Matt Damon News Column

December 2009

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Calendar:
17 January 2010 - Golden Globe Awards
23 January 2010 - Screen Actors Guild Awards
23 February 2010 - The Informant to be released on DVD
12 March 2010 - Green Zone to be released
20 March 2010 - True Grit scheduled to start filming in Texas and New Mexico
Late 2010 - The Adjustment Bureau to be released
Late 2010 - True Grit to be released
December 2010 - Hereafter to be released

In an interview with the Italian paper La Stampa, Matt states that he will be filming a project with George Clooney before the Liberace project, scheduled for June 2010. The Clooney project is likely to be the previously mentioned film about Osama Bin Laden's driver, and his legal challenge - reports are here and here.

Question: What's in your future?
Matt: From next month I'll be back to work with Clint in Hereafter. Then I'll make a film with the Coen brothers, True Grit, with Jeff Bridges. Then another movie with Clooney and then again with Soderbergh. I'm very lucky.

An interesting interview with Matt is at the French magazine Gala - some translated excerpts:

Gala: What is your recurring nightmare?
MD: I'm riding my bike in the middle of a deserted road and I can not stop pedaling. Like I'm being forced. Just mentioning it, I'm shaking!

Gala: What do you think in the morning when you look in the mirror?
MD: That I am simply the luckiest man in the world. I have an exciting job, a career that I love and a really great family.

Gala: What stresses you most?
MD: I am an eternal worrier, so everything stresses me. Most recently, when I realized that the handle of my refrigerator was scratched. I was sick!

Gala: What can prevent you from sleeping?
MD : I can not stand to see children suffering. For me it is unbearable. Even more so since I have become a father.

Dave Karger of EW on his Christmas Oscar longshots:

Best Actor: Matt Damon, The Informant!
At this point, Damon seems like a good bet for a supporting nod for Invictus. And that’s fine. But his more impressive work was as the world’s worst whistle-blower in Steven Soderbergh’s out-there comedy. Bonus points for Damon’s impeccable voice-over work in the film.

And from EW's Lisa Schwarzbaum top ten movie marvels of the decade:

10. A parting pronouncement: Matt Damon is the decade’s top under-the-radar Hollywood star, the movies’ MVP.

Matt's on the cover of the new issue of UK's Empire magazine, promoting another exclusive preview of Green Zone.

A sighting from the Miami Herald (which relates to 23 December):

Matt Damon was spotted solo at Cafe Prima Pasta on Wednesday night, sipping a Peroni while waiting for his takeout order for two of chicken limone and gnocchi formaggi.

Erroneous reports from the Australian media claimed Matt was on a cruise ship off the coast of Australia and would be in Sydney for New Year's Eve. This was completely false. The Boston Herald claims Matt will be in Cambridge with family for NYE - and indeed, Matt was in Boston with his family for New Year's.

We hear: That Matt Damon and family are in Cambridge for New Year’s weekend - perhaps we will see them at Fenway Friday?

Photos of Matt jogging near his home in Miami on Tuesday are at PopSugar, E Online and here.

The Informant! will be released on DVD and BluRay on 23 February 2010. Extras include a commentary with Steven Soderbergh and writer Scott Z Burns and deleted scenes.

Critic Richard Roeper listed The Informant! in his favourite films of the year.

10. "The Informant!"
One of the most entertaining movies of the year -- especially if you get a bigger kick out of a well-delivered line of dialogue than another CGI explosion. I'm not sure why filmgoers didn't respond to Steven Soderbergh's offbeat satirical satire, based on true events. Matt Damon packed on the pounds, sported a cheesy mustache and created one of the most original characters of the year: Mark Whitacre, a corporate whistleblower/compulsive liar who is scary-smart and amazingly dim, sometimes in the same moment.

Matt talked about his culturally diverse family in this video at YouTube, including:

"My daughters are English, Swedish, Scottish, Finnish, Italian, Spanish, French, Argentinean and American. That says everything I think about this country and what it’s supposed to be about."

Actor Ben Stiller's challenge to Matt to help him build a school in Haiti is also at YouTube.

A revealing article with Matt, which is a version of an article previously linked, is here.

An interview with Marguerite Wheatley, who plays Matt's girlfriend in Invictus, is here.

Matt attended the second last performance of Kenneth Lonergan's play in New York last week - from the NY Post:

Seeing Matthew Broderick in "The Starry Messenger" last Friday was the starry audience of Matt Damon and Jules Feiffer...

Matt was third on a list of favourite male celebrities of the year at PopEater.

On the men's side, Depp earned 29 percent of over 58K votes. George Clooney followed him closely with 24 percent and Matt Damon rounded out the top three with 15%.

