Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - OSCAR NOMINEE: Matt Damon (July 2023)

Episode Date: March 9, 2024

Matt Damon sat down with Willie Geist to talk about his role in Christopher Nolan's latest Oscar-nominated movie, "Oppenheimer", and how his A-list Hollywood career all started when he and Ben Affleck wrote and starred in "Good Will Hunting". (Original broadcast date July 16, 2023.) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. Got a big one. And I mean a big one for you this week with one of the biggest stars currently striding the planet. He is Academy Award winner, Matt Damon. Where do you begin with Matt Damon? You can go all the way back to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he and a young Ben Affleck, two years apart, living two blocks apart, bonded over their shared love of writing and acting,

went on eventually, famously, of course, to write Goodwill Hunting, star in the movie, win an Oscar for the movie, and the rest is history. They got to work together again this year on the movie Air, which became a hit. Matt Damon starred in it, along with Ben Affleck, who also directed that movie under their new production company called Artist Equity, which is kind of trying to change the way that the movie business works, and we talk about that. I'm not going to give you a big wind up here. You know Matt Damon. If I started to list his movies, we'd be here all day. just go down his page when he get a chance and it just hit after hit after hit the guy doesn't miss and you know if you see his name attached to a movie it's going to be good his latest is called

Oppenheimer perhaps you've heard about it j robert oppenheimer of course was the scientists who led the movement the manhattan project as it was known to build the world's first atomic bomb which was then used twice over japan in august of nineteen forty five precipitating the end of World War II. The Christopher Nolan directed movie Oppenheimer is about that project, and Matt Damon plays a United States Army Lieutenant General named Leslie Groves Jr., who was tasked with recruiting Oppenheimer and then supervising him during the process of building the bomb. It is an extraordinary movie. It's about three hours, but it flies by. I saw in an IMAX, if you get the chance to see it in there, the explosions just blow you through the back of the theater. Amazing. And so is Matt Damon. So I'm going to

step aside and let you listen now to Matt Damon on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. We'll just keep talking. Just keep talking. Good to see you, man. Thanks for doing this. Yeah, we just roll right through. Thanks, you're having me, man. Well, we were just saying this movie is, it's an experience.

Yeah. You know, I went and saw it on IMAX yesterday. I know you've seen it that way too, which is how people I would recommend you go see it. Definitely. Definitely. Script comes to you, Matt. You kind of know the story like most of us of Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project. Yeah, not in great detail, but in broad strokes.

I knew it, but this is a much more granular look at everything and everybody involved. And it's just the amount of detail in his script. I felt it when I read Interstellar also. I remember reading it and going, this is incredible. How the hell is he going to do this? It's very, very ambitious. I mean, this involved inventing IMAX black and white film to even have some of those sequences that go into black and white. Like, it's incredible the level of detail that he gets into.

And he's just remarkable. For people who don't know from your side of it, what the Christopher Nolan experience is, why it's unique, why it's different. They feel it when they see the movie. Yeah. But from your side of it, how do you describe it to people? How does he get what he gets out of a film? I think for one, I think because of who he is and his body of work,

everybody who shows up, without saying it out loud, everybody feels really lucky to be there, you know? And so there's just a level of kind of buy-in from everybody around. There's just a very good vibe. Like, everyone's very happy to be working where they're working. And so, and he demands a lot of the crew and the cast, because he demands a lot of himself. And so you work hard.

You're tired at the end of every day and at the end of every week. And but, but he's this odd combination of like incredibly detail oriented and and exacting in one way. But with his, with the actors, you know, he's not, he's not prescribing. He's not prescriptive in the sense that he's like, I want you, this is how I imagined you doing it and this is how you're going to do it. He's very curious to see what you're going to bring and very open to new ideas and, you know, different ways. to play things. And he's kind of up for it. So it's like, it's incredible that he has as much kind of control over his films as he does

because he really, he really gives people their autonomy at the same time. So when you arrive on set, I understand like this universe was there. He had built the world of Los Alamos and a whole bunch of other places too. But were you kind of stunned when you rolled up there and you were like, wow. It reminded me of doing saving private Ryan, you know. It was the most like that where you're showing. show up and it's like this whole world exists and you kind of are immersed into it. And, and, you know, that's by design, I think, you know, directors at that level want to,

they want to know what they're doing, but they also want to be free to find things themselves. And so you put them in that world and you let them go play, basically. But, I mean, every frame of this movie is packed with so much kind of detail and nuance. And, you know, this script was adapted from this Pulitzer Prize winning book, which is very, very dense. And it was, it's actually a remarkable adaptation. Having, you know, read the book subsequently, I couldn't believe actually how much he was able to get into, you know, the length of a movie. Because this book is, you know, you could have done a 10-part series, you know, from the book. What's cool watching it, and I didn't realize it while I was watching it, but hearing later that,

