 | |  |  | Matt Damon News & Gossip
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| | Matt Damon: Mandela is the greatest political leader of our lifetime | | Added 14 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Matt Damon is out there pushing his new movie, Invictus, which I think looks awesome. It?s the true story of Nelson Mandela?s attempt (and success) to use the South African Rugby team?s bid to win the Rugby World Cup to further the cause of racial and political peace. The film is getting wonderful reviews, and Matt is being singled out for his performance as South Africa?s rugby captain Francois Pienaar.
Beyond the politics of the film, Matt has always been known as an activist and advocate for leftie causes - and unlike some celebrities, he defends his positions with a lot of intelligence, and without degrading the political discussion into nastiness and name-calling. Actually, he was kind of mean about Sarah Palin when he was interviewed last year, but as it turns out, he wasn’t even as harsh as many Republicans turned out to be, so whatever. Anyway, Matt was discussing the movie and he dropped this bombshell (not really): he thinks Nelson Mandela is ?the greatest political leader in the world in our lifetime.?
No world leader has ever surpassed the accomplishments of former South African President Nelson Mandela. So says actor Matt Damon, who plays rugby team captain Francois Pienaar in Clint Eastwood’s Nelson Mandela film, “Invictus,” which opens nationwide Friday.
?Mandela convinced everybody to not go to war. That involves a lot of personal responsibility,” Damon told Tarts at last week?s Los Angeles premiere. “South Africa had the greatest political leader in the world in our lifetime. Period.?
The film covers the months in 1995 after Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa after decades of white apartheid rule, a time during which the country was close to devolving into civil war.
Damon says that Mandela couldn’t save his country alone, though.
?There was responsibility taken by the citizens as well, that?s a lesson for the rest of the world about how to handle conflict.?
Handling conflict is something Damon, 39, is getting more practice with as his two daughters get older. But Damon couldn’t be happier with his situation.
?It?s so great as any father of girls will tell you,” Damon gushed. “It?s the best.?
[From Fox News]
At first I was like ?wait a minute? but the ?in our lifetime? thing is important. Matt?s not saying Mandela was the greatest leader ever, he?s saying Mandela was and is the greatest of our lifetime. Which might be and probably is true. I?ll have to think about it some more. Gorbachev? Sure, he would be up there. Aung San Suu Kyi? She makes my list. Ronald Reagan? I?m sure he?s on some people?s lists. Oh, I could do this all day!
In other Matt Damon news, he really, really, really wants Tina Fey to write him a part on 30 Rock. There?s even a rumor going around Entertainment Weekly and Buddy TV that it?s going to happen. Matt totally geeked out about 30 Rock and Tina Fey when asked about it, telling EW (via Buddy TV): ?I would do [30 Rock] in a heartbeat if they asked me to come on. 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.” After Tina got to pretend date Jon Hamm, I?m not sure if I want Liz Lemon to get Matt Damon. But they don?t necessarily have to write him in as a love interest. The sky?s the limit! By the way, how cute was Julianne Moore last night? Her Boston accent was rough at times, but I just love the hell out of her!
By the way, here?s part of Matt?s interview on the Jay Leno show last night. It?s kind of boring, but Matt does tell a funny story about his step-daughter calling him ?Matty Fatty?.
Matt Damon at the UNCEIF event on December 10, 2009, in Los Angeles. Credit: WENN. Additional photos of Matt and Lucy, credit: FAME.
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Continuing work on his latest project “The Adjustment Bureau,” Matt Damon was spotted on location by the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City yesterday (October 20).
The “Bourne Ultimatum” stud looked hunky in a dark suit and tie as he chatted with the producer and director in between takes.
In
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He gained 30 pounds for his role in “The Informant!” and last night (September 15) Matt Damon was over at the Ziegfeld Theatre for the big New York City premiere.
The “Bourne Ultimatum” stud was all smiles as he posed for the paparazzi, sporting a dapper black suit with a white button-up and a black tie.