Matt was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Invictus by the Screen Actors Guild - from the LA Times:

Best supporting actor also yielded no upsets, with the five nominees identical to the Globes' selections: Matt Damon ("Invictus"), Woody Harrelson ("The Messenger"), Christopher Plummer ("The Last Station"), Stanley Tucci ("The Lovely Bones") and Christoph Waltz ("Inglourious Basterds").

Reactions from Golden Globes nominees are at USA Today, Reuters, Access Hollywood and here. Matt did not release a statement about the SAG or Globe nominations.

They were joking about it on the set of "The Adjustment Bureau," where freshly minted Globes nominee Emily Blunt was working with Matt Damon, who scored a double whammy Tuesday with nominations for the comedy "The Informant!" and the drama "Invictus."

"I'm working with Matt today, who's got a doubleheader," Blunt said with a laugh, "so I just gave him hell because he's apparently trying to steal my thunder. He's the worst."

Her fiancé, John Krasinksi, read the list, so did Blunt have any inside scoop on her nomination for The Young Victoria?

"Oh, my God, none. None whatsoever, I promise," Blunt said.

She is wrapping up shooting in New York on The Adjustment Bureau, opposite fellow nominee Matt Damon (The Informant! and Invictus). "I can't believe he stole my thunder by being given a double header," Blunt said.

First item on Blunt's agenda when she wraps the film? Ending the diet she has been on to play a ballerina. "It's going to be carnage. This slimness is going out the window."

Morgan Freeman has hailed the Golden Globe nominations for Invictus as "wonderful news".

The 72-year-old actor plays Nelson Mandela in the film and is nominated for Best Dramatic Actor, while director Clint Eastwood is up for Best Director and Matt Damon is up for Best Supporting Actor at the awards in January.

Freeman, in South Africa to attend premieres of the movie, said: "I suspect we will do a little bit of celebration, not a whole lot, you know, but it's wonderful news."

Morgan Freeman, nominated for best Actor, Drama for "Invictus": "I want to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for this tremendous honor. Congratulations to Clint Eastwood and Matt Damon on their nominations, and I extend my deepest gratitude to my producing partner Lori McCreary, and the entire cast and crew of ‘Invictus’ for their tireless work to make a film befitting of Nelson Mandela’s legacy. Playing Mandela was the greatest honor of my career, and I hope that I have done him proud."

Matt also received a Best Actor nomination from the Chicago Film Critics Society for The Informant - details at Variety with commentary at Cinematical:

In the acting categories, Jeff Bridges ("Crazy Heart"), Matt Damon ("The Informant!"), Jeremy Renner ("The Hurt Locker") and Michael Stuhlbarg ("A Serious Man") will compete against Clooney for best actor.

Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) is up for awards from Chicago and the Globes while Matt Damon despite nods for his work in The Informant! from both of those groups along with Detroit is seeing his double-dip this year shifting to a body-of-work nomination in the more recent and less interesting role of Rugby captain Francois Pienaar from Invictus.

Wesley Morris at the Boston Globe also discussed Matt's recent nominations:

Part of the other reason the better Tucci performance might have been glossed over is that it is essentially comedic. Which brings me to Matt Damon, and his uncannily deranged performance in "The Informant!" He’s been nominated in the supporting category for nailing a South African accent and looking quite convincing as a jock in "Invictus," but what he managed to do with the narration alone in Steven Soderbergh’s corporate satire was ingenious.

Damon basically peeled off layers of comedy in this performance until the pathetic man we're left with in the final minutes is a shadow of the slick nerd we meet at the start. Soderbergh could have spun the film as a drama – a la "The Insider." But it was cleverer – shocking, even – to ask Damon to make us laugh, which he does. How that choice has failed to appeal to the awards show where only actors vote is unfortunate.

And an article at Variety discussed Matt's two nominations for the Golden Globes:

Over on the men's side, it is Matt Damon who has a double this year and a corner on the biopic. He scores nominations for portraying two very real -- and very different -- men. In the comedy slot, he grabs a nom for his role as the chubby, egotistic whistle-blower Mark Whitacre in "The Informant." He also takes home a supporting actor nom for his portrayal of the buff South African rugby captain Francois Pienaar in "Invictus."

The shooting script of The Informant is now available, courtesy of Warner Bros' award site.

Larger photos of Matt and Lucy at the UNICEF Ball are in Chi magazine, available at Clooney's Cookie Crumbs.

Emily Blunt discusses The Adjustment Bureau at Movies Online, and Bryce Dallas Howard is asked about Hereafter at Collider.com.

A short version of Matt's interview with Dan Patrick is in Sports Illustrated's latest issue. Francois Pienaar talks about some Invictus filming tricks at this site and Leonard Maltin discusses his interview with the Invictus cast here. A report on the strong opening for Invictus in South Africa is at News24.com.