Chris didn't use special effects for a lot of the stuff or any of the stuff. You see it's kind of like old school filmmaking where there's no CGI to it. Right. But he pulls it off. Yeah, it's part of his, he's got an engineer's brain on top of being. He's like this incredible mix of like left brain, right brain. But, you know, you see like inception with the hallway that's spinning. You know, he figures out a way to do it and a way to do it in camera.

And it's always better for the performances. And it's always better for us. if it's all really happening. And it's not, look at the tennis ball. You know, oh, it's a big explosion. You know what I mean? That's always a little soul destroying. But, you know, with Chris, it's like he's going to blow shit up.

You know? And that's a lot of fun. It's, you know, it makes our job a lot easier. And when he does that in IMAX, it blows you through the back of the theater. It blows you out the door. Like almost back into your chair for sure. Let's talk about your character, not a household, name, people know the name Oppenheimer, and that's sort of the scientific side of the Manhattan

project, but you come in from the military side. Right. Had you heard of the general? Did you know anything about him, or what did you learn when you started? Well, I knew, I, Paul Newman played him in the last time they, you know, when they made Fat Man and Little Boy 35 years ago. So I knew that, but, but no, I didn't know. I wasn't familiar with all the details and, and how kind of fraught this whole situation was with, because of the differing philosophies, right? The military's, you know, very necessary need to compartmentalize and, you know, everything's on a need-to-know basis

versus the scientists who share all their information because they're all about trying to get to the greater truth. And so they want to build on each other's work. And so that is, that is, you know, obviously kind of a natural source of tension for, you know, the military and the scientists coming together. And everybody was needed. I mean, the scale of this operation is just insane. what they were able to do, the logistics of it.

And that was really what Groves was good at. But I think it was like hurting cats for him most of the time with the scientists because they just did not align philosophically. Yeah, and there are all these other questions about Oppenheimer's allegiances that play into it that have to be considered as well. Well, yeah, all of the, many of the scientists were going to these communist meetings, you know, because, you know, precipitating World War II with Franco in Spain, a lot of people were sending money to the rebels.

And they were anti-fascists, right? But these money was getting funneled through the Communist Party. And so they got their names ended up on these lists. And so there was this mistrust amongst, you know, the military side and Groves and many of these scientists. And eventually Oppenheimer. You guys get into in the film. I wonder if you thought about it. about or talk with the other cast members about just this moral dilemma that's been debated for 80 years.

Right. About using an atomic bomb, which is the one side says, we saved lives by using it. This would have been a years-long war, land invasion of Tokyo, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The other side is it's a war crime or whatever the other side of it is to kill civilians that way. Right. And that's kind of at the heart of the tension for Oppenheimer anyway. Yeah, and his cross to bear for the rest of his life, you know, that he brought this into existence.

And, you know, it's a very, it's such a big idea that, you know, we were both born into a world that had nuclear weapons. You know what I mean? It's never, we've never not lived in that world. But the idea that that isn't top of brain for us all day, every day. It's very strange because of, you know, their capacity for destruction and how there's this possibility that just lingers, you know, like a sort of Damocles kind of over our lives.

at all times. And so it's really, it's interesting that we don't think about it more. It's almost like the idea is too big. We have to kind of deny that it's there. Though I think that people who are very intelligent are thinking about this all the time. And whenever you talk about existential threats, it's the first thing they say. Yes. You know, because even though we haven't seen them, you know, we haven't seen like a thermonuclear war, you know, the possibility remains, which is, which is terrifying. Yeah, we have a bunch of countries with thousands of nuclear war sitting in and ready, get the wrong person in charge. You don't know what's going to happen.

Right. How did your character grapple with that side of it? I mean, it seemed to me he was just, he's got an order. He was mission focused. Speed this, get the test done before pots, them. Let's go, let's go. He wasn't thinking about the moral questions. No, I think he was thinking about his mission and he was, look, there's all this personal ambition tied in with all of these characters.

