film in Baltimore, with proceeds going to his two charities, the Carson Scholars Fund, which provides scholarships for children in grades 4 to 12, and the BEN Fund, which provides grants to those in need of specialized medical care. Not only did the filmmakers agree, but Damon, Kinnear and the Farrellys are scheduled to be at the Senator tomorrow.

    • With perfect timing, the first article criticising Stuck on you for being insensitive is in a British paper here.

    • Eight video clips from Stuck on you are available at yahoo movies.

    • Campuscircle.net has an interview with Matt about various subjects, including:

      When asked if it was nice to finally strike out on his own and get buddy Ben off his back, Damon, after letting out a little laugh, only had one thing to clarify.

      "Let's be very clear. Ben was never on my back, okay?" After eliciting a handful of giggles from a small audience of journalists, a mellow Damon adds that he and Affleck have really only been conjoined when it comes to the media. "In our eyes, we always had our own identities. It never felt like, 'God, man, he's really crowding me.' The guy's been my best friend for the last 20 years or so, so I never felt infringed upon, and I don't think he did either." He then says after a pause, "But yeah, I guess it's nice to get some personal space."

    • Another interview is at creativeloafing.com.

      Maybe you can explain something to me: Gerry [director Gus Van Sant's experimental indie from earlier this year, co-starring Damon and another Affleck, Casey]. What was that all about?
      It was about a lot of things. Just stylistically speaking, I think it was Gus' reaction to the pervasive MTV-style of filmmaking that's going on right now, with all the quick-cutting and the presumption that the audience has a really short attention span. I think Gus very much wanted audiences to find their own metaphors in the movie. He tries to make the kind of movies people might want to explore or talk about later, you know? ... I'm really proud of the movie. It got very, very mixed reviews. OK, to be honest, I'd probably say about 90 percent of the people really hated it, and only 10 percent of them sort of liked it, but even so, it felt good to be making the kind of movie that people definitely weren't confused about, where they had pretty strong opinions about it one way or the other.

      Have you seen or do you have any interest in seeing [the satirical off-Broadway hit] Matt and Ben?
      That would be a "no" on both counts. I guess my take on that is, Ben and I have spent hundreds of hours a year on this Project Greenlight thing, trying to gain access for young, talented writers and directors, so I kind of feel like this play is just another way our names have been used to gain access for a couple of young, talented writers, so good for them, but I don't really have any interest in seeing it.

      But it doesn't offend you or anything.
      No, not at all. Let's face it: Ben and I have done a much worse job on ourselves in a couple of those Kevin Smith movies.

    • Here's the text of the In Touch magazine article mentioned yesterday, thanks to a reader.

      Don't Rush to Get Married

      Best Buddy Matt Damon Tells why he's advising Ben to take his time. PLUS: What he really thinks about J. Lo

      Since Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's September 14 wedding was postponed, only one insider's opinion hasn't been heard: Ben's best friend, Matt Damon. But not the actor, Academy Award winner and Ben's childhood playmate says he's surprised at how well his pal is holding up. For his part, Matt advises Ben not to rush to the altar.

      "I don't know how well I'd handle being in Ben's situation right now," says Matt, who broke off his own headline grabbing love affair with Winona Ryder in 2000. "I think the fact that Ben hasn't taken a rifle and gone up to the bell tower is pretty incredible."

      Amazingly, Ben has never asked his friend for advice on his relationship with J.Lo or the wedding he delayed due to excessive media pressure. "I don't know that I could help anyway," says Matt, 33, who recently ended a long-term relationship with Ben's former personal assistant, Odessa Whitmire.

      "I do think Ben and Jennifer will get married, but if they are smart, they'll wait until some of the fuss has died down. I know it was getting to Ben. Who wants to get married like that?"

      "I think when you end up in a relationship with someone who's as famous as Jennifer is, the kind of star power of each party multiplies," Matt adds. "But it will quiet down eventually."

      As for his buddy's fiancee, Matt insists La Lopez isn't a diva. "Some people have said that she bosses him around, but I never saw that," says Matt. "I do like her. I've met her and have spent time with her and she's very sweet and has been great every time I've been around her. And obviously, he's very much in love, so it's great, except for all the media attention."

      Matt says watching Ben live under the spotlight has been incredibly hard. "We haven't actually seen each other much recently," he explains. "I definitely miss him a lot... but just logistically, we're always in a different place working. It's not because of Jennifer."...

      Meanwhile Matt, who is starring in the new comedy Stuck on You, thinks there's an upside to the trials of Ben and J.Lo have endured during their engagement. "I think the level of attention has been completely overwhelming for both of them," Matt says. "So if they can survive this, they can probably survive anything."

