Damon was speaking by phone from frosty Chicago, and he was in no hurry to hang up. The wind outside was too frigid, the hotel room too quiet and his wife and children too far away. "It's like 10 degrees here, I'm not going anywhere," said the father of three, "and it's nice to have a grown-up conversation any time."
Damon has a flinty American everyman quality that he can play against — as he does as the haunted-soul assassin in "The Bourne Identity" — or channel with unexpected tints, as he did this year in Eastwood's "Hereafter."
"He's a gem to work with," Eastwood said. "He has this reticent Americana persona on screen, and he brings a lot to the set with his writing background and insights."
Bridges echoed those sentiments: "For 'Grit,' he took this character and just ran off with it. He's a guy that does terrific work and makes good choices, and that's a big thing in the long haul of a career."
Rudin can’t figure why Matt Damon isn’t getting more credit for his comedic turn as a Texas Ranger who is a “heartbreaking buffoon, so moving and ardent,” he says. “It’s his most beautiful, effortless, loose performance.”