A reporter at the The Oklahoman got some scoop on True Grit and the promotional push for Green Zone:

Damon’s record of activism has helped in Oklahoma, as well. He participated in premieres of both "The Bourne Supremacy” and "The Bourne Ultimatum” that raised money for The Children’s Center in Bethany. In an exclusive comment to The Oklahoman, Damon discussed the possibility of future premieres, one of which could coincide with the release of his latest film with Paul Greengrass, "Green Zone."

"I don't have one scheduled right now... but I love it there," Damon said. "I know they're going to do a pretty big push for 'Green Zone,' so it might include a tour like that. I'm working at that time, I'm shooting the Coen brothers movie (a remake of 'True Grit') — I'll be in New Mexico around that time — so maybe they'll do one, but I'm not sure."

Update: The article written by Kyle Damon about riding the Cape Argus Cycle Tour with Matt in Cape Town is now available online at Bicycling Magazine.

The film's producers were already terrified he would get hurt—and that was before our tenuous situation as tandem first-timers was compounded by the high winds. Matt is smart enough to know that the producers weren't being paranoid, that hundreds of people were counting on him to be in top form the following morning. But he is also athletic, competitive and confident in his physical ability: When he was five, I watched him tie a towel-cape around his neck, climb to the top of a jungle gym, and—before I could stop him—launch himself off the top, believing that he could fly.

Despite the cape, he'd broken his ankle.

"Let's do it," he said.

Support vehicles pulled over to check on us, including one filled with movie producers. One of them rolled down the window and shouted, "This is ridiculous—hop in the car." Another said, "We'll do a press release describing your mechanical issues and the wind, and no one will fault you for stopping."

"No way," said Matt. "We're gonna finish this thing."

The Adjustment Bureau was scheduled to wrap filming in New York yesterday (Thursday).

Matt has received Golden Globe nominations in two categories: Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for The Informant and Best Supporting Actor for Invictus. The full list of nominees is here.

Matt was also nominated in the Supporting Actor category for Invictus in the Critics Choice Movie Awards (Broadcast Film Critics Association).

More photos from the UNICEF Ball in Los Angeles on Thursday are at PopSugar, Mr Paparazzi, Marie Claire, Monsters and Critics and Holy Moly. Lucy is pictured below with Elisabetta Canalis (George Clooney's girlfriend) and Lauren Sanchez (Extra reporter and wife of Matt's agent Patrick Whitesell). Reports from the event are at Hello, EOnline, and People, with video at Access Hollywood.

Clooney and Canalis's affectionate vibe was infectious at their table: Jolie and Pitt whispered in each other's ears throughout the night, Barroso nestled into Damon's shoulder during the performances, and Heming lovingly adjusted Willis's tie before his onstage appearance.

Among those in attendance were Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and Matt Damon and his wife Luciana, with whom Elisabetta enjoyed a giggle.

After dinner, the couple braved the rain to attend an afterparty at Il Piccolino in Beverly Hills. Clooney and girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis, Damon and wife Luciana, Cindy Crawford and husband Randy Gerber, and Willis and new wife Emma Heming also attended the private party at the small Italian restaurant.

The bash continued until around 2 a.m., when all of the celeb guests had personal umbrella-holders walk them to their waiting cars.

Fun sports-based interviews for Invictus are at Dan Patrick's show and the Scott Van Pelt Show. Matt's radio interview with NPR's 'All things considered' show is here. An interesting interview with the sound designer for Invictus is here. A review from the South African Times Live is below.

"This is a really complicated story," Damon says, "and any movie that's gonna be two hours long, you're going to have some simplification. Each character is going to stand in for a different perspective."

The performances are similarly amazing. Damon bulked up to resemble Pienaar physically and hard work with a dialogue coach left him with an excellent South African accent. Audiences will not cringe, as we have had to cringe so many times in the past. It's a hard-working, detailed performance and the sequence on Robben Island, entirely silent, allows us to see in his eyes what he is too choked up to say out loud.

The producers of Invictus discussed the casting of Matt at Film Review Online, and Clint and Francois discussed Matt in George Christy's column here. Cast member Leleti Khumalo also discussed Matt at SA's Saturday Star.

Question: Can you talk about casting Matt Damon?
Lori McCreary: We all thought Matt Damon was a brilliant idea, and I would never have thought that we could get the likes of Matt Damon for this film, although with Mr Eastwood and Mr Freeman it was a little easier. We had three icons, so I was very excited about it.
Mace Nuefeld: The power of the story won him over, and for us he’s got such a natural athletic physique and way about him that I thought he was a natural for the part.
Lori McCreary: And his accent was genius.

Francois found Matt to be "a great bloke… I was struck by his humility, being the success that he is, and I loved his wicked sense of humor."

