HOLLYWOOD SUPERSTAR MATT DAMON ON HOW HE STAYS GROUNDED IN LA LA LAND
MATT DAMON ON WHY HE HAD TO WRITE HIS OWN SCRIPT TO GET WORK, RAISING FOUR DAUGHTERS AND MAKING SURE HE NEVER GETS ‘STUCK’ IN HOLLYWOOD
Matt Damon has come racing on to our screens again in Le Mans ’66. It’s the true story of the underdog Ford car designer Carroll Shelby, who eventually triumphs over Ferrari. And the actor from the popular Bourne series is the perfect man to play the part, drawing on his own rags to riches story. In the early days, Matt was struggling to pay the rent on his small flat in Los Angeles, where he lived with best friend Ben Affleck. Their situation inspired them to change their lives by working together on the screenplay for
Good Will Hunting. The pair went on to win the
Best Original Screenplay
Oscar for the 1997 movie and since then, Matt hasn’t looked back.
The 49 year old also has happiness away from the big screen with wife Luciana Barroso, 43. In
2003, Lucy, as she’s also known, was working at a bar in Miami when
Matt, drinking with the crew of Stuck On You,
saw her and instantly knew she’d be his wife.
And while Hollywood marriages sadly often crumble, Matt and Luciana have stayed happily married for 14 years. They have three daughters, Isabella,
13, Gia, 11, and Stella, nine, plus Luciana’s daughter Alexia, 21, who Matt adopted.
Here, Matt chats about his rise to fame, the secret to his successful marriage and why he likes to mix things up in his career…
How much do you like to live life in the fast lane?
Life can move fast and be incredibly hectic, but I don’t go searching for it. Some people love seeking it out. I watch people on Youtube who are into wing-suit flying and I can see the fascination with it, but that’s not the kind of thing that I would ever do. I’m a pretty sensible and cautious person, particularly now that I have kids. I’m a little more mellow.
What are your hopes for your four daughters?
I am hoping that the world I’m raising these girls in will become one in which you have a lot more women in positions of power. Hopefully that will happen before my kids are adults – but if it doesn’t then my kids will be the wave that put women in power, because we just need more women in these positions. I have a good feeling that they would use that power quite differently. Thankfully, it looks like we are waking up to it and getting ready to tackle it head on, which is long overdue.
What’s the secret to a successful marriage?
I’ve always said that the concept of marriage seems totally insane to me, but I just love being married to my wife. I was really lucky to find her. But yes, there is work. It’s a work in progress but we listen to each other and communicate really well.
We are willing to do the work that it takes. We both still want to be there – and that helps, obviously. We have a lot of fun together.
You live the high life in Hollywood now, but what were your early days in Los Angeles like?
I remember living in a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles with a friend of ours from high school. Ben [Affleck] had been engaged to this girl and the engagement had broken off, so he was living on our couch. In the mornings, I would walk out and he would be asleep on the sofa with his legs hanging off the end. That was one of the reasons why we started working on the screenplay for Good Will Hunting, because we really had to get out of that situation.
What are your memories of life back then?
There were probably ten years when I lived out of a duffle bag. I was living from movie to movie, so I had my life basically in one bag. That was as downsized as I’ve ever been but it was really fun. That was before I had kids, and I was at the age where I could do something like that. There is something really liberating about not owning stuff.
Could you live like that now? We’ve spent summers in Costa Rica where we have lived simply. We come back home and we wonder why we even have a house here, so I think I go through phases where I definitely think about downsizing.
What were your first encounters with power when you were starting out in Hollywood?
We weren’t encountering powerful people when Ben and I first started out. We couldn’t even get in the room with them. If you’re a good
actor, the casting directors stick with you. Every time they have a movie casting, they will bring you in because they like to put good actors in front of directors. Even if you aren’t quite right for a part, you would get to go in front of the director and have ten minutes with them reading a script, so you’re getting signals from the business that you’re in the right line of work but you’re just not getting any work.
That must be frustrating…
Yeah. You’re just trying to figure out how to pay the rent. At some point you figure it’s very unlikely that anything is going to happen and that’s why we dedicated ourselves to writing, because we knew that was the only way it was going to happen for us. We never had any interest in being screenwriters. We were trying to write ourselves jobs because we wanted to work as actors, so that was really how it happened. It was out of total necessity and not out of a desire to write.
That was Good Will Hunting. What did you do with the money you earned from its sale?
I remember exactly how much money we made. Ben and I both made $300,000 on the screenplay and that was more money than we had ever seen in our lives. We each immediately went out and bought Jeep Grand Cherokees. It was our favourite car. We had always wanted one and we had them for years. I loved that car.
Where do you stand in Hollywood?
I don’t know, and that’s good. I never got stuck and I don’t feel I’ve been making the same movie over and over again. For me that’s the best part. If that makes me a leading man or a character actor or whatever you want to call it, I’m fine with it. I love the fact that I can choose different parts based on who is directing it and what I think of the material.
You’ve done car stunts before, but was it scary to be racing around a track at high speeds for this movie? They do a really good job of putting you in a car that’s incredibly safe. You’re in a car, but it’s being driven by professional drivers and you’re being pulled all over the place. On the Bourne movies, I used to call it the ‘NAR’ car. It’s the ‘No Acting Required’ car because all you have to do is spin the wheel and pretend you’re driving – but really it feels like you’re on a great theme park ride.
Tell us about your character Carroll Shelby…
Carroll Shelby was a race car driver who had a heart condition, which precluded him from driving any more. He became a pre-eminent § designer and one of the ways he made that shift was by designing a car for Ford that would win the Le Mans 24-hour race. That’s what this movie covers; it’s 1966 and that’s when Carroll and a group of engineers – including Ken Miles [played by Christian Bale in the movie], who was his best driver – put this car together. They went to Le Mans to take on Ferrari. It’s an underdog story. On that level, I think the story is really relatable.
What was it like to work with Christian Bale?
Christian gained 70lbs [5 stone] to play Dick Cheney [in the movie Vice], but then he had to lose it to play Ken Miles in this movie. He had a deadline and it was really tough. That’s a lot of weight to lose, especially at our age, but he was incredibly disciplined about it. It’s really inspiring to see somebody do something like that. I’ve loved his work for a long time. I think all actors do. He’s on that shortlist of people that are working today that everyone really reveres. His discipline and his commitment to what he does was beautiful to see up close.
‘i just love being married to my wife. i was really lucky to find her’