In the film, Matt plays Mark Whitacre, an agricultural company’s vice president who becomes an FBI informant.
When asked for his reaction to Patrick Swayze’s tragic death earlier this week, Mr. Damon replied, “He was a gentleman and just a lovely guy.”
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| | Matt Damon: It Was Very Easy To Gain The Weight. | | Added 14 years ago | Source: Feed Me Gossip |
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Looking tanned and trim, Matt Damon declared his latest film challenge as “probably the funnest time I’ve had working.”He also enjoyed making the movie The Informant!What Damon was describing was adding 30 lbs. ? not to mention the cheesy moustache, hairpiece and glasses ? to become nearly unrecognizable for his role as Mark Whitacre, an agricultural company’s vice president-turned-FBI informant.“It was very, very easy to gain the weight,” Damon told reporters at the Venice Film Festival on Monday. “It was very, very fun, probably the funnest time I had working because I didn’t have to go to the gym after work and I just ate everything I could see.”
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| | Matt Damon to receive lifetime achievement award at 38 | | Added 14 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Matt Damon is being honored with a lifetime achievement award at the tender age of 38. The American Cinematheque Award will be bestowed on the hot Bourne Identity star next March, with the ceremony to air on ABC. Julia Roberts, Al Pacino, Steve Martin, Samuel L. Jackson and Nicole Kidman are among the past honorees.
Matt Damon is adding to his mantle.
He’s only 38 years old, but the thespian has just been tapped to receive his first lifetime achievement honor, the American Cinematheque Award.
According to Variety, Damon has agreed to accept the award in person, leading ABC to schedule the kudoscast for prime time. AMC had hosted the event the past four years.
Not a bad draw, if we may say so.
The actor will have to wait a while, though?the Cinematheque folks have decided to push the ceremony from its usual October birth to March 27, 2010, so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle of awards season. Consequently, the honor will technically be skipped in 2009.
Damon, who won an Oscar over a decade ago for penning Good Will Hunting (which he also starred in), has gone on to headline several Hollywood blockbusters, including Ocean’s Eleven and its sequels and the Bourne trilogy. His performances have also been heralded in such films as The Talented Mr. Ripley, Saving Private Ryan, All the Pretty Horses, Syriana, The Departed and The Good Shepherd.
The Cinematheque award is given out annually to artists who are “committed to making a significant contribution to the art of the motion pictures.”
[From E! Online]
Damon isn’t the youngest celebrity to receive the award. Nicole Kidman was just 36 when she was honored in 2006, Ron Howard was also 36 when he received the award in 1990, and Eddie Murphy was just 25 when he was given the first American Cinematheque Award in 1986. I would love to see another screenplay from Damon beyond Good Will Hunting. IMDB has him listed as the co-writer of a 2003 film with Ben Affleck’s younger brother, Casey, called Gerry, in which he also starred with Casey. I haven’t seen it but it’s also directed by Hunting’s Gus Van Sant and is said to be a kind of haunting film about two friends who decide to go explore the desert on a whim. It premiered at Sundance and was only out in limited release.
Damon is best known as an actor and screenwriter, but he’s also produced some films, including through his reality competition show with Ben Affleck, Project Greenlight, which ended in 2005. The guy is a subtle, strong actor and I can’t wait to see The Informant!. It’s out in three weeks and looks like a goofy rousing comedy. Some may say he’s too young to get a lifetime achievement award, and I can agree with that to some extent, especially because I’m waiting for another screenplay from Damon that rivals Good Will Hunting. Maybe it requires that unique collaboration between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, but I get the feeling that Damon was the driving force behind that screenplay and that he can create another thoughtful, entertaining film that uses some of the wisdom he’s gained in the past 13 years. He’s got plenty of time left to write and to act and we’ll continue to follow his career with interest. There’s surely another Oscar out there waiting for him.