"Matt worked out very hard, got into terrific shape, and by structuring set-ups and camera angles, you can make a person look the way you want them to look" offers Clint. "He did a lot of weightlifting, put on a lot of muscle, did sprints, which he’d never done before, and some boxing."

And although she did not interact with Damon too much, [Khumalo] describes [Damon] as a "sweetie".

"You just fall in love with him. And he is hot," she laughs.

Previews and positive reviews of The People Speak are at NY magazine, the LA Times and the Boston Globe - below. Matt's interview with Howard Zinn on CBS is here.

The special is a collection of live readings of little-known speeches and letters collected in Howard Zinn's revisionist-history tomes A People's History of the United States and Voices of A People's History of the United States, read by such sincerely sincere actors as Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Viggo Mortensen, and Danny Glover, in a manner that, says Damon, "hopefully won't put you to sleep."

Turns out the documentary, whose readings were filmed on stages in Boston (at the Cutler Majestic Theatre) and Los Angeles, works beautifully. The stars bring a full sense of drama and import to the voices of our democracy without turning the production into a pile-on celebrity vehicle. While an alternate to the History Channel movie featuring unknown readers would undoubtedly have its own virtues, "The People Speak" has vitality and momentum thanks to the skills of the performers. These seasoned actors and singers are able to highlight both the particulars and the general significance of the material they’re given.

Matt and Josh Brolin discussed The People Speak at EW, with some excerpts below (not online). Another photo of the pair with a quote is online.

They're more than just pals: They're also among the stars and executive producers of the History channel's The People Speak (Dec. 13 at 8 p.m.), a celeb-filled collection of dramatic historical readings. But when EW got Josh Brolin and Matt Damon in a room together, all they really wanted to do was compare the size of their...vocabularies.

Brolin There's already 96 hours of readings. And we'll film more and create Internet spots.
Damon There'll be a growing archive of voices of the past, performed by actors.
Brolin This is going to billow exponentially. [To Matt] That's pretty good, right? "Billow."
Damon I like it. I've never heard "billow" used before [when speaking to the press].

Question: Were you good history students?
Damon I was fine. But if I could go back and go to college again, I would be a history major, definitely, instead of English and literature.
Brolin And Chris Moore, he was a history major. You talk to Chris and you talk to Howard Zinn, and they have this plethora of knowledge of the truth of what happened...
Damon You just said "plethora."
Brolin Thank you. I'm raising the bar. He's getting angry at me.
Damon I'm down two nothing--"billow" and "plethora." Shutout.
Brolin Why are you even asking him questions anymore? He doesn't know how to speak.
You guys are also starring together in the Coen brothers' next film, True Grit?
Brolin Yeah, he got the bigger role. I don't know how that worked. I thought they were my friends. Obviously not.
Damon [Laughs] Wow. That's hurtful. Just hurtful.

Matt received a nomination as Best Actor for The Informant by the Detroit Film Critics Society. He is discussed as an Oscar contender in two categories here, and Roger Friedman also rates his chances at Showbiz 411.

Matt Damon was so good in Steven Soderbergh’s not totally cooked, "The Informant!" If the movie had been better Damon would be up for a lead actor Oscar. But it's not, so we turn to "Invictus." Damon is pumped up and buff as South African rugby captain Francois Pienaar. He’s also got the accent down so perfectly — and apparently the rugby, too — that you forget Damon isn’t a blond, white South African. Damon’s trajectory from "Good Will Hunting" to here is astonishing.

He's never embarrassed himself, and has chosen roles with a consistent approach. Without being showy, he's become a dependable Hollywood star in the old sense. And he can handle sensitive material, comic, and action of course (See under "Bourne.") Morgan Freeman has an easier time in "Invictus" because we know a lot about Nelson Mandela. In a script that doesn't do much to flesh out characters, Damon creates Pienaar from nothing, and holds up his end of the film beautifully.

Matt and Lucy attended the UNICEF Ball honoring producer Jerry Weintraub on Thursday night in Los Angeles. Photos are from Yahoo and Fotoglif, with a report at Yahoo.

The A-list dinner party drew top performers and singing legends.

George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bruce Willis, Larry David, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie gathered around Jerry Weintraub's table at the posh UNICEF Ball in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel ballroom Thursday night to honor the legendary producer's philanthropic work. Clooney presented Weintraub with the Danny Kaye Humanitarian Award, named after the late singer-actor.

During the event, Pitt and Jolie held their position at Weintraub's table while Damon, Willis and David mingled with other guests, including Dustin Hoffman and Jeremy Piven.

Actress Bryce Dallas-Howard has joined the cast of Hereafter, according to Variety:

Bryce Dallas Howard has signed to star opposite Matt Damon in Clint Eastwood's supernatural drama "Hereafter" for Warner Bros.

"Hereafter," penned by Peter Morgan, tells the story of three people -- a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy -- who are touched by death in different ways.

