The Matt Damon Column - March 2004 Archive

Updated 3/31/2004

Calendar

Ocean's Twelve

Stuck on you

The Bourne Supremacy

The Brothers Grimm

Ocean's Twelve

3/31/2004

From Norm's column at the Las Vegas Review Journal on Tuesday:

A little birdie says that Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and possibly Brad Pitt will be attending a bachelor party for one of their pals on Friday at the AquaKnox restaurant (The Venetian).
Here's a longer version of a quote from Julia Stiles to the Winnipeg Sun:

When Stiles worked on The Bourne Identity, she saw "Matt Damon takes responsibility for the whole movie and not just his own part. He was another excellent role model for me."

Stiles recently completed filming the Bourne sequel, The Bourne Supremacy.

"I have much more of a role in the sequel than I did in the original but very little with Matt. While he's off doing all the action stuff I have most of my scenes with Joan Allen."
Matt, Ben and Chris Moore are on the judging panel for a new PSA directed at high school students - from yahoo:

RadioShack Corporation today announced the launch of a nationwide competition, the RadioShack Take Your StreetSentz All the Way to Hollywood Contest, to engage teenagers in educating students of all ages about protecting themselves from abduction, exploitation and violence.

The contest gives high school students the opportunity to create scripts and storyboards for a 30-second Public Service Announcement (PSA). This PSA will focus on how kids can protect themselves against abduction, exploitation and violence. The winning student will be flown to Los Angeles where they will work with a professional film production team to develop and produce their winning PSA concept, which will be distributed to broadcasters nationwide.

The judging team for the competition will include LivePlanet founders and the producers of "Project Greenlight" -- actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and producer Chris Moore, along with child safety advocates and experts. In addition to receiving creative consultation from LivePlanet's "Project Greenlight" producers, the winner will earn a cash prize of $5,000, the student's teacher will receive $2,000 and the school will win $1,000.

3/29/2004

A new Bourne Supremacy photo has been posted on the Studio Babelsberg site:
From a Julia Stiles interview at the Boston Herald:

Of her "Bourne Identity" and now "Bourne Supremacy" co-star Matt Damon, she said, "Matt's very actively involved in rewrites and takes responsibility for the whole movie and not just his part in it."
A few more comments about the Chicago casting calls and filming for Ocean's Twelve is available here, here, and here.
Matt is involved with a television documentary made by the International Physicals for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which is part of the "Voices of Vision" series. The film will focus on IPPNW's anti-nuclear work and was expected to air in the US (on the PBS network) and also internationally in 2004. Michael Douglas, Sheryl Crow and Bonnie Raitt are also involved.

Matt hosted a Boston Bourne Identity fund-raiser for the organisation in 2002. The program has been in development for a number of years but I can't find an expected airdate, or even if it's been completed. The website for the group is www.ippnw.org and photos and discussion of the fundraiser is available as a PDF file here.

3/26/2004

The teaser poster for The Bourne Supremacy was presented at ShoWest and is pictured in Smilin' Jack Ruby's report of the event for chud.com. There is reflected glare in the picture and it's quite small, but a better quality image should be available soon. The tagline reads: "They Should Have Left Him Alone."
Another report of the recent Raleigh Hotel sighting from the Miami Herald.

Random Raleigh sighting: Matt Damon with chef J.D. Harris, whom he stole from Rumi to be his own personal chef.
Lisa sent in a link to the Chicago Film Office's first casting call for Ocean's Twelve extras - details here.

Sequel to the blockbuster film, "Ocean's 11" will film in Chicago and surrounding suburbs from April 13th through April 29th.

Extras Casting Call:

Wednesday, March 31st from 11:00 am - 4:00 pm
Bailiwick Repertory
1229 W. Belmont
Chicago, IL
Bring a small photo of yourself and a pen

3/24/2004

On his return from India Matt was sighted by the NY Post at a Miami hotel. The woman he was with is likely to be Lucy (Luciana), who is a Miami club bartender.