Matt Damon is shown on 7/29/09 and 7/2/09 and in stills from The Informant. Credit: WENN.com and AllMoviePhoto
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| | American Cinematheque is honoring Matt Damon! | | Added 14 years ago | Source: Seriously OMG WTF |
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Jimmy Kimmel might not have time for Matt Damon, but the American Cinematheque does. According to Variety the much honored award will be given to the Oscar winner in March and believe it or not this is first lifetime achievement. Who am I kidding? We are all shocked he is getting one, but considering they have already honored Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, John Travolta, Nicolas Cage (I attended that one) and Ton Cruise, who is else left Ben Affleck? Actually in all seriousness he deserves the honor because he has done some good movies and he just seems so likable, so good for him. And you know they will get some really good names to come out for him like Ben, his Ocean’s partners-in-crime and his f*cking buddy Sarah Silverman.
BTW since the honor will be airing on ABC, hopefully they will get Jimmy Kimmel to host the night. How freaking awesome would that be???
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| | Matt Damon takes clean-water advocacy to the next level | | Added 14 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Matt Damon was the co-founder of a wonderful charity called H2O Africa. The aim of the charity was to bring clean, drinkable water to the areas and communities in the African continent that are lacking. Not only are there substandard or nonexistent access to clean, drinkable water in much of the continent, but several countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been in the midst of a years-long drought.
Now Matt Damon and H2O Africa are joining forces with Gary White at WaterPartners to form a new organization: Water.org. Their goal? To bring ?clean, safe drinking water to some of the poorest communities on earth.? In the past few months, Matt has traveled to India and Ethiopia to view the situation with the lack of drinkable water. Matt made a press statement regarding the merger, and Water.org has full details about the merger:
Matt Damon, H2O Africa co-founder, and Gary White, WaterPartners executive director and co-founder, have joined forces to co-found a new organization ? Water.org ? a non-profit focused on bringing access to safe water and sanitation to the developing world. Water.org will leverage grassroots awareness-building expertise and nearly two decades of demonstrated innovation and success in the sector to help the nearly 890 million people without safe water and the more than 2.5 billion people without safe sanitation.
Matt Damon, a long-time advocate for safe water issues, explains the importance of launching Water.org. ?Every 15 seconds, a child in the developing world dies from water-
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| | Matt Damon and Ben Affleck Ante Up For Africa | | Added 14 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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My favorite celebrity dads, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, headed to Las Vegas on Thursday to participate in the third annual Ante Up for Africa poker tournament. The charity, co-founded by Don Cheadle with help from theWorld Series of Poker, or WSOP, has raised $2.1 million for Darfur up until this year. Last week’s tournament was a huge success and is expected to have raised a large amount of money for the war-torn nation. It was carried by ESPN this year, which should definitely help awareness:
Thursday was our 3rd annual Ante Up for Africa tournament at the World Series of Poker and it was a huge success. This year we had 138 players and we had a huge poker pro presence with Jennifer Harman, Chris Ferguson, Erik Seidel, Rafe Furst, John Hennigan and Phil Gordon all making the final table. We also had a bigger celebrity presence than ever before. Some of the celebs in attendance were Sarah Silverman, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Alexander, Nelly, Cedric the Entertainer, Herschel Walker, Charles Barkley, Dean Cain and Brad Garrett.
We congratulate our winner, Alex Bolotin!
Three years ago we founded Ante Up for Africa, a charity to raise money for relief efforts in Darfur through poker events. When we founded the charity we approached Jeffrey Pollack, the Commissioner of the World Series of Poker, who was so enthusiastic about the cause that he jumped in with both feet and had the WSOP partner with us. AUFA became an official WSOP event and our first year we raised $700K. Before Thursday our charity had raised $2.1m for the Darfuri people.
This year we were lucky enough to have the addition of ESPN covering the event as a full episode of their WSOP coverage. This will increase awareness which is so important to our efforts. The way to make lasting change in the region is through education and awareness because that creates passion in people, passion that gets communicated to governments and governments ultimately create change.