An article on the making of Invictus and Hereafter is at LA Weekly, including:

Later in the day, Matt Damon, who sports a prosthetic nose, heavily muscled-up physique and a spot-on Afrikaner accent to play the Springboks’ captain, François Pienaar, says that working with Eastwood is "the top of the mountain for every department." Then he jokes that he’s having such a good time he feels guilty about cashing his paychecks.

"I'll be waiting for my kickback," Eastwood grumbles good-naturedly from his director's chair.

Already, there is much discussion about Eastwood’s next project, Hereafter, which he expects to begin shooting by early fall. Based on an original script by The Queen and Frost/Nixon writer Peter Morgan, the film links together three stories, each in some way about the border between life and death, this world and the next.(Reuniting with his Invictus director, Damon will star as an auto-factory worker who was once a spritual medium.)

"It’s unexplored terrain," Eastwood tells me when I ask what drew him to the material, and indeed, though he has twice cast himself as something like an angel of death, in the existential westerns High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider, he has never made a film on an overtly supernatural subject.

"I liked the way Peter Morgan incorporates real events like the [2004 Indian Ocean] tsunami and the terrorist attacks on London into a fictional story," he continues. "Also, there's a certain charlatan aspect to the hereafter, to those who prey on people’s beliefs that there's some afterlife, and mankind doesn’t seem to be willing to accept that this is your life and you should do the best you can with it and enjoy it while you’re here, and that’ll be enough. There has to be immortality or eternal life and embracing some religious thing. I don’t have the answer. Maybe there is a hereafter, but I don’t know, so I approach it by not knowing. I just tell the story."

There's an article with Matt and Josh Brolin in the new Entertainment Weekly promoting The People Speak. A preview is at the New York Daily News. A fun clip from the interview is at Extra.

Matt Damon and Josh Brolin joked during a sit-down interview with Entertainment Weekly about their best screen collaborations. Brolin dished details about his upcoming movie with Woody Allen, only for Damon to step in and reveal his encounter with the film icon.

How did Matt Damon and Josh Brolin get an all-star lineup for their documentary "The People Speak"? "Matt knows some people," Brolin jokes in the upcoming Entertainment Weekly about Morgan Freeman, Marisa Tomei and Bruce Springsteen, who came on board to read speeches in the History Channel flick.

The A-listers were grateful to be included. "Bruce Springsteen sent me a little [thank-you] card," says Brolin — much to the surprise of his fellow producer. "I didn't get one of those!" laughs Damon. "What the —?!"

Matt's interview on The Jay Leno Show is available at the official site. The Access Hollywood interview with Matt and Morgan is available here. The Daily 10 interview where Matt discusses missing the Oscars when The Departed won is at YouTube. The first part of the CBS Early Show interview discussing Invictus is also at YouTube - the second part about The People Speak will air on Friday. An interview with Springbok 'actor' and trainer Grant Roberts is here. A not-so-serious interview with Matt and Francois is Fox Sports - excerpt below:

Interviewer: Francois, you united a nation. Matt, you have a song in which you f***ed Sarah Silverman.
Matt: Yeah, so I come out on top.

An article which focuses on the editing choices made by some awards contenders is at Variety. An interview with Pienaar is at CNN. Matt was cast in Invictus following a suggestion by Warner Bros executive Alan Horn:

Domino effect: "After Clint signed on, Alan Horn suggested Matt Damon, an idea we embraced since he's a great actor and very athletic," producer Robert Lorenz says.

Matt wants to be on the TV show 30 Rock - a report from EW's Michael Ausiello:

Question: How’s about some good 30 Rock scoop. —Khewit
Ausiello: I hear Tina Fey’s next big celeb get is Matt Damon. I also hear The Ausiello Files will collect a small commission if a deal comes to pass since we jump-started negotiations with Damon at last week’s Invictus premiere. "I would do [30 Rock] in a heartbeat if they asked me to come on," Damon enthused. "I have not been approached about doing it. She should call my people — or even better me. Or I could call her. Let’s make this happen. Tina is a brilliant comedy writer. My wife and I download that show in bulk. That’s actually one of the downsides to working so much this year; I have fallen behind on this season. But we love that show, so if she has a part for me, I'm game."

Ball's in your court, Fey!

Jeff Bridges talked about True Grit at Moviefone:

Jeff Bridges -- who is garnering Oscar buzz for his earthy turn as a country singer in Fox Searchlight's 'Crazy Heart,' hitting theaters Dec. 16 -- will next star in the Coen brothers' 'True Grit,' after having finished shooting on 'Tron: Legacy.'

"They're the brothers, man. They're the masters," Bridges told Moviefone of 'True Grit's' Joel and Ethan Coen at Tuesday's 'Crazy Heart' premiere in Beverly Hills.

