The New Paper - 22 Aug 2004
Bourne Charmer Matt Damon may play an ex-assasin in The Bourne Supremacy, but in real life, the actor is 'armed' with killed charm
By Faith Teo
REPORTING FROM LOS ANGELES
IMAGINE a celebrity who's more concerned about your tape recorder than promoting himself.
That's actor Matt Damon for you.
Halfway through a recent Los Angeles press conference for his new movie The Bourne Supremacy - where he reprises his role as amnesiac ex-assasin Jason Bourne - Damon was charming his way into the hearts of more than 40 reporters from all over the world when a curious popping sound distracted him.
He ignored it, only to hear another one... and another - it was the sound of recording tapes running out of time.
After all, the interview lasted almost an hour - marathon by superstar standards.
Reporters started squirming in their seats, wondering if they should leap up on stage to rescue their precious sound bytes.
But they needn't have worried, because Damon took it upon himself to do it for them.
BEING MR NICE
One by one, he opened the recorders, flipped the tapes around, and pressed the record button, until it became almost a game to him.
This brought his popularity among hardened showbiz scribes up a notch (not that they weren't already in love with the man - some women were gushing so much it was almost a show in itself).
But it is annoyingly easy to like Damon because he's just so darn nice. Freshly-scrubbed and relaxed even after 9pm, he breezed into the Writers Guild of America Theatre on West Third Street looking more like a college student than a 34-year-old Hollywood star.
He was also in a chirpy mood, even asking reporters to tell him to shut up if he rambled.
'HARD' QUESTION DEFLECTED
Despite his best efforts, however, the first volley came almost immediately.
Didn't you say, one male reporter spat, that you would never do a sequel to The Bourne Identity?
With a sheepish laugh, Damon wormed his way out easily enough.
'What I said was that I didn't want to do it unless we could make it as good as the first one... because there are so many sequels that are disappointing.'
But director Paul Greengrass' enthusiasm and vision for The Bourne Supremacy won Damon over.
As a gesture of goodwill (no pun intended), Greengrass even flew to Prague where Damon was filming The Brothers Grimm to meet and consult with him.
Damon ended up as Greengrass' co-pilot and consultant by being involved in the script-writing and production process from the start.
Said Damon: 'I had a lot of say in this one because I wasn't contractually obligated to do it and they couldn't do it without me.
'If we were lucky enough to get (Greengrass) then that would be a big step toward signing me on.'
The Bourne Supremacy also turned out to be a joy ride for the actor famed for playing off-centre but intelligent characters like Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr Ripley and Will Hunting in Good Will Hunting.
He said: 'The emotional journey this guy (Bourne) goes through this time is completely different, which basically allows me to play the same character but in a totally different state of mind, which is challenging.
'Eventually it's about atonement and an attempt at redemption, but I think it starts as an exercise in revenge.'
The movie itself is rather darker than Damon's sunny demeanour, but he insisted that he wasn't affected by the internal struggles of a 'deeply flawed character' like Jason Bourne.
'I was in a good mood going to work every day because I had something to play, I had something to do, rather than kind of twiddling my thumbs through a bland good guy role.'
SO, WHAT'S NEXT?
Coming soon to a theatre near you: Ocean's Twelve, The Brothers Grimm, Syriana, The Informant.
The guy must be a workaholic.
'It's still hard for me to turn down work if it's really good because for so many years I was desperate to get a job and couldn't.'
'Now, I don't know if it's being a workaholic really as much as it is having a kind of common sense and feeling like these movies are good.'
But Damon admitted that it's high time he took a break.
And his dream holiday destination: Home.
'Honestly, if I get a vacation, I'm going to sit on my couch in New York because that's one place I haven't been in a very, very long time.'
The Bourne Supremacy took him to India, Berlin, Moscow, Ocean's Twelve was filmed in Amsterdam and Rome, and The Brothers Grimm in Prague.
And as the Universal Pictures people drew our long interview to a close, Damon proved once again how nice he really is.
Instead of allowing his minders to sweep him away from the prying eyes of the media, he happily signed autographs and chatted with reporters who flocked to him like bees to honey.
And, he waited till the last one left before leaving the theatre himself.
See, told you he was nice.
The Bourne Supremacy opens in cinemas on Aug 26, with sneaks this weekend.
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'Better driver now'
ONE of the first things Damon had to prepare for were the fight scenes, which he mostly did himself.
His character had to move and stand like a boxer so 'there was nothing to do but start boxing', which he did for three months before shooting began.
During a fighting sequence with fellow super-agent Jarda (played by Marton Csokas), reality literally hit Damon in the face.
'He (Csokas) got the best of me, I got whacked in the face once.
'I tried to lift him up at one point, and my back just went completely, so I had to sit out a couple of shots in that fight because I was trying to get my back back in order.'
And for a breathtaking car chase scene shot in a half-completed tunnel in Berlin, Damon was required to brush up on his driving skills.
'I'm definitely a better driver than I was,' he laughed.
You might also catch him spouting Russian and German in the movie, but he admits language is not one of his strengths.
'I never learnt either of them... I just stood there, and they browbeat me with the line until finally I said something that sounded remotely Russian or German.'
Copyright © 2004 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