We raised a lot of money, brought awareness to an important issue and had a lot of fun in the process!
Our next event will be October 29th at San Manuel Casino. Please, come join us there and help Ante Up for Africa continue to do this very important work.
The dire crisis in Darfur is entering its sixth year. The conflict has killed 400,000 people and forced more than 3 million Darfuris to flee their homes. The recent expulsion of key international humanitarian groups by the government of Sudan in response to the International Criminal Court’s issuance of an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir has placed hundreds of thousands of the most needy at even greater risk and without access to medical care or reliable food supplies. President Bashir continues to utilize starvation as a weapon of war to silence his opponents and to distract the world from the key issues in Darfur. Now more than ever, there needs to be a dynamic international effort to move beyond simply treating the symptoms of Sudan’s crisis and focuses on ENDING it by forging a lasting and equitable peace for all of Sudan. If you want to learn more about the crisis in Sudan and what you can do to make a difference, visit www.enoughproject.org.
Our hope is that through efforts like Ante Up For Africa, we can continue to keep the issue in the spotlight while providing real funds to support a brighter future for the people of Sudan.
[From Ante Up For Africa]
Along with participating in Ante Up For Africa each year, The Oscar-winning screenwriters are heavily involved in charity efforts in Africa. Matt Damon visited Zambia and South Africa, and co-founded H20 Africa to bring clean drinking water to sub-Saharan Africa. Ben Affleck has made at least four visits to the dangerous Democratic Republic of Congo to chronicle the awful humanitarian crisis in the region, recording his story for Nightline and producing a short documentary he premiered at a UN event.
I love to see news about these two and especially Matt Damon. He seems to have lost the small amount of weight he gained to play a troubled executive in the true drama The Informant, about the ADM price fixing scandal. Damon was looking a little plumper, but still attractive as anything, at this same event last year.
Photo credit: WENN.com
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| | Ben Affleck & Matt Damon: life-long bromance | | Added 15 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have the never-ending bromance. Don?t even try to say that those boys are gay either, because that is so 1998. More than a decade after their Oscar win for best screenplay, Ben and Matt?s friendship is still really solid. They?ve weathered high-profile relationships, The Jason Bourne trilogy, rehab, J-Lo. And now both men are happily married with two daughters each (and Matt is stepfather to a third girl).
Ben is starting to gear up for the promotional tour of State of Play. The film looks really, really good, but Affleck is barely in the trailer, so I?ve got to wonder how much the studio is going to put him front and center to sell this movie. Perhaps it?s part of Ben?s multi-year public relations strategy to ?rebrand? himself from stripper-loving, J-Lo engagin? film poison to happy, well-adjusted, loving family man, actor-director and humanitarian. It seems to be working, so kudos to his publicist.
Affleck sat down with People to talk friendship, marriage and whether he and Matt will actually work together again:
They were close childhood friends, collaborated on the script for 1997’s Good Will Hunting and then won Oscars for it. And even after Hollywood success and “ballooning” families, Ben Affleck says his friendship with Matt Damon has not only gotten stronger, with shared vacations, but they’re planning another movie together.
“It’s cool,” Affleck, 36, told PEOPLE of his and Damon’s enduring bond, which includes mixing and mingling with their wives and kids. Affleck has two daughters with wife Jennifer Garner while Damon, also 36, has two daughters with wife Luciana Barroso.
“We went on vacation last summer,” says Affleck, who plays a congressman opposite Russell Crowe in the new thriller State of Play. “It’s nice. It always has been. He’s got his family ballooning, and we’re doing okay ? it’s nice.”
With the two having never veered from their shared Boston upbringing, Affleck observes, “I think it would be the same for anybody. You’re friends when you are young, you have a certain life. Then in your 20s you have a different life. In your 30s you get married and have families.”
Given such a perspective, Affleck adds, “It’s a different kind of satisfaction being around your friends, the friends you grew up with. They have kids, have barbecues and that kind of deal. That is really satisfying, too. It’s one of the nice things about having friends for a long time.”