Sighting: Matt Damon drinking Ciroc Vodka and smooching with a South Beach cocktail waitress at Soiree, Tommy Pooch's Sunday night party at the Raleigh...
A larger photo of Matt at the Mumbai airport was posted on mid-day.com.
In an interview with Antony Teofilo at moviepoopshot.com Ben talked about his previously aborted plans to write again with Matt:

Q: When we last spoke on the set of JERSEY GIRL, you told me that you and Matt Damon had started faxing some ideas back and forth, throwing ideas for a new screenplay you might like to write together around. You had talked about going out and doing a writing retreat with him. Did you ever get a chance to do that?
BA: The way that it's sort of working out is that Matt got the chance to work with Terry Gilliam, so he obviously took that, and then he got the deal to do THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, so that worked out, and right after that was OCEAN'S TWELVE, so Matt's been in Europe for over a year now. My brother is having a baby, and he's doing OCEAN'S TWELVE with Matt, so I think I'm going to go over to Europe and sort of hang out and use that time to write. Those OCEAN movies are like the dream job, you know. You work like three days a week, and they're all a bunch of fun guys, and they're all really talented and cool, and they're all basically over there having fun. There'll be some time, and I'll get to see my nephew get born, so it's all coming together.

Q: What sort of story do you think we might see from you?
BA: All the stories and ideas that we've kicked around were set in Boston, in a similar kind of world. There was one story we wanted to do about these two older men that we wanted to do with Billy Bob Thornton and Morgan Freeman, but it's not dissimilar to AN UNFINISHED LIFE, which is really good. I saw it, so I thought 'Maybe we should do something else.'
A CNN article included Rounders in their list of recent movies which have become a cult success on video/DVD:

Though it doubled its budget theatrically, the film "Rounders" was considered an underperformer when it pulled in just under $23 million at the turnstiles. With then-hot stars Matt Damon and Edward Norton it was expected to be a juggernaut. For distributor Miramax, it was more naught than jugger. Now with the revisionist world of DVD, "Rounders" is not only a rousing success but also one of the most beloved films of the past decade for hundreds of thousands of people. It's also to poker players what "Scarface" is to gangsta -- their own little celluloid bible.

3/22/2004

Another report about Matt leaving India is at the mid-day.com site, including the photo below.

The Matt Supremacy
By Ami Cholia

Standing at Chhatrapati Shivaji airport in a linen shirt, blue jeans and a baseball cap, Hollywood hunk Matt Damon looks barely half of his 32 years. But behind those good looks and boyish charm lies a man who has been "living it large" for the past five years.

In that time, he's won an Academy Award, dated some of Hollywood's most beautiful women and starred in a string of hit films including the Oscar winning Good Will Hunting, The Rainmaker, The Talented Mr Ripley and Ocean's Eleven.

Damon was in Goa to shoot his latest film The Bourne Supremacy - a sequel to the thriller The Bourne Identity. He made a stopover in Mumbai on Saturday evening enroute to the US. Damon spoke about his trip to India, fiery Goan food and The Bourne Supremacy.

Having performed some high-voltage action in the first movie, Damon said, "The sequel has more action and a lot more adventure. We've taken all the good stuff from the first movie and increased it for this film."

So did the Hollywood hunk have a hard time acclimatising to India? "Not at all. About half our crew was Indian and they would tell us what to eat, where to hang out. I love how integrated Indian culture is. Everyone is very close knit," he said.

Damon loved his first trip to India and was looking forward to returning. "We got done with the shooting at 4 am on Saturday and now we are heading back to the United States. I didn't get a chance to see any other part of India, but I am definitely coming back on vacation."

While we eagerly await the release of The Bourne Supremacy and more wonderful hours with the A List actor.

3/21/2004

Bourne Supremacy now seems to be finally over and Matt has left India - a report but no photos from mid-day.com.

City sizzles as Hollywood hottie drops in
By Ami Cholia

Hollywood A-list star Matt Damon was in Mumbai on Saturday after a 10-day stint in Goa. The American actor, along with co-star Franka Potente (Run Lola Run), was in India's sunny state shooting for The Bourne Supremacy, a film based on Robert Ludlum's edge-of-the-seat thriller. Damon spoke to Sunday Mid Day at Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport before his long flight back to the United States.

Damon who was on his first visit to India, said he "loved India". He added, "The next time I come back, I am definitely going to be on vacation. I couldn't get to see much of India because we were working all the time, but I loved whatever I saw."