They're all very complex. And I don't think he questioned, you know, the idea that the Nazis might get an atomic bomb was so terrifying. And the idea that they may be in the lead, right? And they may have, they have an 18-month head start. And, you know, what's interesting to me about what I, you know, learning about this time was that all of these scientists, Oppenheimer knew all of these people, right? So they'd all studied together. So they were all friends. And then the war breaks out and they get kind of set.

separated into these two camps, but Oppenheimer knew exactly who they'd be using and exactly how far ahead they would be. And so the idea, the inspector of Adolf Hitler getting an atomic bomb is just absolutely unthinkable. And that's, you know, one of the main driving forces behind these guys carrying on. It's an incredible cast. Yeah. Along with you, Killian Murphy is unreal. He's so good in this movie. He isn't he? Yeah, it's an amazing performance. It's just, and look, it's, it's, It's, it's, Chris said it to me before we started. He said, I'm putting this whole thing on Killian's back, you know. It's like, it's one of those.

And it's got to be an internal performance. He said to Killian at one point, Killian came into a scene we were doing and he was a little aggressive. And Chris said, he came up and he said, he's a chess player, not a boxer. You know, it's very cerebral, internal. There's so much happening inside that he's holding in. And that's not easy to do. That's not easy to carry.

just with a look and with a, you know, but, but Chris wrote the script. I mean, the script, it was written in the first person. It was the first script I've ever read that did that. And it was this really arresting, you know, Oppenheimer saying, I, I, I then go, I walk across the room. And it was just like, it felt like, you know, it was all kind of happening in real time. And that's, he was trying to give the reader the sense of what the film was going to feel like. like we are going to be with this guy, you know, completely.

And so the whole thing rests on Kalyan. And feeling all those contradictions and the moral questions. The moral questions. You feel it with them. Right. Yeah. What is the burden of having that kind of intelligence and still having ambition and having, you know, and being a, you know, being a complicated person and this, you know,

in a complicated marriage. You know what I mean? There's so much going on. the movie flies by, I think. I was going to say the same thing. I guess it's three hours, but man, it does not feel like it. It doesn't feel like it at all. But I have that experience with most of his movies, like, where you sit there,

and it's just like, you know, they just, I can't wait to see it again, you know. Yes. So. What was the experience like seeing it for that first time? Having been at it on the other side and said, this looks pretty extraordinary and different. Yeah. What was it like to go watch it on the screen? It was really exciting because, you know, there's no video.

Village and Chris, it's not like you're looking at playback. And you could go to Daileys if you want, but I didn't. And so, because I wanted to, I wanted to be overwhelmed the way I was when I read the script. And, no, it's just, it's, it's, it's an experience, you know, it really is. It's like, you know, it's, it's so dense and so, so much is happening. It's really worth seeing on as biggest screen as you can. Like, IMAX is definitely the way to go. And the stakes couldn't be higher. And the stakes couldn't be higher. True. Yeah. They're real stakes. I've had that feeling. It's like reading the script going, like, how is he going to do this? Like, it just, there's so, yeah, it's kind of the most consequential event of the 20th century. And so, you know,

and it obviously raises a lot of questions about technologies we're continuing to develop, right? and what are our responsibilities to each other and to humanity? And, you know, when you start dealing with some of these existential technologies, where's the line? I mean, I found it fascinating that they actually didn't know for certain that they weren't going to ignite the atmosphere on fire, right? Right to the last five minutes. Yeah.

And so it's like, can you imagine, like, really, we're going to press the button, you know what I mean? And then just, and then that's it and just extinguish humanity, potentially. It's an amazing scene. How great are the chances? Not zero. Yeah, near zero? Yeah. Well, what do you want?

Well, zero would be nice. Yeah. I can't imagine. It's interesting you raise that because that's AI right now. That's artificial. Right, for sure. The very people building, like up and I are building the technology, you're saying, we might want to pump the brakes and consider how we use this as they continue to build the technology.

I have a friend who works in AI who wrote to me and asked to, you say, asked when he could see the film because he'd read American Prometheus. He'd read the book because, you know, specifically because of this, because he's working on a technology that, you know, has those kind of implications. And he goes, he goes, I read that book with great interest. You know, it's terrifying. It is. I mean, the godfather of AI quit Google so you could speak freely and say, we're in trouble here, guys. Right, right. Yikes. Right. On a lighter note, the mustache. Yours? That was, mine. Great. Yeah, that was mine, which didn't make my wife that happy for the months that I kept it on. Took me a while to grow it. And then, uh, and I was going to suggest to him, because when I did true