    • On the Tonight Show with Jay Leno Wednesday, Gwyneth Paltrow referred to Matt when asked if she had any superstitions. She said that Matt is the most superstitious person in the world: he throws salt over his shoulder, moves things around or turns them around a certain number of times, and has all kinds of little good luck things he does. He was doing these weird rituals while they filmed Ripley and she always used to ask what in the world he was doing.

    12/05/2003
    • Entertainment Tonight has a new list of the Top 12 Bachelors of 2003, and Matt's at number three.

      DOB: October 8, 1970
      Birthplace: Boston, MA
      Past Relationships: WINONA RYDER, CLAIRE DANES and MINNIE DRIVER
      Current Relationship: Matt and his longtime girlfriend ODESSA WHITMIRE, who was formerly BEN AFFLECK's assistant, have called it quits.
      2003 Projects: 'Stuck on You,' and executive produced 'The Battle of Shaker Heights.'
      2004 Projects: Matt has some serious screen time coming up with 'The Ugly Americans,' 'Oceans 12,' 'The Bourne Supremacy' and 'The Brothers Grimm.'

    • There's a story in the upcoming issue of In Touch magazine called "He'll Be There for Ben - Matt Damon has some advice for his J. Lo-loving best buddy, Ben Affleck."

    • There's a video montage of Stuck on you's sports scenes, introduced by Greg Kinnear, at ign.com.

    12/04/2003
    • From 'Italian Daydreamer' and comingsoon.net, at right is the first picture of Monica Bellucci's extravagant costume as the Evil Queen in The Brothers Grimm.

    • An end of filming update for Brothers Grimm from Variety:

      Czech film biz at rest after active year

      PRAGUE -- Film production in the Czech Republic is winding down for the approaching holidays. After logging the country's most productive year by far -- an estimated $300 million spent on all film production, up 52% from 2002's previous record year -- Prague, the main focus of production, seems positively calm.

      Terry Gilliam had something extra to be thankful for when "The Brothers Grimm" wrapped its 22-plus-week shoot Nov. 27.

      Film was originally skedded to shoot in 17 weeks, but a replacement cinematographer (Newton Thomas Siegel) and the complicated effects resulted in the delay.

      Despite some rumors that Gilliam was headed toward another "Lost in La Mancha" mire, local production vets were sanguine about the filming.

      Shots using star Matt Damon (who plays one half of the brotherly duo, along with Heath Ledger) did have to be rushed in the final weeks when his end-of-shoot date cut into the prolonged schedule.

      Film was shot on location and at the Barrandov studio's soundstages and back lot. New production outfit Reforma Films handled local production services for producers Daniel Bobker, Charles Roven and John D. Schofield. Pic co-stars Jonathan Pryce and Lena Headey.

    • Here's a more complete transcription of the latest berlinonline.de article. All errors in translation, of course, are mine.

      "Berlin is great. I took an apartment immediately". But with Franka Potente there is nothing going on...

      It was his first free evening in Berlin, and Matt Damon (33) had a desire after a long filming day for "The Bourne Supremacy" in Mitte to make a few statements. The best for the job: Courier reporter Karim Mahmoud talked with him over a beer.

      The Lola Lounge at the Rosa Luxembourg Strasse burst from all corners. This is what Matt Damon had wished for: a cool bar, nice operation, beer in bottles, Tandoori fish Haeppchen. Girls swarmed the Hollywood star - he came into the restaurant wearing a perfect dark tailored suit. All wanted to touch him, speak with him. "Berlin is great", said Damon. "I took an apartment immediately."

      Damon's party guests went to see his new film "Stuck on you" (starting from 1 January in the cinema) in the "Cubix" at the Alexanderplatz, and to atone went to the Lounge. Matt (he is named actually Matthew Paige) and his film partner Greg Kinnear (40) play Siamese twins. While Greg wants to become an actor, Matt wants to remain a cook.

      "The whole look was no computer trick, we really were tied together - sometimes twelve hours a day", Matt groans still today. No matter, he is now recovered from the strains on the set, and is now filming in Berlin. And because Matt has to live for three months on the Spree, he lives completely privately. "Unfortunately I have had had no time to look at the city, but I've already been to the Jewish Museum - very impressive."

      On Sunday Damon met up with his film partner Franka Potente. "We both ate only a burger, honest" he says. Such a grind! About the "Lord of the Rings" premiere on 10 December he's a happy man. "I'll go, if Warners gives me a ticket". Worry not, for we gave him the Courier's ticket, naturally.

    • A Berliner Zeitung article about the same event (translated version):

      Loose chatting in stylish cellar club

      It's pretty courageous to invite people to the first showing of a new comedy. The audience at the movie theater Cubix on Monday evening could have gladly given credit and given up a number of solo evenings. "Stuck on you", the new film of the Farrelly brothers is about a pair of siamese twins, and was shown to people including Hans Werner Olm, Oliver Kalkofe, Thomas Nicolai, Chin Meyer und Anke Engelke. The theater-going public must wait until 1 January.