Unlike most foreigners who fight shy of fire, Damon indulged in a bit of local adventure as he sampled spicy Goan fare. "I love spicy food," said he, even as he boasted that unlike most of his crew members he didn't fall sick eating all the Goan food.

His favourite: "Goan style baby shark," he said. "About half our crew was from India so they helped us get used to the surroundings. They told us what to order, what fun things to do."

Dressed in blue jeans, a casual shirt and the staple American baseball cap, Damon looked at home in India. "I live in downtown Manhattan so I am completely familiar with Indians. It's like little India up there," he said.
Another comment about Brothers Grimm by Heath Ledger in a Chronicle interview:

But now Ledger plans to get cracking with a solid year of high-profile efforts. He recently co-starred with Matt Damon in "The Brothers Grimm," under Terry Gilliam's direction. "Terry is just an eccentric mad professor," Ledger says. "Matt and I absolutely leapt out of our skins and were screaming and shouting and throwing ourselves left, right and center, taking it to the most pathetically stupid place, but Terry had us feeling comfortable doing it. I'm very excited about that one."
Ben talked about the next series of Project Greenlight in a Boston Herald interview. There's also another Matt v Ben comparison in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly.

While Affleck's buddy Matt Damon has a cameo in "Jersey Girl," the two are revving up for a third season of "Project: Greenlight'' - only not with Miramax, but its Dimension Pictures wing.

"We're going to do it with Bob Weinstein instead of Harvey Weinstein," he said of the Hollywood brothers who take a licking in the much-discussed Peter Biskind expose, "Down and Dirty Pictures."
Reader Christina is looking for the first four episodes of the second series of Project Greenlight, and is willing to pay costs. If anyone is able to help, please contact me.

3/18/2004

From the Boston Herald's Inside Track column:

Cambridge wants Ben & Matt to Party hearty
By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa, Thursday, March 18, 2004

Cambridge pols expect favorite sons Ben Affleck and Matt Damon to take part in a "`Rock the Vote"-like event in their hometown during this summer's Democratic National Convention.

The Tinseltown twosome's childhood chum, Cambridge City Councilor Marjorie Decker, said she's in talks with MTV and Comcast to host a political party in the People's Republic during the July Demmie 'do.

"Ben and Matt, if they do something for the Democratic National Convention, will do it in Cambridge," the councilor told a City Hall group the other day.

Apparently, Decker is banking on her old lefty Little League pals to turn the spotlight on their 'hood - and cash in on some of the free-wheeling visitor spending - during the four-day John Kerryfest across the river, reports the Cambridge Chronicle.

Now, it's unclear if Damon's movie-making marathon will allow him to head home the last week in July. But Ben said this week he plans to take a four-month holiday to travel and "clear my head" after his "Jersey Girl" PR obligations wind down. So anything's possible.
From the goacom news:

Hollywood film shoot at Palolem

The men portraying on and off the scene for the shooting of the Hollywood film "The Bourne Supremacy", brought life at the Palolem beach to a virtual halt. Barricades and a huge police force blocked the access to the beach on March 15. It is learnt that the only intimation the hundreds of business establishments on this coastline was from a lady who spoke in Konkani and asked the shack owners and other business establishments to kindly open their establishments early as the shooting for the film was to take place. Thereafter, it was a virtual siege, so say the shack owners, who lost considerable amount of business on account of the shooting. (H)
Laura sent in a link to a photo gallery of Matt which is quite old - here.

3/17/2004

Ben was interviewed on Larry King Live and answered a few questions about Matt. Ben inferred that Matt is still filming Bourne Supremacy in India, although I believed all filming should have been complete as of last weekend. The following text is from the CNN transcript, and some parts are quite difficult to comprehend.

CALLER: I want to know why you chose India to write the new screen play with Matt and how long are you going to be there for.

AFFLECK: I chose India. I didn't really. Matt's shooting a movie there, so I was going to hang out with Matt and get a chance to see India, which I've never seen. But Matt tells me it's a little hectic. But that's why. Because Matt's there shooting the "Bourne Supremacy," which is the sequel to the "Bourne Identity." And he's traveling around Europe. And said I'm going to go over there and then they'll be in Amsterdam and Rome doing "Oceans 12" at some point. I'll go hang out with Matt and my brother and hopefully get some writing done.