grit, I had, I had a laid on mustache that, uh, was kind of a silly handlebar mustache. So I said, Chris, those, you know, those mustaches are great, you know, the handlight. And he goes, no, no, I want you to grow it. I want you to, I want it. You're like me. It takes a minute to get that goes a minute. It takes a minute. Let's get Scandinavian jeans. Exactly. Exactly. Well, congratulations. man it's an amazing film thank you are going to be blown forgive the comparison but it's an explosive film thank you

believe it not I didn't mean to walk into that but I did hey guys thanks for listening to the Sunday sit down podcast stick around to hear more from Matt Damon right after the break welcome back now more my conversation with Matt Damon got to ask you about air too yeah what a great movie that was and must be so gratifying how it was received

that was great yeah people love that movie and they're going to see it again and again. Yeah, we loved it. You know, when we read the script, we just went, this is a really fun story. And, you know, it's, you know, you look at Oppenheimer on one side and it's level of ambition. Air is like, you know, it's, it's a much lighter kind of, you know, less ambitious,

but like really, it's like when you, you know, at the Olympics, when you do a dive, right? It's like, it's a, it's a perfect swan dive. Yeah. You know what I mean? But that's harder to do than you think. And, you know, whereas I'd say Chris is more on the kind of the triple Lindy, you know, degree of difficulty. But it was a lot of fun to make and so fun to make with Ben. And, you know, we got this company now, and that's really exciting for us.

And we're all on hold now because of the strike stuff. But, you know, when that's all resolved, we'll get back to work. Yeah, that's artist's equity. That was your first production with the company. That was, yeah. For people who don't know what that is, it's coming along. a time when the industry is changing. Right.

Seismically. So what was the idea behind artist equity? Well, the idea was that we know that we, there's bloat on movie sets, but people don't really know where it is. They don't understand where it is, and we know where it is. And so what we do is we basically empower our crew. We let every department run itself. And in the money that's saved, we share it and distributed throughout the country.

crew. And so on the first three movies that we've made, we just did these numbers. Our crews have averaged 20% over their best quote ever. So they're getting much more money and they have autonomy and creative autonomy. And so the productions run incredibly efficiently. And so it's just very, very fun. And the spirit on set is really, like with air, we went over budget in three places. We went over budget. Our construction budget went over because we were moving so fast that we needed them building ahead of us. So they were working 24 hours a day building the sets. And then we went over with our actors. We had, we had $10 million we were going to spend on the rest of the cast. And Ben and I made the deal with no other cast. So we could have done it, you know, with the West Hollywood

players. But like we said, no, we want, you know, the best of the best. And so, and we want to really pay them well. And so we went five million dollars over budget there. And we're happy to do that. And then the last one was food trucks because we had five food trucks kind of on at base camp at all time, like Korean barbecue and Mexican and frozen yogurt truck and a coffee truck. And it's just about like making the, like making the experience as fun and kind of collegial as we could. And it just really worked. It was, you know, so we're, we're three and a half movies in. We had our fourth movie shut down with the strike. And so we're going to wait and then go finish that one up. And it's been great.

It's been really, really fun. And you're sort of exposing, based on what, 30-some years of experience, like flaws you see in the system. Right. And getting people the money they deserve. Yeah, exactly. And, yeah, and sharing it with the crew. And, you know, our feeling has always been that people are underpaid.

And if you really look at the contributions that people are making, they're greater than their salaries reflect. And so we're trying to figure a way to build that into the model. where our crews do better. So that's what we're doing. Good for you, man. That's a great idea. And it hopefully catches on, right?

People see that it works for everybody. I hope so, you know? I mean, I think it's the studios probably don't trust, you know, if you give a cinematographer, like X amount of dollars to run his or her department, I think that they don't, they're afraid that this person is going to just put the money in their pocket. And what Ben said to me, he goes, what they just don't understand is Bob Richardson, for instance, who shot our movie, he goes, Bob will spend every last dollar plus go into his own pocket to make sure the movie looks great. He goes, and that's what they never get about us.

Like, it's not just like a cynical money play. It's like, this is our work. It's like very, very important. But what we try to do is we try to, you know, get enough money so that they can do, they can buy absolutely everything they need to make the best, possible movie they can. And then there's still, you know, there's, there's a buffer in case we get in trouble. And if things run smoothly, then we're out and whatever's left, you can chop it up. It's disruptive. People are talking about it as a model, like a new model for movies. I mean, it would be nice if people got paid better, you know. Certainly, you know, what they call typically

below the line, which is, which are, you know, the crew, the people who are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Right. So Ben directed you in air. Yeah. He said later, one of his great regrets is he hadn't done it sooner. He hadn't done more of it. Yeah. What was it like to be directed by your best friend? It was great. It was great. It's like being directed by Chris. It's, you know, great directors really give you the freedom. It's, it's a collaboration. It's a partnership.