      Afterwards, all went into the new, improved cellar club Lola Lounge in the Rosa Luxembourg Strasse 17, where there was the opportunity to talk with the two leading actors Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as well as director Bobby Farrelly and to praise the entertaining story of the twins. Matt Damon clearly had tired eyes that showed he must earn the millions he receives as the leading actor of "The Bourne Supremacy". The man spoke charmingly about his time in Berlin ("so far I have had only one filming-free day and was so tired I that I had unfortunately not enough energy to enjoy the nightlife") and about his first meeting with the Farrelly brothers at his home.

      During his three months in Berlin Damon lives in an apartment in Mitte: "If I had to live for so long in a hotel I would go crazy"; of Babelsberg (where for example the CIA headquarters have been recreated) he is enthusiastic: "They have there everything that one needs"; and of the way there, which takes him past homes, it has pleased him that he already has made friends and acquaintances. What he will do on the evening of 10 December, if filming permits, Damon has planned already: "Then I want to be in Berlin for the European premiere of the third part of the Lord of the Rings. A friend, who is an actor in the film, invited me."

    12/03/2003
    • Here's the translated version of an article at Tagesspiegel about the premiere and party for Stuck on you held in Berlin Monday night. Thanks to Elisa for her assistance with the translation.

      The nice star: Matt Damon celebrates his film "Stuck on you" in Mitte

      So normal, so nice, so modest. When Oscar-winner Matt Damon came to celebrate at the Lola Lounge in Mitte after presenting his new film "Stuck on you" on Monday evening, he allowed photographs of himself with many guests, answered many questions and grinned in a manner so tremendously friendly and reserved that one would have preferred to invite him on a tour of the pubs.

      He's currently spending time in Berlin while he films "The Bourne Supremacy". In "Stuck on you" he and Greg Kinnear play Siamese twins. Both said that they had to understand the other very well in order to play their roles. That said, the 200 invited guests like Jessica Schwarz, Anke Engelke and Matthias Schweighofer at the film party could be convinced to take part.

    • The Morgenpost report on the event called it one of the year's social highlights. Matt said that due to a tight filming schedule he has enjoyed no free moments in Berlin until the party. BerlinOnline's story includes a photo of Matt with reporter Karim Mahmoud (above). In the story Matt says he's already visited the Jewish Museum, met up with Franka Potente on Sunday and wants to attend the "Lord of the Rings" premiere on 10 December.

    • Another German article describes the chase scene for Bourne Supremacy that was being filmed in central Berlin (and causing traffic chaos), when Matt should have been attending the press conference for Stuck on you here.

    • A Comingsoon.net article discusses the first photo of Monica Bellucci in Brothers Grimm which has appeared in the Italian magazine Chi, but the photo itself is not available online as yet.

    • New morning show appearances for Matt and Greg Kinnear have been added to the TV schedule above.

    12/02/2003
    • New morning and talk show appearances for Matt and Greg Kinnear have been added to the Reminders section above. Most are scheduled from Monday 8 December. Thanks to Laura and Alicia.

    • A new interview with Eva Mendes for Stuck on you is here.

      Question: How was it working off two leading men, basically?

      Mendes: Fun. It was really cool. Two is better than one, in this situation anyway because everything got doubled. The humour got doubled, the talent was doubled, and I think that if one of them were to suck, it would've been really hard because it would've been like, 'Oh, why do you have to be here,' and the eye contact and all of that stuff, but they're both so amazing, Matt [Damon] and Greg [Kinnear], and so different. Greg is more the overtly funny one. Matt was more the dry and maybe the more deadpan funny one, but they were both equally funny. So, I had so much to go off of, and I loved it.

    • Video footage of Matt in Berlin and a press conference for Unzertrennlich (Stuck on you) is available under the Sonntag archive for a short time at this site.

    • There will be 700 special effects required for The Brothers Grimm according to this article. More details about the film are available in a story from Variety via yahoo:

      The Brothers Grimm
      Though financed by Miramax and MGM, helmer Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm" deserves a place in the European production roundup since its 21-week-plus shoot took place entirely in the Czech Republic, using a crew comprising mostly Brits, Italians and Czechs in roughly equal proportions, with a smattering of Yanks in topline positions. Barrandov Studios housed the elaborate castle and whole indoor forest, while the surrounding countryside served for locations.

      Like Gilliam's notorious "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" and other projects by the gifted U.S.-born but U.K.-based helmer, "Grimm" has gone over budget, spending some $78 million according to insiders, suffered from on-set creative clashes.

      Matt Damon and Heath Ledger star as the titular Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, respectively, two con artists who travel Central Europe fleecing villagers in elaborate scams involving fake supernatural phenomena until they find a real enchanted forest.