KING: What are you going to write? Do you have an outline?

AFFLECK: It's a very nebulous idea. It probably will be a hard thing to pitch when it's finished. It's a character story.

KING: There's some surprises in "Jersey Girl," one I won't tell you because it will spoil a terrific ending to the movie. But there's one scene I can tell you because Matt Damon is in it. Was this kind of like friends, come on over and play this one thing?

AFFLECK: It's like, you know, obviously, Matt and I are buddies, and Matt and Kevin know each other and work together. We called him and said, would you come in and play this part. It's one of those things that's funny for the audience too because they recognize Matt, but he's in this part where basically I'm coming to ask him for a job, and he thinks it's ridiculous, and he's not going to hire me. It's fun and nice. The whole community of this movie was people I had worked with before, and that I knew and cared about as friends. It was a really comfortable and nice environment.

3/16/2004

Producer Charles Roven talked about The Brothers Grimm at the Scooby-Doo junket to scifi.com:

Producer Charles Roven told SCI FI Wire that Terry Gilliam's upcoming fantasy film Brothers Grimm is about a third of the way through post-production and will showcase the quirky director's talents. "What I've seen of the movie so far, I think it's a Terry Gilliam movie through and through, but the best of Terry Gilliam," Roven said in an interview. "I think that Matt Damon and Heath Ledger work spectacularly together."

The movie stars Damon and Ledger as the fairy-tale-spinning brothers in a fictionalized story about their adventures in medieval Europe. "And ... quite frankly, I couldn't think of a better project that could be blended for Terry's talents," Roven said. "We're going through the process ourselves. But right now, I'm feeling very positive." Brothers Grimm is slated for a November release.
In this Boston Globe article, baseball player Adam Hyzdu talks about his obsession with Good Will Hunting, and his desire to make the Red Sox team.
In his Saturday Night Live appearance, Ben Affleck joked that he should have made money from Bennifer, and suggested some other possible romantic possibilities which could be promoted on T-shirts. The final name:

Ben-Gay. "For the off chance I get together with Marcia Gay Harden, or in the unlikely but wonderful hope that Matt [Damon] finally comes around."

3/14/2004

Here's another summary of an article from the Gomantak Times Weekender, but the full story is not online.

Matt Damon in Goa

Hollywood hearththrob Matt Damon is in Goa to shoot sequences for "The Bourne Supremacy". Speaking exclusively to Weekender, Damon said, "I love Goa. I have never been to India before but I love what I see here." Damon is playing the lead role of Jason Bourne, the CIA 'black-ops' agent who has lost his memory. German bombshell Franka Potente plays Damon's love interest in the espionage flick. The couple is hiding out in Goa when a Chinese leader is assassinated. The killed leaves behind Bourne's calling card. (Reuven Proenca in WE-GT)
Ben Affleck mentioned in the Dateline TV interview and the Rolling Stone print interview that he would be going to India with Matt for a holiday, or perhaps visiting Matt in India while he was filming, although Bourne Supremacy has now wrapped. From the Dateline transcript:

In between baseball games, Ben Affleck has some other things on his plate. He says he'll be heading off to India for some R-and-R with Matt Damon. They're working on another screenplay together, their first since "Good Will Hunting."

3/12/2004

The first detailed story from the Indian press about Bourne Supremacy is here:

Damon is Bourne in Goa
By: Udita Jhunjhunwala

Goa is the current base for Hollywood hotshot Matt Damon. Along with Bourne Identity co-star Franka Potente (Run Lola Run) the American actor is shooting for The Bourne Supremacy in various locations in the Indian beach town.

Director Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday) and producers Patrick Crowley and Frank Marshall (Signs, Sixth Sense, Bourne Identity) are overseeing the $2 million Goa leg of the film, which will also be shot in Germany (Berlin) and Russia.

A mixed Indian and international crew has been in Goa for over a month (ensconced in the Taj Aguada) building sets and sourcing props from Mapusa market. The scenes being shot there comprise the opening 10 minutes of The Bourne Supremacy based on the Robert Ludlum novel about Jason Bourne.

After Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne (Damon) and Marie Helena Kreutz (Potente) are hiding out in Goa till they are tracked down there (by Karl Urban who played Eomer in Lord of the Rings) and before they shift location to Berlin.

Four hundred extras have been recruited as part of the production, and several second-hand Maruti Gypsies were bought from the local government for a crash scene. The film has been shot in the Fontainhas heritage precinct and Panjim Church Square, on the Nerul Bridge and on a south Goa beach.

Producer Frank Marshall said he was last in Goa in the 60's as a hippie, "and I always wanted to shoot here". Damon is on his first visit to India and said he "loves Goa". He added, "I wish I had more time to explore and would definitely love to return."
Kelly sent in some new TV alerts for some interview repeats, detailed above.
Ailsa sent in a link for a Matt profile which contains a few errors, found here.

3/11/2004

Heath Ledger talked about Brothers Grimm in this scifi.com interview:

Heath Ledger, who plays Jake Grimm in director Terry Gilliam's upcoming fantasy movie The Brothers Grimm, told SCI FI Wire that Gilliam took on the big-budget project after the well-publicized failure of his previous movie, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. "He actually didn't give a f--k," Ledger said in an interview. "The best thing about Terry's attitude is he's like, 'F--k it, just f--k it. Welcome kid, you're doing the first Terry Gilliam sell-out movie.' We had to turn him around and convince him that he wasn't doing a sell-out movie, and we were all going to be passionate and work our asses off for him."

Ledger added that Gilliam said that he found it difficult to get any movie made after Don Quixote fell apart. "So he needed this big-budget movie that will hopefully get his next films [made]," Ledger said. "They threw him $80 million, which is the most money he's had to spend on a movie."

Grimm tells a fictionalized story of the fairy-tale brothers, played by Ledger and Matt Damon, in medieval Europe. "Eventually, [Gilliam] came to love it," Ledger said. "He loves making movies. He's a passionate, passionate creator and super-excited. The only reason that he wants a movie to make money is so he can make three movies that don't." The Brothers Grimm is slated for release on Nov. 19.
Aurelia sent in a link to another interview with Julia Stiles where she talks about some scenes in Bourne Supremacy (includes spoilers) - here.
A NY Post story about Ben and his comments to Peter Biskind, which angered Harvey Weinstein, includes these lines:

Meanwhile, Affleck is having a good time without Jennifer Lopez. Spies said he met up with several women in a West Village bar last Saturday night, "bought them all rounds of shots and then took them back to Matt Damon's apartment where he is staying."
Reports of a huge financial windfall for George Clooney for his participation in Ocean's Twelve are denied in this article:

George Clooney is laughing at reports he'll earn more than $50 million by making Ocean's Eleven sequel Ocean's Twelve - he'll actually take home less than he made from the original. The movie star and his castmates, including Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, will all receive less than they did for the original 2001 hit film.

Clooney's publicist Stan Rosenfeld explains, "They will receive only a small percentage of their normal fees. This is the only way a film with this large a cast can be made. The only opportunity to make more money will be based on box-office performance. If they make a good film, they will make more money. If they don't, they won't."
Natasha says that Matt and Ben are at #38 on E! program 101 Reasons the 90's ruled, episode 4.
A story on Ben in the March issue of German magazine Cinema is described in this manner (translated):

Why Ben Affleck would like to marry his best friend Matt Damon after the separation from J.Lo.

3/10/2004

The project Matt and Ben are working on is now confirmed as an adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel Gone, Baby, Gone, which Ben has been associated with for a few years. Brief details from Roger Friedman's column at Fox News.

Affleck told me that he's two films away from taking an actual break. "If the script is ready, I'll do 'Glory Road' in the summer," he said. The movie is about the first all-black NCAA college championship basketball team. Affleck will play the coach who led them to victory.

But the break is more problematic. Where can he go and play poker and not be photographed, I asked? "Bangladesh," he said. The word around Affleck is that he's starting to tire of acting and would like to do something else, like, of course, direct. In the meantime, he and Matt Damon are trying to develop a script based on a novel by Dennis Lehane ("Mystic River") called "Gone Baby Gone."
The story on Access Hollywood is still unconfirmed, and may appear on Wednesday's show or at a later date.