You're kind of attacking a problem together and you're bringing your ideas and they're, you know, if they're good, they're receptive to them. And then they can come and give you it a little adjustment and with a few words kind of direct you into, something different that you hadn't anticipated and suddenly you're you know you're the thing's getting better because it's because of the partnership and and so it was great working with ben and and i had the same feeling it was like you know how do we let so much of our lives lives go by without doing this again um i i think you know yeah i i mean i think getting into our 50s i think that's been is one of the reasons we started the company actually i was watching get back the die the peter jaffes some documentary. And I was really moved by the scene when they're playing on the roof in London

at the end, when the Beatles are playing. And he put up a, the Chiron and it said, this is the last live performance the Beatles ever did together. And it just so, just nailed me. I was like, it made me so sad because they were so happy. And McCartney was like 29. Yeah. You know, they were, they were so young. And it's like, oh, my God, they never did that again. And look at the joy that they're having, right? Look at how much fun they're having. And I called Ben right after, and it was like, what are we doing, man? You know, like we, so we're definitely have an eye towards finding good stuff to do together and, you know, but it's just been fun. Even the stuff that artist equity that we're not in or directing, it's like we're still producing it together. So we're on the phone.

It's like we're reading drafts. We're, you know, engaging with our other filmmakers. And it's really fun. That's so cool to go back to your earliest days together. Yeah, right? Yeah. Yeah. Just be buddies and when you were trying to scrambling to get work. Yeah. You know, that's, and I imagine you have a shorthand on set too where it makes life easy. What's really great is there's no diplomacy. You know what I mean? And like you can waste so much time by trying to be polite.

And you, you know, in the movie business and in theater, they've, you know, developed a whole vocabulary for how to talk to somebody and basically how to tell somebody they're sucking, right? And like, we can just say you suck, which is really a gift. because you get through the bullshit faster and you go like, all right, well, how do we fix it, right? Like, let's fix it. Like, first of all, you acknowledge the problem and then you kind of figure out how to fix it, and it's a lot of fun.

So it's not, that was great, but what if we tried this? What if I'm wondering if he feels a little more reserved in this? Just tell me I'm overacting. You know what I mean? I see him as circumspect here. I think, no. Just tell me it sucked. I once had that note from Peter Farreley.

It was one of my favorite notes. Yeah, he came up. Greg Kinnear and I were playing conjoined twins in this comedy. And we're in the suit together. And we hear cut, and Pete comes all the way across the soundstage. And we knew it was a shi-take. We knew it. And Greg's going, oh, God, he's coming all the way over.

He's going, we'll just do it again. We'll do it again. And he's like, nope, he's coming. He's coming. He walks all the way across, and he comes up, and he's chewing gum. And he's, you're on, oh, yeah, suck less. And then he walked all the way back. We had to wait like a minute and a half for him to get back to, and we're rolling.

And it's like, yeah. He came all the way over to share that way. Just to say that in person. Oh, that's incredible. That's good. So you're going back just for a minute to those early days where you had just met men. You're 10. He's eight, something like that.

He's already blown up on Voyage of the Mimi, right? He was huge. By the way, we watched that in my middle school. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Voyage of the Meany. Yeah, it was a big one. It seems to me just reading everything I could read about you that you knew, like,

really early on that this was it. You were going to be an actor and kind of to the exclusion of everything else. Is that fair to say? Probably by the time I was 13, yeah, and like was very, taking it very seriously. And starting in high school, freshman year, like, and our theater. department was just we had the best teacher, I think, in the world who came into our lives at that point. And he was very rigorous and very serious. And we did these, you know, these plays. We had this state-of-the-art theater, 750 seats in our, in our high school theater because it was a big,

you know, it was the one high school in the city. And so there were 3,000 kids there. So it had this huge theater. And like when I went to do a play, years later, later with Ben's brother Casey in London, the theater was the same size as the one that we worked in in high school. So it was like a very kind of professional level of kind of training that we've got starting really young. And he taught us how to write. He taught us how to write through improvisation because we would generate a lot of our own plays

that he would do improvs with us and then he'd go write and he'd bring back stuff and we'd kind of build the play that way and exactly how Ben and I write now. And so, yeah, it was just a really wonderful. And I think then having, you know, your best friend be equally obsessed. Like it's a weird thing to be from Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is not an entertainment town, with nobody in our families in the entertainment business. And be these two kids who live a block and a half away from each other, like totally obsessed with acting and movies. And, you know, we never doubted that this is what we were going to do.

