I HAD NO IDEA MATT WAS JOINING OUR ZOOM CHAT!
THE nurse who met her idol Matt Damon via Zoom on a Dublin radio show says it was emotional to hear the Hollywood star pay tribute to frontline workers like herself.
Anaïs Manière had no clue that she was about to talk to the Hollywood actor when she joined the call with the presenters of Spin1038’s breakfast show this week.
‘I had no idea at all,’ said the 30-year-old, who is originally from Brittany in France.
Presenters Nathan O’Reilly and Graham O’Toole have spent the last two months on their breakfast show, Fully Charged, seeking out listeners’ stories of bumping into the Hollywood A-lister around the pretty south Dublin village of Dalkey, where he is in lockdown with his wife and children.
‘When Matt joined the call, I couldn’t breathe,’ Anaïs said. ‘For the last month I was like, yeah maybe I’m going to see Matt Damon and I was thinking in my head what I could say to him and what I could do, and basically when I saw him it was like a blank page on my brain.’
The pair behind the meet and greet admit it wasn’t until the man himself appeared on their screen that they could believe they were actually chatting to him.
The actor’s agent had got in touch out of the blue on a Friday afternoon after their show, saying Matt wanted to go on the show. At first they thought it was a hoax. ‘I was looking at Graham; I was very sceptical,’ Nathan said. ‘I thought Graham was pranking me, and Graham thought I was pranking him because it was his birthday two days before. But I said, no, I’m done with the Matt Damon thing, I’m not pranking this, I’m exhausted from it.’
But their perseverance paid off and the 49-year-old star followed through on his promise. ‘Matt Damon pops in and honestly I’ve never been more nervous for an interview beforehand, but he was so nice; he’s such a sweet man,’ Nathan said.
‘Honestly, he was just the nicest guy ever. He’s made Ireland such an attractive place and I feel a lot more people will want to visit Ireland now.’
Asked who might be next on his hit list of quarantined celebs to track down, Nathan replied: ‘People are saying, what’s next, and jeez it’s a tough act to follow.’