3/09/2004

Here's a mention of Bourne Supremacy filming in India from a Goa news summary, but the full article from the Gomantak Times is not available on the web.

Hollywood comes to capital town

'The Bourne Supremacy', sequel to the blockbuster 'The Bourne Identity', is being shot a number of locations in the State over the next few days. The movie is loosely based on the Robert Ludlum classic by the same name. Hollywood stars Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity), Franka Potente (Bourne Identity) and Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings-Return of the King) are the only three members of the cast who are in Goa. Other actors include Joan Allen, Julia Stiles and Brian Cox. (Reuven Proenca in GT)
Julia Stiles talked about her involvement in the film in a Moviehole interview:

And next on the big screen, Stiles will be seen in The Bourne Supremacy, which she recently wrapped on location in Germany.

"I had a lot of really interesting psychologically driven scenes with Joan Allen. The movie starts and I thought that I had kind of gotten away from the world of the CIA and Joan Allen has this operation to find Jason Bourne again. She drags me off the street and against my will I have to go and help them. Meanwhile, Jason Bourne wants to interrogate me because I'm a sort of link to his past, being the last person to see him alive. Therefore I'm stuck in this paranoid world between two groups of people that are dangerous."
Details about Ocean's Twelve filming in Chicago are constantly changing. Here's the latest from the Daily Southtown.

"Oceans Twelve," the sequel to "Oceans Eleven," will also be filmed in Chicago and is scheduled to begin shooting in May. Expect its stars - George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta Jones and Matt Damon - to arrive here in early May.
Natasha sent in another quote from Peter Biskind's latest book, where Kevin Smith's talking about Matt and Ben, and their relationship with Miramax:

"Reflects Smith, 'Ben is far more business-savvy than Matt. Matty's more about the art, the performance, he's a true actor. Ben is more of a movie star, and thinks like a movie star, and he definitely thinks about his paycheck. If you catch Matty on the right day, it's, 'I fuckin' hate Miramax, too.'"
My thanks also to Ondine, who sent me an article from the French magazine Brazil where Matt is interviewed about Gerry, which recently opened to acclaim in France.

Basically it is about how Matt and Gus came up with the idea of filming Gerry, how it was shot, the characters, the cinematography and how Matt feels the film will be perceived by the French as opposed to the US audience.

3/07/2004

News is really quiet as The Bourne Supremacy continues to film in India without any coverage from the local media.
TV alert: A story on Matt is included on the upcoming program list for Access Hollywood on Wednesday 10 March. It may be a preview for Bourne Supremacy.
Kelly provided a few more upcoming dates:

The Third Wheel comes out on DVD April 20th (cameo) - details here, and the Saving Private Ryan 60th Aniversary DVD set comes out May 25th - here.
Director Kevin Smith talked about his reaction to Peter Biskind's book, and Matt's comments in comparison to his own, at a recent Q&A, detailed at Hollywood Bitchslap.

3/04/2004

The description on Amazon UK of Bob McCabe's book about the making of The Brothers Grimm has been recently updated as follows:

A behind-the-scenes chronicle of the creation of the Terry Gilliam's 'The Brothers Grimm', charting all the highs and lows in the film's journey from script to screen. Told by both Gilliam and McCabe, who provides an on-set diary, this unique account reveals exactly how a film is made -- or ruined -- in today's Hollywood system.

THE BROTHERS GRIMM is Terry Gilliam's film for November 2004. After two years of pre-production hell, the film was finally greenlighted in March 2003 by Miramax's Dimension Films with a budget bigger than anything Gilliam has ever had to work with -- on condition that the film was fast-tracked for a 2004 release. With stars Matt Damon and Heath Ledger playing the brothers Jake and Will, and co-starring Jonathan Pryce, hero from Gilliam's seminal BRAZIL, this movie is hailed as an "Indiana Jones and the Brothers Grimm"-style adventure, in which two Middle-Ages conmen who travel the countryside inventing horrendous ghost stories, only so they can claim to have defeated evil and be showered with gifts and women, finally encounter a real magical curse and are forced to find the courage to do a proper day's work of evil-vanquishing.
New cover art for the Stuck on you DVD is at Barnes & Noble.