And we've talked about it, like, as older guys, like, that's kind of weird. Like, now that we see our kids passing through that age when, you know, we were like, we were younger than that when we were going to New York together and, you know, going on auditions. And, you know, I mean, thanks to my parents for letting me do it, you know. So where did that come from for you, Matt? You're in Cambridge. It's not a show business town. Your family's not a bunch of actors.

Why did you get so obsessed with that idea that you were. going to be who you've become. I don't know. I just loved it. I just never doubted it. It's very odd. And I didn't, I didn't ask, I just knew it's what I wanted to do. And so I didn't, I didn't bother asking why, you know, is it, is it, uh, I don't know. I don't know. Like what, I mean, there, there could be some neurosis under it, maybe, but I, I think it really came from a place of joy. Like I, like, I'm happiest, I'm, I love working. I still love it. Um, yeah, it's a joyful experience for me. Like I really have a good time. And I do think that there are different ways to fuel your work as an actor. You know, some people choose the pain route, you know, and that works for

some people. But in my old age, I'm going with joy. Going back to why you got in it begin with. For sure. Yeah. That teacher, I'm a sucker for a good teacher who changes a life. Jerry, was that? Jerry, because my kids have people like that, whether it's music or something. It's that person who said, you're good at this. Yeah. Changes your life, doesn't it? You're good at this, but really expected a lot.

Yeah. It was very demanding. So taught, like, even kids who didn't go into acting, like, got this level of self-discipline out of that experience. He was just an extraordinary teacher, really, really amazing. But, yeah, and I just carry like so many of his lessons. He used to say, just do your work kid. That was five words, like, just do your work kid. And it's like, yeah, all else, it's like you're responsible for your,

for your side of the room, you know. You got to be prepared. Stick around for more of my conversation with Matt Damon right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Matt. Damon. So what was the first job, Matt, where you felt like I'm on, I think I'm on the right path. I thought I could do this and now I know. Is it as early as getting a movie like Mystic Pizza with Julia Roberts? Yeah, I mean, that was like three nights of shooting and it was one line, but it was like thrilling. It was absolutely thrilling for me to be on a big movie set and be,

you know, and Julia, nobody even knew who she was at that point. So it was kind of a big break for her. But, yeah, I, that, I mean, and then I think my sophomore year of college, I got a cable TV movie called Rising Sun, which was with Brian Denahy, Piper Laurie, and Richard Jenkins and Ving Rhames. It was this really great cast. And, yeah, I mean, I just, I kind of never, never looked back. I mean, definitely went broke a few times, but, you know, but never doubted that I was doing what I wanted. I actually also didn't realize that Goodwill Hunting started as a college project. Yeah. That you were working on that script through college.

Yeah, I did it. I did it in a, I started it in a playwriting class. And then I went out for spring break a couple months after that, because the class ended in January. I went out in March and stayed with Ben. And it was like 45 pages. And I think five pages survived or something. But I handed it to Ben.

And I was like, what do you think of this? And he read it and he goes, He goes, we should do this together. He goes, I don't know what happens next, but we should do this together. And I went, great. I don't know what happens next either. And so we literally kind of didn't force it. And then one night we were sitting around and he just goes, because we had the scene where I show up in Robin Williams' office and kind of the first time I meet him and he ends up holding me against it.

That's the five pages that survived. And we were sitting there. We hadn't talked about the script in months. And Ben just goes out of the blue. He goes, you know, I don't think he'd tolerate like being talked to that way. I think he'd probably say something back. And he'd probably say something like, and he started to talk. And then we started going, and I went, oh, my God, that's right.

Okay, so we wrote that monologue that Robin does of the park bench. That was the second thing we wrote. And we wrote it in a night together just sitting there, like, you know, and that was, and then we were kind of out of the gate. And then it was like, and then it starts percolating. And it comes back to the top of your mind. And that we wrote it pretty quickly. I was looking at the calendar.

It was just over 25 years ago, kind of an anniversary that you guys won the Academy Award for that. Yeah. And obviously completely changed your life. And I remember thinking I was right out of college then thinking, oh, these guys remind me of guys I know, or me a little bit. Right. Oh, we're allowed to do stuff like that.