"And it's going to be a Western -- I love doing westerns," Bridges said. "We have a great cast. We have Josh Brolin and Matt Damon as well, so I am really looking forward to it."

Invictus is getting great reviews from the major publications. A summary of the LA Times and NY Times reviews is at Awards Daily. The following quote is from the Washington Post:

If 2009 had a most valuable player award for the movies, it would have to go to Matt Damon. Whether he's appearing in "The Informant!," a Sarah Silverman Web parody or in Clint Eastwood's stirring post-apartheid drama, "Invictus," he has been consistently spot-on and almost breathtakingly self-effacing. He has become that most unlikely Hollywood rarity: a character actor with a matinee-idol face.

Details of Matt's family emergency of a few months ago appear to have been revealed at the New York Post:

Matt Damon has been making regular trips home to Boston to visit his sick father. The star, who's filming here, is "concerned" about his dad, Kent, and has been rushing back from his Manhattan set to visit him, sources said. Damon was shooting "The Adjustment Bureau" with Emily Blunt at the Warwick New York Hotel. He's been putting a brave face on despite the health concerns, and following a bout of flu among his kids. Our source added, "His family is everything to him." A rep for Damon didn't return our repeated calls and e-mails.

Video interviews with Matt, Morgan and Clint are at Hit Fix, NGTV, About.com, AZfamily.com and CNN. In a CNN clip Matt was asked about Tiger Woods' recent media issues:

Matt: I think it's none of my business, and I actually know him. It's still none of my business. Marriages are private.

There are various short interview clips with Matt, Morgan and Clint at MTV on a range of subjects, including the following. Hereafter will film in Maui for three days in January, but Matt will not take part in those scenes.

The shout-out in Shakira's song
Matt: I heard about this. I couldn't believe it. Someone told me that recently... Shakira actually sent my wife and I her new DVD with a sweet note and we know her and she's great. I'm honoured to be in one of her videos. (So you’re a fan?) Oh yeah, yeah. I live in a Latin house. (So you have to be?) Not even have to be. It’s just the way it is.

On his rumored role as Two-Face in The Dark Knight
Matt: It was a scheduling thing [so I couldn't do it]. I didn't speak to Chris Nolan. I'm a big Chris Nolan fan. But Aaron Eckhart was great.

On Hereafter
Clint: It's a story that is actually three stories of people who have had traumatic experiences in their life. And how they converge with one another. And it ends up with the three stories coming together in one big sequence. It's very well written by Peter Morgan.

More interviews for The People Speak are at The Nation, Mediaweek (with a cover article), The Daily Beast and PopEater.

Matt is reportedly on the cover of Bicycling magazine in relation to the Cape Argus event. PopSugar has some additional details from the article.

Matt Damon and his brother Kyle participated in South Africa's Cape Argus Tour earlier this year, and now their adventures are being chronicled in the latest addition of Bicycling magazine. Kyle encouraged Matt to take on the challenge shortly before filming began on Invictus, much to the dismay of the film's producers. Both men came out of the experience stronger, at least according to Kyle's version of the story — Matt only complained that his backside was, "swollen in the shape of a bike seat."

Matt is the focus of an article at Awards Daily. Clint Eastwood is interviewed at The Daily Beast. And a few quotes from reviews at Philadelphia Weekly and the South African Daily Maverick are below. There are no reports available from Matt's appearance on The Early Show on Tuesday (if the interview did proceed as scheduled).

Philadelphia Weekly
A freakishly buffed-up Matt Damon co-stars as Springboks captain Francois Pienaar. Honestly, he doesn't get much in the way of character development or background information, but Damon makes a middling role fascinating all the same. Watch as he settles into his newfound sense of responsibility almost silently, slowly but surely assuming leadership and commanding more and more of Eastwood’s carefully composed frames. It makes perfect sense to me that these two stealthy, unassuming artists have already begun shooting another picture together. Eastwood and Damon are both so naturally reticent and quietly effective; it was only a matter of time.

The Daily Maverick
The other very human part comes with the other main character. Somehow, they’ve made Matt Damon look Afrikaans. He has the slightly pinched features of Pienaar, the right tint of blonde that always marked him out amid the mud. His accent defies the critics’ best hopes of a target. He somehow brings a sense of innocence to Pienaar, who only realised halfway through the tournament that this wasn’t really about rugby at all.

Detailed reports from the domestic press conference and the international press conference for Invictus are now available, with another version of the domestic conference available here. Some quotes:

Question: Were you in better condition going into this movie than you had been in past films?
Damon: Oh, I was better in shape for this movie, yeah. I was in the gym everyday and with Francois. He came to the gym with me a few times, too. This is his life and I don't want to embarrass him. If Jason Bourne gets a little flabby that's on me. But this is the fictionization of someone's actual life. I didn't want to let him down.

