Matt

38 | Cineplex Magazine | OctOber 2010
Matt
Damon
at
40
He’s always seemed so boyish.
So as Matt Damon celebrates
his 40th birthday we can’t help
but wonder how his career will
mature. Three interesting films
in the next six months is a good
start. But we’re really intrigued
by his ambitions to direct
n By MARNI WEISZ
Photo By MAtt CARR/GEtty
e’s not
that babyfaced kid from Good Will Hunting anymore.
He hasn’t been one of Hollywood’s most
eligible bachelors for half a decade. And, believe it
or not, on October 8th Matt Damon turns 40.
While there’s little doubt the Cambridge, Mass.,
native will weather the aging process well (a mix
of Swedish, Finnish, Scottish and English genes
baked up that square jaw that should stand up
well to gravity), hitting the 40-mark tends to inspire
some soul-searching. Those “Where am I going?,”
“Am I where I want to be?” questions that were
mere dots on the horizon at 30 are right there,
shaking you by the shoulders, at 40. Even when
you’re a movie star. Maybe more so, since your
bread-and-butter — your beautiful face — insists
on changing without permission.
So how will Damon respond? For one thing, he
plans to rely less on that face and follow his best
bud Ben Affleck into directing. It seems like a
natural next step for a man who already has some
filmmaking cred thanks to a Best Screenplay
Oscar (for Good Will Hunting) and a successful
producing career (Project Greenlight).
“I’m dying to do it,” Damon told Collider.com.
“I’m really excited about it. But I keep getting
these jobs with these directors, and I don’t feel
like I’m putting off my directing career by going
to work with the Coen Brothers. On the contrary, I
feel like I’m going to learn so much watching them
that I guess I’ll put off directing for another year
and watch these guys do it.”
That Coen Brothers film is a remake of True Grit,
which comes out December 22nd, and is one of
three eclectic films Damon has hitting theatres in
the next six months. Damon plays Texas Ranger
La Boeuf, the part played by Glen Campbell in the
1969 film. Jeff Bridges — a man who knows how
to age well — steps into John Wayne’s shoes as
Marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn.
Damon’s also taking directing lessons from,
arguably, the world’s most successful actorturned-director,
Clint Eastwood. Dirty Harry was
behind the camera for Damon’s Oscar-nominated
turn in last year’s Invictus, and is again for this
month’s Hereafter, a supernatural drama that
twists together three storylines. Damon plays a
lonely American who can communicate with the
dead, but ignores his gift because it takes too deep
an emotional toll. Meanwhile, a French woman
(Cécile De France) has a near-death experience
during a catastrophic world event then tries to
figure out what it meant, and an English boy
(Frankie McLaren) tries to reach his recently
deceased twin brother in the afterlife.
In less deft hands, Hereafter could be a middling
thriller…or an M. Night Shyamalan movie. But the
script was written by Peter Morgan, the British
scribe behind such artfully constructed dramas as
The Queen, Frost/Nixon and The Damned United.
And, of course, it has Eastwood calling the
shots. “It’s just very easy,” Damon said of working
with Eastwood during a press conference this past
winter. Invictus was hitting theatres and Hereafter
had already been shot. “He’ll come over occasionally
and give a little bit of direction. But it’s not a
lot of chatter. It’s just a suggestion. A little suggestion
here, a little suggestion there, and anybody
who doesn’t want to hear a swear word cover their
ears for a second. Clint’s favourite saying is…‘Well
let’s move on and let’s not fu-k this up by thinking
about it too much.’”
While Damon has a lot of love for Eastwood, he
seems strangely lacking in the realm of romantic
love. Not in real life, of course. After Hollywood
romances with Minnie Driver, Claire Danes and
Winona Ryder, Damon met Argentina-born bartender
Luciana Bozán Barrosa while making
Stuck on You in Miami. They married in December
2005 and now have three+ kids — 12-year-old
daughter Alexia from Barrosa’s previous relationship,
four-year-old Isabella, two-year-old Gia, and
one more that’s due, well, right about now.
But as for movie love? For a guy who regularly
shows up on Sexiest Man Alive and Most Beautiful
People lists, Matt Damon seems strangely averse
to on-screen cuddle time. Sure, some of his films
have romantic subplots (Good Will Hunting,
The Bourne Identity), but they’re secondary. Damon
has made only two movies in CONTINUeD
a caReeR in
14 frames
the RainmakeR (1997)
GOOD WiLL hUntinG
(1997)
SaVinG PRiVate RYan
(1998)
ROUnDeRS (1998)
the taLenteD
mR. RiPLeY (1999)
aLL the PRettY
hORSeS (2000)
the bOURne iDentitY
(2002)
OctOber 2010 | Cineplex Magazine | 39