Like these guys just, like, got together in a room, wrote a script, and they're standing on that stage at the Oscars. Did you feel, obviously, it changed your life in so many ways? but did you feel that kind of victory for like scrappy young screenwriters actors? Yeah, and and to be fair, like we weren't the first people to do that. And like we had the example of Sylvester Stallone and Chas Palm and Terry. And, you know, but Stallone was like our, that was our kind of code word, basically. Because it was like we read this story about him having like a few hundred bucks.

And I think his wife was pregnant. and he turned down like 35 grand or something. Because they were just trying to get him off the movie. Like, look, you wrote it. Just go away, go away. And he just wouldn't do it. He wouldn't. And so we'd go into these meetings and these people would say,

well, you guys can't play the parts. I mean, come on. They wanted Brad and Leo, you know. And it was like, you guys can't play the parts. And we were like Sylvester Stoll. Yes, we can. We can't play the parts. We are playing the parts.

And so, yeah, we had more than one. We had A-List filmmakers pass on it because they wanted Brad and Leo and didn't want to risk it with us. And then I got the Rainmaker, and it was, I remember Francis said to me one day, oh, I got a call from Robin. I said, what? And he goes, Robin Williams called me. He was asking about you because Robin wanted to work with Gus Fancant. And he heard Gus was doing this. And so he read the script and he loved it.

But he goes, who the hell are you? these guys. And they said, oh, well, this guy's doing a movie with Francis. And Robin had done Jack with Francis. And so they were friends. So we called him up and he said, what's the deal with this guy? And Francis said, he's a, he's a great young actor. You should work with him. So that was like, yeah, so Francis vouched for me and, um, and Robin took the part. What was it like the next day after the Oscars? Was it literally an overnight thing, walking outside and people go, you're Matt Damon in a way they never found before? We had a really funny thing happen actually, because we were shooting dog, we were

in Pittsburgh. So Ben and I had to fly the night after the Oscars, we had to fly a red eye to Pittsburgh from L.A. And so we land at like, I don't know, seven or eight in the morning. And we come off the plane and there are like 30 people in the jetway at the gate waiting for us, cheering. And they're going, do you have the Oscar with you? And we're like, no, we're just like, we're coming to shoot for a few days. And there was this kind of momentary hysteria. We're saying, oh, can I have a picture? But Ben and I just sat and talked to everybody, you know, for 15 minutes or so. And then the way the Pittsburgh airport is, there's a tram that you have to take.

So you have to go from the terminal. You've got to go to the main kind of airport to get your car, and you have to take a kind of a five-minute tram ride. So we go and get on the tram. And by the time we're on the tram, we're on the tram with these 30 people. They've all completely lost interest in us. And we were holding the thing and we're sitting there and Ben goes, can you believe this shit? He goes, that was it. He goes, that was it.

It's over. He goes, we already bored these people. You literally had your 15 minutes. We had our 15 minutes. Oh, that's amazing. That's incredible. Well, I promise I'm not going through your entire IMDB page from Mystic Pizza Forward. But the Oceans movies born catapult you into a totally different category.

of success and fame. And if you just look down your career, there just aren't that many misses. I know you'll probably correct me with a couple of them. I don't need to bring them up. No, we won't bring them up. I can't think of anyone.

But honestly, in terms of your selection, and you can do a big franchise like that, and you can do a really cool movie like this Oppenheimer and all the way down, are you an actor who calculates that stuff? Like, I did this kind of movie, now I'm going to do that? No, no, no.

It's just you want to work with good people. Yeah, there's no calculus. In fact, I remember when Ridley called me about The Martian, I went to see him and I said, Ridley, I can't do this movie. He goes, what do you mean? I go, I just played a guy stranded on a planet for Chris Nolan. I go, I can't turn around. And the next thing I do is a guy stranded on another planet.

And Ridley goes, oh, no one gives a shit about that. And he was right. And there you are in March. And it was great. And it was great. And it was great. And it was like, sometimes you need a, you know, a war. wise owl to kind of shake you a little bit and get over yourself.