Matt on working with Clint
We've been entrusted to do our jobs. Then he'll come over occasionally and give a little bit of direction but it's not a lot of chatter. Just suggestion. A little suggestion here. A little suggestion there. Anybody who doesn't want to hear a swear word, Clint's favorite saying, after you do a take he goes, 'Well, lets move on and lets not fuck this up by thinking about it too much.' You hear it everyday on a set with him.

Question: Did the studio ever seem hesitant to make the movie?
Damon: Clint's track record is so great that the studio has tremendous faith in him. He told a story yesterday- Clint was directing a film at Warner Bros when the new exec called and told him that ‘the film is fantastic - but I have a few notes'. Clint's response? ‘Sure, we can get together - at my new office at Paramount' [Laughs]. So, I think Clint gets what he wants - and deserves to; if you can put together a library of films like that, and for the one studio, you can pretty much do what you want.

Question: So you're all mates now?
Damon: I see us all in a convertible going down to a burger place [Laughs]. Nah, I hope to work with those guys as much as possible - I'm actually going to work with Clint again next month, and I'd love to work with Morgan again; we're actually looking for something to do together. It's funny I've had a lot of positive experiences on films, and walk away from films having made many friends. But the truth is, I have not really been out of my house - I have 3 little kids - so that pretty much takes up all my time. I wish I could see my friends more.

Video interviews with Matt and/or Morgan or Francois are at Extra, Indy Sports Nation and ET Online. I can't see the Access Hollywood interview (available at Hulu but not to those outside the US), so if anyone could provide a report that would be great. During a Toronto interview for The Informant Matt also talks about the All Blacks and Invictus.

Positive reviews for Invictus are at AP, At the movies and The New Yorker.

Matt is praised by director Clint Eastwood in an article at Variety:

Coming off his turn as the doughy whistle blower in "The Informant," Matt Damon had a lot of work to do to play the South African rugby team captain in Clint Eastwood's "Invictus."

"This film is the opposite of ‘The Informant' as far as physical conditioning goes," Eastwood says. "I think he liked it, (giving him) an excuse to get into shape."

Among the film's rugby players, only Damon and two others were professional actors. The remainder were athletes, which meant Eastwood had to keep an eye out for his star during the rough-and-tumble action. Damon did most of his own action, but did have a stunt double for the more chaotic scenes.

"I had to be careful with it," Eastwood says. "Rugby is one of those kinds of games where you can get bashed up. Matt was a great sport. He jumped right in and worked very hard."

Interviews with Matt and other cast members about The People Speak are at the Boston Globe, Boston Herald and Philly.com.

Matt Damon has a unique perspective on Howard Zinn’s 'A People's History of the United States.' As a young boy growing up in Newton, the actor and the author were friends and neighbors. "While Howard was writing it, we used to see his light on at night," says Damon, who lived next door to the BU professor between the ages of 5 and 9. "It was like my brother's night light. It kept him safe from the bogeyman."

So Damon executive-produced - and, we hear, largely bankrolled - this Sunday’s The History Channel special 'The People Speak,' a collaboration between Zinn and some of the biggest names in Hollywood, to put a new twist on some old history lessons.

"The film is an inspirational film about democracy," Zinn told us. "It's about how people - not governments - achieve social change."

After Damon's big-screen shout-out, Zinn's book went on to sell 2 million copies. So it is only right that Matt is the first big name to appear onscreen in 'The People Speak.' He reads The Declaration of Independence . The performance sets up the rest of the documentary, which, the producers say, "celebrates democracy."

Matt and Lucy will celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary on Wednesday.

Reports from the Los Angeles premiere are at LA.com, E Online, IBN Live, and ITN. Actor Julian Lewis-Jones also discussed the premiere and party here. Photos are at PopSugar, Bauer Griffin, Socialite Life and here.

Team Clint celebrated lavishly at the after party, held in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel ballroom, with the Eastwood family filling one couch pit, the Damon crew taking over another (with Orlando Bloom in tow), and even Nelson Mandela's daughter Zindzi and grandson Zwaloba ensconced in a third. The party was made complete with a jazz band, groaning tables of filet mignon and salmon, and gaggles of gigantic guys who star as the rugby players in the uplifting flick. Even the real captain of the South Africa Springboks, Francois Pienaar, the guy Matt Damon plays so convincingly in the film, was on hand.

Official production notes for the film are available here, via the official site. An article about Freeman and Eastwood is at the LA Times, and a separate article with Eastwood is at the Times Live. A video interview with Francois Pienaar is here, and an interview with writer Anthony Peckham is here.

"Matt may not be the same height as Francois, but he has the same tenacity and power," Eastwood remarks. "He also worked out very hard and got himself in terrific shape for the film. And," the director adds, "by structuring set-ups and camera angles, you can make a person look the way you need them to look."