3/01/2004

Bourne Supremacy has now finished filming in Berlin, but here's a new description of the film from the site of a German casting agency:

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is a former agent for the Central Intelligence Agency now living with his girlfriend Marie (Franke Potente) in Goa, India. Disrupting their peaceful and happy life in India is a Russian assassin (Karl Urban) who masquerading as Jason Bourne kills two men in Germany. When the assassin attempts to take Bourne's life, Jason knows he must return to the life he left behind in order to clear his name.

Jason Bourne returns to Europe where he begins his hunt for the assassin, while the CIA chase Bourne whom they hold responsible for the killings. From Rome to Moscow to Berlin we follow Jason Bourne as he pieces together the crime he did not commit and discovers the people who are trying to destroy him.
A brief story about Matt meeting German actor Matthias Schweigh�fer is here.
Celebrity Poker Showdown host Phil Gordon writes about meeting Matt and being invited to the Stuck on you premiere and party here.
A home-town story about the agent of Matt and Ben, Patrick Whitesell, is here.
Natasha very kindly transcribed some relevant passages from Peter Biskind's book Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film. Matt and Ben were interviewed about their past relationship with Miramax and particular films.

On Good Will Hunting:

"The mainstream sucks, and it always will, is the bottom line. Because they don't understand how to make movies---they went to Wharton. They're selling widgets. The thing I love about working for Harvey is that it's like the old studio system. He tells you right to your face to go fuck yourself." -- Matt Damon

Damon and Affleck were inspired by other nobodies who had sold first scripts with themselves attached as actors. Of course the most celebrated example was Sylvester Stallone, who some two decades earlier had managed to star in his own script, Rocky.

Recalls Damon, "We'd just say, 'Stallone, Stallone,' because he had $103 in the bank and a pregnant wife, and they offered him thirty grand if he would bow out and let Ryan O'Neal play Rocky, but he stuck to his guns. When the studios would balk, and go, 'Who the hell are these guys and why should they be in the movie?' at least our agent had some leverage to say, 'It's not a first-time thing, this happens.' Our feeling was, Don't let them draw a line in the sand, you do it, why not ask for it, demand it, insist on it--and maybe they'll give it to you."

While Good Will Hunting sat at CastleRock:

Damon and Affleck were getting impatient. The two writers suspected the Castle Rock guys were not even reading what they'd been giving them. In one draft they put in a scene where the "Harvey Keitel" character, a psychiatrist, gives Damon's character, Will Hunting, a blowjob in his office. Recalls Affleck, "Nobody at Castle Rock ever said anything to us about it, and we were like, 'All right, I guess the blowjob scene works.' It was demoralizing." The screenwriters thought the script was there, but they were getting the three-billy goat treatment. It was always, "The next draft, the next draft you'll get a director."

Damon and Affleck were fans of a novel by Cormac McCarthy called All the Pretty Horses. In it there's a scene where a thirteen-year-old kid named Blevins gets his horse stolen, rides into a strange town to find the thief armed with a pistol bigger than he is, and gets himself killed. One of the characters observes, by way of testament, "I'll say this for 'im, he wasn't gonna stand by for no sonofabitch hijacking his horse." Says Affleck, "We knew that we would rather do the movie the way we wanted to do it and fail, than do it somebody else's way. No sonofabitch was going to hijack our horse!"

On Harvey Weinstein:

Recalls Damon, "Everyone warned us, they said, He's Harvey Scissorhands, he'll bite your head off." Their young producer, Chris Moore, who hid a considerable shrewdness under a goofy exterior, told the boys, "What I hear about this guy Weinstein is, you're going to hear everything you want to hear, and you get off the phone with him and you'll feel like your life couldn't be any better, but it remains to be seen what you'll get." Says Damon, "True to form, Harvey called up and said every single thing we wanted to hear, which was, 'I don?t know who the fuck you guys are, but I love this fuckin' script, Kevin loves it, it's really fuckin' good, but this is too much money these guys at fuckin' Castle Rock want me to shell out, like, it's Breaking Away? And there's one thing'---beat---'you can't be giving him a fuckin' blowjob at the office, okay, guys? You think you're funny, you're not that fuckin' funny.'" Adds Affleck, "Immediately we loved him. He pulled the trigger." Within a day of getting the script from Smith, Weinstein offered $1 million for it, with Damon and Affleck attached. He did what he does best--he saw the potential, accepted the risk, met their price, and executed at lightning speed.

