Damon isn’t the only actor who’ll do almost anything Soderbergh asks. And he’ll answer the call again next year for Liberace, the director’s bio-pic of the famously flamboyant entertainer. That is, providing Michael Douglas, who appeared in Soderbergh’s Traffic and is tapped to play Liberace, is healthy enough after his cancer battle. Damon will play Liberace’s lover.
"We’ve got the money to start in June of 2012, and that’s mainly due to scheduling reasons because I’m doing [District 9 creator] Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium in Vancouver this summer," Damon says. That sci-fi film is actually shooting in B.C. through the end of this month.
"We counted, [while working] on Contagion, whether George Clooney or I had done more Soderbergh movies. We’re tied right now at six. George has Man from U.N.C.L.E. that he’s going to do at some point with Steven and I have Liberace, so we’ll still be neck-and-neck at seven by next year."
Whatever changes occur in his life, Damon says he's already a much different guy than the eager, uncertain kid who picked up the Oscar for Good Will Hunting.
"I turned 40 last October and I feel great," he says, persuasively. "I feel so much calmer than I did when I was 30, just because all of the big questions are kind of answered. I’m just kind of getting a kick out of living now."
