Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Matt’s re-bourne in Dublin lockdown
HOLLYWOOD hero Matt Damon has spent lockdown in Bono’s neighbourhood and said his Irish quarantine is “like a fairytale”.
The 49-year-old Bourne
Identity star also revealed his eldest daughter contracted coronavirus in New York while the rest of his family were isolating in Dublin.
Speaking of his time in the picturesque village of Dalkey, he said: “This is one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been.
“I’m with my whole family, I’ve got my kids and we have teachers with us because we were planning on missing school for about eight weeks.
“So we’ve got what nobody else has which is actual live human beings teaching our kids. The schools are all shut down back home and all the kids are doing remote learning.
“So we feel guilty, we’ve got this kind of incredible set-up in this place, it’s just absolutely gorgeous.”
The actor, who has been spotted exercising on nearby Killiney Hill added: “It’s insane. I thought it was incredible two months ago but now it’s starting blooming and it’s just incredible.
“It feels like a fairytale. When I first came in, people were saying, ‘Bono lives over there, Enya lives over there’. I can’t think of any place else you’d rather want to be in a 2km radius of.”
There was even a photo of Matt posing with a Supervalu bag next to a popular swimming spot.
He said: “I think we just had the towels because I was with the kids and we were taking a dip in the water there and so we had towels to dry off. I think we just grabbed one of our bags and stuff... we didn’t show up with beach bags. We were just improvising.|”
The Contagion star revealed he had just arrived in Dublin wife Luciana Barroso and their three youngest kids to work on the Ridley Scott movie The Last Duel when coronavirus struck.
The family have been staying in ex-formula 1 star Eddie Irvine’s house. Asked if he was hanging out with his neighbour Bono, 60, Damon told Graham O’toole and Nathan O’reilly on Spin 103.8’s Fully Charged, he added: “Well, no one is allowed to hang out.
“But I did Facetime with him and he said to me, ‘You know there’s a radio station that’s looking for you?’.” Matt said the family plan to head home to LA at the end of the month. He added: “Our oldest daughter is in college – that’s been shut down. She’s in New York City and she had Covid-19 really early on along with her room-mates and got through it fine. Everybody’s OK.
However, the Departed star said he’s worried to go home, and praised Ireland’s handling of the crisis, particularly the role played by Taoiseach Leo
Varadkar.
He added: “You’ve got a president who just goes to the hospital and starts working, I mean what a bad ass, it’s on another level.”
“We’re a little worried about going home but we’re watching on the news, but it looks like they’re re-opening.”