      Script was penned by Gilliam, Tony Grisoni and Ehren Kruger, and is being lensed by vet Newton Thomas Sigel ("X-Men 2," "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind") with reputedly eye-popping set designs by relative newcomer Guy Hendrix Dyas (also "X-Men 2").

      Pic has penciled in a November 2004 release where it hopes to own the traditional "Harry Potter" slot, the boy wizard's third installment having been moved up to summer.

    12/01/2003
    • With thanks once again to Sandi, the scans of Matt's interview in Parade magazine are available here.

    • This is the first on-set picture from Bourne Supremacy, with Matt filming on Fischer Island (Fischerinsel) Berlin - from the Morgenpost.

    • Here's another junket interview where Matt talks about Ben and not himself, from Jam Movies.

      Matt Damon says his friend Ben Affleck is sick of all the publicity he has endured this year.

      "Ben told me he doesn't want to see his picture on the cover of another magazine. He said all this recent publicity is making him sick of himself. Ben understands why some people are sick of seeing so much being written and photographed about him and that's really frustrating for him," says Damon, who's been Affleck's best friend since childhood.

      Damon says the only reason Affleck has been in the spotlight this past year is that "he fell in love with a woman who is incredibly famous and, from what I can gather, that's the only drawback to their relationship. Ben and Jennifer (Lopez) are both famous. If neither of them were famous, they'd probably be living happily ever after now."

      Damon insists Affleck "didn't go into the relationship saying: 'This will get me a lot of coverage.' Ben was already getting plenty of work as an actor. He didn't need this kind of celebrity and he certainly never courted it."

      Damon, who stars as Greg Kinnear's conjoined twin in the Farrelly brothers' holiday comedy Stuck on You, is in Berlin filming The Bourne Supremacy, the sequel to his 2002 hit spy thriller The Bourne Identity.

    • An interview with Cher from the Toronto Star is here.

    • Stuck on you has a final running time of 119 minutes. An article about the director's battle to get the Rolling Stones song "Wild Horses" in the film is here. And here's a preview from the NY Daily News:

      Before making the new Farrelly brothers film, "Stuck on You," Greg Kinnear only knew Matt Damon in passing. Now he knows his co-star intimately, because the two were harnessed together at the hip throughout the making of this comedy about conjoined twins who go to Hollywood.

      Walt and Bob Tenor (Kinnear and Damon) share a liver, or at least it looks that way, thanks to a harness. "It held us together with Velcro and belts and other material, and it was a strange and odd-looking contraption that was just designed to lock our waists in," says Kinnear. "On days when we were in bathing suits, they used a prosthetic, and we had to stand side by side for, like, 12 hours to put that on. It was a wildly painful experience.

      "It's difficult to be attached to another free-moving, carbon-based life form," he adds. "The first couple of days were very awkward, punctuated with a lot of cursing. At some point our movement became a little fluid. Eventually, we didn't even comment on which way we were going, or what we were doing. We just kinda did it."

      Kinnear thinks the movie in some ways mirrors the experience of the Farrelly brothers themselves. Though they don't share a liver, they do share their working life. "They could artistically go their separate ways, but still be stuck together in other ways, so there's an interesting parallel," the actor says.

      In the movie, Walt gets work on a sitcom starring Cher, who plays herself, and later performs in a musical version of "Bonnie and Clyde" opposite Meryl Streep in an unbilled cameo. "Cher had the trickiest role in some ways," says Kinnear, "because she was playing a turbo-diva-witch version of Cher, and she's not like that. In some ways it was a little 'Malkovich'-ish," as in John Malkovich playing a version of himself in "Being John Malkovich."

      In "Stuck on You," the siamese twins do commendable grill work at the Quickee Burger, excel in sports and accomplish other unlikely things. Only Walt, however, is treated to a lap dance. "I had just done Bob Crane [in 'Auto Focus'], Kinnear says, "so I drew on previous endeavors."

    • PGA Tour Sunday this weekend on the USA Channel includes "a visit with actors Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear." This presumably is a visit to the Miami set of Stuck on you for the filming of a golf scene with Sergio Garcia and Jesper Parnevik.

    General links

    Other good sources of information about Matt

    www.mattdamonfanpage.com: Kelly's great site about Matt, which includes articles, photos and interviews.
    www.mattdamonforum.com: A community website and message board for fans of Matt, moderated by Kelly.
    http://cometo/mattdamon has a comprehensive photo gallery.
    www.screen-icons.org: A site for all fans of Matt & Ben.
    http://damonfantastik.tripod.com: Photos, wallpapers and original artwork


    To contact Matt

    Send mail to:
    C/o Patrick Whitesell
    Endeavor Talent Agency
    9701 Wilshire Blvd.
    10th Floor
    Beverly Hills CA 90212

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