...At a meeting in the Tribeca offices, Harvey casually informed Damon and Affleck, "I just want you guys to know we offered the movie to Chris Columbus." They were stunned. Columbus was an okay director forever enshrined in box office heaven for Home Alone (and later the Harry Potters) but if it wasn't going to be Van Sant, the boys wanted a director whose films had played at the Orson Welles in Cambridge, where they had grown up. As Harvey rattled on, saying, "I offered him $5 million to direct, and he almost did it. He read it three times before he passed on it," Damon interrupted him, said, "Well, you're lucky, 'cause you would have been out $5 million!" The room fell silent. This was the first time they had ever talked back to him. The Miramax drones looked down at their notepads. As Damon recalls, Harvey went ballistic, shouted, "What? Who the fuck do you think you are? How fuckin' dare you talk to me like that? You're a nobody!" Through gritted teeth, Damon replied, "I'm a nobody, but I'm a nobody with director approval."

Epigraph

"He offered me a movie, said, 'I'll make you rich, I'll make you rich.' I was broke. I gave all my money away, but I said, 'Harvey, it's not about the fucking money. This movie is a fucking piece of shit. I'm not going to do it.' He was screaming at me on the phone, 'Fuck you!' and he hung up on me." -- Matt Damon

On All The Pretty Horses

Weinstein forced Thornton to cut the film by one hour and twenty minutes, bringing it down to a (relatively) slim one hour and fifty-five minutes. Thornton said something like, "At least Ah'll retain two hours of what's mine," but he was desperately unhappy with it. "We were all unhappy with it," says Damon. "'Unhappy's' not the word." Thornton asked Epperson to look at this cut with an eye to writing a voice-over. "The cut I saw did not work at all," says Epperson. "It was a Cliff Notes version of the script that I was familiar with, truncated and episodic." Adds Damon, "It was like you baked a souffle and somebody wants you to make it half the size, and you just chop the thing in half and try to mold it and make it look like that was how you made it to begin with. It can't work."

Continues Damon, "In the end, there was a lot of animosity and anger directed at Harvey, because he ran the marketing of the movie, and he pulled the trigger on how it was released and what cut was released. He tried to make it look like a love story, so the teenagers would go see it. He made a trailer with me and Penelope Cruz swimming around in the water, skinny-dipping, with Bono singing, and Billy's going, 'Look, I love U2, but it's just not appropriate.' And on the poster, they put, 'Some passions can never be tamed,' which is exactly what the movie's not about. There is no love story, it's about unrequited love, it's about life being bigger than these people and just crushing the passion out of them. At the end, it was rated R, so teenagers couldn't go anyway."

ATPH devastated Thornton. "He doesn't want to direct anymore," says Damon. "He said, 'It almost killed me.' He lost all this weight, went into the hospital with a heart problem, he was so stressed he couldn't sleep. He really took it personally and invested a lot of himself in the movie. He said, 'Ah have kids and Ah have a life, and it's not worth it to me to put that much of mah soul into something and have it ripped away. Ah can't ever go through that again. Because it will kill me.'" He had always credited Harvey for launching his career as a director. Now he blamed Harvey for ending it as well.
Finally, here's a blind item for which I don't have an answer. From an interview with Peter Farrelly in the Australian Herald-Sun newspaper on 19 February, talking about the casting process:

Q: What, no casting-couch action?
Only once in my life have we had an actor who would have done that. I won't tell you her name, but she's pretty big. There were five of us sitting there, talking to her, and all of a sudden she's looking at me, "I'm sorry, your mouth is just so incredible." Everybody burst out laughing. Then she called me at two in the morning, "Hey, I really want to do the movie." Are you kidding me? My wife's lying next to me. "OK, we'll keep you in mind."

Meanwhile, was Bobby jealous that you're the one getting the call from this willing lady?
Well, to tell you the truth, she called him first -- "Hi, can I come over and have a drink?" But it's not something that happens, at least not in our world.