Right. But no, really the way I've chosen work is by directors. I've been really selective about the directors I work with because it's a director's medium. And if you work with a great director, chances are the movie's going to be great. Sometimes it's not. Like, I always tell people we never set out to make a bad movie. It's like there are just so many things that have to come together and the alchemy of the whole thing that, that, you know, sometimes you, you, miss, but by and large, if you're working with great directors, then you're going to be,

you're going to be okay. Yeah, I was looking down your list of moves and like, where can we focus and I just gave up? I'm like, you can't focus on any. There's so many good ones when you get on the list. Are there a couple of them at that you're most proud of as you look back? I don't want to pick your favorite children or anything, but are there ones you look back and say, I hope that's sort of part of how people remember me? Yeah, sure. I mean, obviously good one hunting because that kind of, and Ripley right after that. Well, Private Ryan, too, was obviously, just to be a part of that. Like, yeah.

You know, that was really kind of wonderful. And I had so much fun working with Soderberg. Like, I'd say the informant, but, you know, but every project's been so fun with him. And I actually, Air was the best time that I've had probably since the informant, like in terms of just laughing all day long, you know. And I laughed a lot on this one, too. I mean, it's like as serious as the subject matter was

and as kind of focused as Chris is, he's got a great sense of humor and like he's a lot of fun to kind of talk to. And the atmosphere, he's very good at creating an atmosphere. The more relaxed you are, the more kind of creative you can be, right? The less rigid you are. And so he's very good at kind of surreptitiously creating

this kind of very nice collegial vibe that you can see kind of in the work. The performances in movies are always great. And you look at his movies and like you talk about a batting average. It's like, my God. Yeah. You know, he just doesn't miss. So.

I heard Emily talking about that too that was sort of like summer camp in a way that you guys were all out in the desert together. And there was that culture you're talking about. Yeah. Well, there were so many actors in the movie. Like the cast was huge. And so and there were these major actors coming in to do like one scene or two scenes. And so we were all out in these, this kind of like cabins. in the middle of the desert.

And like, there's one little restaurant, and it's not like it's open 24 hours. It's like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And you go, you know, and like, you see everybody at dinner. You all end up at a big table together. And, like, it was very, it was great. It was great.

It's about the experience at the end, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, especially at my age where I'm, like, you know, I want it to be fun. Like, why not? It's like the greatest job in the world.

It should be fun. Before I let you go, I'm always interested looking at your career and your life, given all your success, normal's not the right word because there's nothing normal about your life, obviously, but that you've been able to keep yourself grounded, it appears from the outside, to have, I don't read about you in the newspaper very often or your family or any of that stuff. Is that a conscious effort, or is it just the way you've lived your life?

In contrast to other big stars. Probably both. Probably both. I mean, I definitely made a conscious decision. And I don't always, I'm sure I don't always pull it off. but like early on I said I don't want this fame part to infect my primary relationships. I just don't want relationships are built on compromise and on, you know, pulling your weight and you don't get a pass because, you know, you're in a movie. It's like, and it's really tempting to like, there are a lot of kind of associations you can have kind of like,

you know friends you get who would who would where it wouldn't be an equal dynamic it would you know it would and and it's that's attractive because that's easy but it doesn't it doesn't help um doesn't help you grow as a person you know what i mean and so i've got i got very lucky with uh with um my choice of partner um my wife and and she doesn't let me get away with anything and the kids don't let me get away with anything. So I feel like we're doing a pretty good job of it. But it's, it's weird, because it is infectious. It's like, it's nice to be told, you know, how great you are all the time, right? But that's pretty dangerous because you stop trying. Yeah, that can be poison. The good thing about your fame is using a platform for all the amazing stuff you do, like water.org

and organizations like that. That's got to be a nice way to use what you have. I feel like if I'm good at anything, it's like picking partners because like between Ben and my wife and Gary White, who we co-founded Water.org together. Like those are the three most significant partnerships in my life and all those things are going really well. In which order, Matt, in which order are the most significant? Well, listen, you're supposed to divide your day up right into thirds.

So there's no particular order. But obviously my wife. There you go. That's where I was helping you up there. Yeah, yeah. That was a layup. Thank you, man. I'm sorry.

Thank you. I appreciate it. As I cough on my hand and shake your hand. That's where I want to grab it now. My big thanks again to Matt Damon for a great conversation. And I should point out here that Matt Damon, a fitting subject of our 300 Sunday sit-down conversation. We're very proud of that and grateful for him to take that mantle. You can check out Matt's latest movie.

It is, again, Oppenheimer, hitting theaters Friday, July 21st. And my thanks to all of you for listening. again this weekend for listening to 300 Sunday sit downs. If on more of these conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget, of course, to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC where you can see these interviews in living color. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.