Equally nice is that, with recent arrival Seraphina Rose joining daughter Violet, 3, at home, Affleck says, “I am very lucky. I feel blessed to look around and see that I’ve got a healthy family and a job. Especially nowadays, you really feel very good.”
When it comes to being a dad, he’s mastered many of the duties ? including how to mash bananas properly ? that his wife was once worried would require supervision.
“I’m in a pretty good zone right now,” says PEOPLE’s 2002 Sexiest Man Alive. “I say that, and I’ll go home to find everything exploded, [but] so far, so good.”
All in all, he says, “I really am happy with what I’m doing now. In fact, I’ve never been at a place where I’ve felt better about going to work every day. I’m more engaged and very, very happy ? I’ve really gotten comfortable with the things that are important to me.”
“Matt is always pretty busy but claiming that he’s going to try and slow it down a little bit,” says his buddy. “He doesn’t mind taking a year to wait. I would love to, it’s great, and we’re both busy. Matt lives in Miami, so it’s hard to get a chance to see him. If we work together it’s an excuse to hang out.”
[From People Magazine]
It?s nice that Ben and Matt are still friends, and I like how the relationship has evolved over the years. Part of the reason I think the gay rumor got some traction was because they were always together back in the day. As they?ve grown up, they?re more like college buddies who plan family vacations together once a year.
I totally forgot that People named Ben Affleck as the Sexiest Man Alive in 2002. What were they thinking? Ah, back when Affleck when hot stuff. The halcyon days of 2002. Brings a tear to my eye.
Here?s Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Luciana Barroso hosting an Obama fundraiser at SET in Miami on August 2nd. Images thanks to WENN .
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| | Matt Damon may play Jason Bourne a fourth time, but thinks he's too old | | Added 15 years ago | Source: CeleBitchy |
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Several months ago, Matt Damon sort of confirmed that a fourth Jason Bourne film would be coming, most likely to be released in 2010. As his film projects keep coming, Matt is sort of rethinking the whole thing. Matt tells Parade Magazine in their March 12 issue (story via PR Inside) that he feels too old to play Bourne, that ?after a tough fighting scene, the next day you wake up and feel your body more.?
Matt also confirms that the fourth installment is pretty much still in development, most likely because they?re not going to be working from a Robert Ludlum book, instead making a new Bourne story out of whole cloth. PR Inside has more:
Does Matt Damon think he’s too old to play Jason Bourne again in a possible fourth installment of the Bourne action films?
“Listen, when I did the first movie, I was 29 years old,” the actor, who first appeared in The Bourne Identity in 2002, tells Parade.com. “I am 37 now, and after a tough fighting scene, the next day you wake up and feel your body more. That’s just the way it is.”
However, Matt isn’t ruling out another return to the tough action hero after the box office hits of its two sequels, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.
“We’re working on it,” he says. “This time it would be from an original script rather than a book by Robert Ludlum. But the director, Paul Greengrass, is busy and I am too, so we’ll see what happens.”
From The Press Association Hosted by Google
It really doesn?t sound like Matt is too excited about it. I can understand his ambivalence. Jason Bourne is Matt?s most famous character, and the original or ?classic? trilogy of Bourne Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum are so brilliant and wonderful, it would be messing with something great.
Matt has always taken his career very seriously, and though I?m sure he?s grateful for the Bourne films (and the paychecks), he probably wants to move on to other characters. It would have been really nice if Matt and the producers had realized that they ended Ultimatum on such a wonderful note, they should just leave it at that.
Note by Celebitchy: Damon can play Bourne well into his 40s, and I think he should. The Bourne films are in my opinion the best action franchise going. I was really hoping these quotes were old, as he said something similar while promoting the third film, but Parade bills it as a new interview.
Here’s Matt Damon filming scenes for his film The Human Factor in Cape Town, South Africa with Clint Eastwood on 3/13/09. Credit: BARM/Fame Pictures
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