Damon needn’t have worried, as Pienaar says he was immediately impressed by the actor. "He's a great bloke. I was struck by his humility and his wicked sense of humor. He wanted to learn everything he could about me, my philosophy as a captain and what it was like for us in 1995. We also chatted about the game of rugby, what happens in training and about the technical aspects. We had a lot of fun."

For the cast, preparing for the rigorous demands of actually playing rugby, "the training was very intense," Damon states. "I did a lot of weightlifting and put on a lot of muscle. I also did sprints, which I’d never done before, and some boxing. When I got to South Africa, Chester said, 'You look really fit. What have you been doing? I said,'Well, I've been weightlifting, boxing and sprinting.' And he looked at me for a while and then goes, 'Why didn’t you just play rugby?'" he laughs.

The article at Parade and a behind-the-scenes look at the interview and photo shoot by Janice Kaplan are now available - excerpts:

Now that he’s a father, Damon cares more than ever about encouraging tolerance. He and his wife, Luciana, are the parents of Isabella, 3, and Gia, 1, as well as Luciana's daughter from a previous marriage, Alexia, 11.

"I don’t think it's a natural state for children to be prejudiced," he says. "A case in point: I was trying to explain segregation to my stepdaughter. We talked about Alabama in the '60s, and she was utterly baffled. Alexia is very dark—her father is Cuban, and my wife's Argentinean—so I tried to explain that she probably would not have been able to use white water fountains. She goes to school with all types of kids and plays with everyone, so it was a lot for her to grasp."

Janice Kaplan:
Matt arrives first and gives me a big hug. We'd spent time together a few weeks earlier when he wrote a terrific PARADE cover story on charitable giving, and now he graciously greets me as if we're old friends. Intensely focused, he has energy that can light up the room. As we pour cups of coffee, he's relaxed. He chats easily about his daughters and the new movie he's working on in New York.

A few minutes later, Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman come in together. For two guys in their 70s (79 and 72, respectively) they look pretty good. Eastwood, typically, has driven himself over to the interview. Like Damon, he's a straight shooter--a caring, sincere guy not much interested in the trappings of celebrity. We've also worked together before, and he was as cordial and courteous as I'd remembered.

Damon, 39, isn't intimidated by the older stars, but he wants to make it clear how much he admires them. In fact, he once got a meal with Morgan as a gift.

"I used to talk about him so much that, about 10 year ago, my previous assistant arranged for us to have dinner together," he says. "It was a gift to me for Christmas. We didn't have a project to talk about or anything--it was more like a 'Make-A-Wish' dinner where I asked him questions about acting and he politely answered."

During press junket interviews Matt confirmed that he will not be doing Bourne 4 without Paul Greengrass - reports are at EW and Collider, in which Matt also confirmed that Liberace is still expected to shoot next summer. During an interview at MTV Matt talks about why he had to withdraw from last year's Milk.

An article at the Wall Street Journal praises Matt's acting as part of a new style in Hollywood representing the end of the method actor.

From Entertainment Weekly's 100 best of the decade list:

60. Matt Damon as action star
When he first signed on as the ass-kicking amnesiac Jason Bourne in 2002, no one would've predicted that Damon would become the decade's best mixer of brawn and brains. Shows what we know.

62. "I'm F---ing Matt Damon" video
A talk-show host's famous comedian girlfriend confesses in a catchy song that she's shtupping No. 60? Yeah, that'll go viral.

A quote from New Zealand's Dominion Post from Melanie Lynskey about Matt:

"He has this prosthetic nose, a funny thing in his cheek, a hilarious wig and he put on a significant amount of weight. In a way that liberated the audience because he's so handsome that it's almost distracting. He's sort of built to be a movie star. He has the perfect face and it would be really hard to look at that face and be like 'OK, here's the bumbling guy.' So it was really wonderful to be working with him and see him change physically. You were able to see how great a character actor he is. He could do anything. If he was an uglier guy he would be the greatest character actor alive."

Finally, Chris Moore discussed The Adjustment Bureau during an interview about The People Speak with Josh Brolin at Coming Soon:

CS: Chris, what's the next project for you?
Moore: I'm currently producing a Matt Damon movie called "The Adjustment Bureau."

CS: Is that based on a Phillip K. Dick story?
Moore: It sure is. It took a long time for me to get the job and I finally got it. It is and it's George Nolfi's directorial debut. It's Matt and Emily Blunt. It's a lot of fun.

CS: George worked on "Bourne" movies?
Moore: He wrote the last "Bourne" movie and "Ocean's Twelve." That's how he knows Matt. It's a very sort of big Hollywood movie and so we have to deliver on that.

Name: Matt Damon News Column