Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Movies as a ‘tool for empathy’
Actor talks about being a part of new film ‘Downsizing’
Matt Damon talks about being a part of the new film, ‘Downsizing.’
Matt Damon has worked with more great filmmakers than just about any other actor of his generation. From Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Soderbergh to Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and the Coen Brothers, Damon has always been drawn to projects based on who’s behind the camera.
He continues that tradition with “Downsizing,” the latest from writer/director Alexander Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor, the same team behind such enduring classics as “Citizen Ruth,” “Election,” “About Schmidt” and “Sideways.”
“To be fair, every actor in the world wants to work with Alexander and I would have done the phone book if he had asked me to,” says Damon, 47. “But I just thought this script was absolutely beautiful, wonderful and unique.”
Damon stars in “Downsizing” as a good-natured occupational therapist who undergoes a procedure that allows him to be shrunken to four inches tall so that he and his wife (Kristen Wiig) can simultaneously reduce their carbon footprint and afford a better lifestyle.
The cast also includes Christoph Waltz, Udo Kier, Laura Dern and Jason Sudeikis. Newcomer Hong Chau co-stars in the pivotal role of a Vietnamese prison escapee.
“I think in terms of my role in the bigger picture, I really do believe that movies are the greatest tool for empathy that we have,” says Damon. “And what I love about a lot of these stories that I get to help tell is that they show us relatable characters whose lives are different than our own but with whom we can find common cause.”
Damon is particularly proud of “Downsizing” in this regard.
“Ultimately, I think ‘Downsizing’ is a beautiful and optimistic movie. In fact, a journalist said to me – and I thought that this was really great - he said, ‘this is Alexander’s most optimistic movie and it has the apocalypse in it.’
“So that says a lot about Alexander. But I do think that at the end of the day it’s about this sense that we’re all in this together…and I feel like that is a very hopeful message in this very divided world [we live in].”
An Oscar winner for his screenplay “Good Will Hunting,” Damon is a natural born
improviser but he says he never wanted to change a word of Taylor and Payne’s screenplay.
“Alexander and Jim are so meticulous when they write, and they take so much time, and Alexander is so meticulous as a director that he’s willing to do more than 20 or 30 takes if necessary,” says Damon.
“Every shot that he’s making is going to be in the movie and you can see how it’s all going to fit together, like a perfect little puzzle or like a Swiss watch.
“Our job is so much easier with a director that’s so sure-handed because you always know where you are. You always know exactly what it is that you need to convey.”
In the works for ten years, “Downsizing” features themes of environmentalism and immigration that seem particularly timely in Trump’s America.
“A lot of things caught up with the movie in a way,” notes scripter Jim Taylor. “We didn’t realize we were going to be living in exactly this world we’re living in today.”
Adds Payne, “I think some of the international flavor of the film comes from the fact that even though we were going to make an American film set mostly in the United States, and [illustrate] the idea of downsizing, we wanted very much to imply how it would ripple around the world.
“I think that’s why we have the Vietnamese, the Serbian, the Spanish, the Mexican characters on screen and many others implied.”
Before writing the screenplay, Taylor and Payne consulted with scientists about the physics of what would happen to human beings if there were teeny tiny.
“Really, if you were that small, the quality if your voice would change; how you walk would be different,” says Payne. “If you strapped wooden sticks to your arms you could probably fly a little. You could survive a fall from a proportionally higher height… At a certain point we had to stop caring about that because we really just cared about the story. ”
While “Downsizing” addresses timely topics, it is also the rare picture which blends elements of social satire with sci-fi.
“Everybody has brought up all of the serious topics that are mentioned in the movie,” says Chau. “But I think the thing I love the most about Alexander Payne films - and about “Downsizing,” in particular - is just how funny it is.”