Chris Affleck is just as worried about 25-year-old Ben. "After a while the fame really isolates you," says Affleck, who lives in Cambridgeport. "Everyone you meet feels like they already know you and it's a very unequal thing," Affleck continues. "Then you don't want to go out and meet people. You have to hang out with other famous people. As a mother, a part of you thinks how is that going to change his life."
In separate interviews earlier this month, Carlsson-Paige and Affleck, both educators, were down to earth and even a little sober as they talked about seeing their sons in the spotlight after the success of "Good Will Hunting." Both women are uncomfortable with the way media exploits celebrity, and described the acclaim that has greeted their sons in the last year as cause for concern as well as celebration. Among the nominations, the movie was nominated for "best screenplay." Damon, 27, was nominated for best actor. Damon and Affleck, who wrote the screenplay together, are both graduates of Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. In part because of their aversion to media attention, both women have refused to do numerous interviews, trying to at least maintain some control of their own lives. Carlsson-Paige agreed to talk to the Washington Post and to Vanity Fair at Matt's request. Damon had specifically asked her to talk to these publications about the way the media turns people into objects to be exploited for money-making purposes. "The people who write for magazines have to get material that is going to sell the magazine," she explains. "Now, Matt's in that business and he's one of the people being used in that way."
But both mothers, who divorced when Matt and Ben were young and brought up two sons, agreed to talk to The Cambridge Chronicle, a Community Newspaper Company publication of which the Arlington Advocate is part, about how they feel watching their sons rise to the level of pop icons. Both boys graduated from public school in Cambridge and still consider Cambridge their home.
Carlsson-Paige, a professor of education at Lesley College, knew from the time Matt was 2 years old and was into "dramatic play" that he would be a famous actor some day. When Matt was 8, he realized he could be an actor for a living and went to tell his mother. "He ran in and said 'I know what I'm going to be when I grow up' and I thought 'so do I.' " Carlsson-Paige, whose own parents discouraged her from pursuing an interest in drama, never tried to steer Matt away from what was clearly his life's calling. She did, however, work to keep him away from organized theater, which she thought would squash his creativity at a young age. Matt's first paid role was when he was 16 in a television movie about prejudice. Fox recalled how he learned about prejudice playing ice hockey. His first day shooting, he fell on the ice and got a concussion. Carlsson-Paige believes her efforts to keep Matt from organized theater at a young age is helping him now to deal with challenges of being a star. Matt's dad, Kent Damon, is a businessman who lives in Boston. Seeing some of the values she has tried to teach Matt appear in the movie certainly feels good. "Matt told me, 'When I made this movie I took everything I learned growing up and I applied it,' " says Carlsson-Paige. "That makes me feel happy. That a person learned all that growing up and could create an art form out of it."
In particular, Carlsson-Paige notes that a monologue Matt gives in "Good Will Hunting" about why he doesn't want to work for the federal government came directly from lessons she taught him. "He said to me once, 'I wrote something for you,' and then he showed me that monologue. That's my favorite monologue."
In "Good Will Hunting," Matt plays Will Hunting, a math prodigy who works as a janitor at MIT and lives, drinks and gets into trouble with his South Boston friends -- mainly Affleck as lovable "Chuckie Sullivan." Matt related to both the college students and the janitor character, says his mother. He went to Harvard himself, but growing up in Central Square, he could not help but be touched by poverty and the hardships many people faced. The family lived across the street from a halfway house and Matt made friends with some of the residents there.
Matt was in fifth grade when Carlsson-Paige moved her family to Cambridge because she felt this school system would be best for her sons. They had lived in Newton Corner and both Matt and his older brother, Kyle, were unhappy there. Matt used to hide under the kitchen table wrapped in a quilt each morning before school and "mornings were agony" recalled Carlsson-Paige. She decided the Cambridge Alternative School (now Graham & Parks) would better suit her kids. Immediately, both boys began to love school, she says. Her older son Kyle, 30, is an artist now living in Somerville. Carlsson-Paige, who lives with her partner, says she moved to Somerville in the last year because they could not afford Cambridge. "It's funny that the mother of Matt Damon is saying that, but that's Cambridge for you," says Carlsson-Paige. As Matt Damon's mother, Carlsson-Paige does have to deal with her own sort of fame.
"I've seen an enormous shift in my relations with a great many people who used to be just friends of mine and are treating us differently," she says. "It's distorted." Even in the doctor's office, or at school, people somehow find out who she is. During this interview, a student passed her by and told her how much her brother resembled Matt.
Carlsson-Paige was friendly and responsive. This kind of interchange is constant, she says. And if things are hard for her, she can only imagine what it's like for Matt. He told her, for instance, it would take 36 straight hours to return all his phone calls, many of them from people who want him to read their scripts or get them access to something or someone. "It's hard to become a public person so fast and feel OK and to lose your privacy and have almost nowhere you can go and feel privacy," she says. Matt has also gotten a taste of tabloid treatment. For instance, he is seen hugging a friend at a party, and suddenly it is in print that he is having a relationship with this person, his mother says.
Although national media have conveniently cast Ben and Matt as childhood best friends, the truth is that they were two years apart in school and only started getting close during high school, when they both worked with drama teacher Gerry Specca. Since then, their friendship has continued to grow, their mothers say.
Affleck, a teacher at the Tobin School for the last 17 years, also talks with her son about the effects of being famous. "I trained him to feel the unequal distribution of wealth is very disturbing, so on the one hand I want to say he should give it all away, but on the other hand he bought me a car and I'm very happy," she says pointing to a dark green Jeep. Still, she adds, "actors are paid too much money." She has talked to both of her sons extensively about the effects of being recognized. Her younger son Casey, also a CRLS graduate, plays one of Will's friends in "Good Will Hunting." Casey, 22, was the one who ran around into the front seat of the car at the end of the movie. He also appeared in "To Die For," the Pam Smart story, as one of the teenagers, but not the one who killed Smart's husband. "He's really a very nice guy. I don't know why he gets typecast as the obnoxious one," she says.
In fact, both families appear in "Good Will Hunting." Affleck, Carlsson-Paige and some of their friends were caught in a shot in the background at Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square when Will is there with his girlfriend, played by Minnie Driver.
Affleck also knew Ben was a natural actor from an early age. He was a pro at mimicking people and had an ear for sounds. Unlike Carlsson-Paige, however, she tried to discourage him. "He also was somewhat interested in politics. He used to say he wanted to be mayor of Cambridge, or to be governor, but I think I tried to discourage him about acting because I thought it was too hard to make a living," says Affleck. "Another bad idea brought to you by mom."
Ben's first acting job was for the "Voyage of the Mimi," a television special he did while in elementary school. Affleck attended Radcliffe and moved to Cambridge with her family 22 years ago. She taught for three years at the Maynard School before she came to the Tobin. Ben's dad, Tim Affleck, currently lives in California and works as a counselor at an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center. When he lived in Boston, Ben's dad acted and directed in the Theater Company of Boston.
Aside from all their worries about fame and fortune, Affleck and Carlsson-Paige reveal that they are a tad pleased for their sons. Affleck is excited to attend the Academy Awards next month and has loved visiting the sets of his productions. Carlsson-Paige says she will, of course, be there if her son asks her to come.