Found in the Chicago Tribune: And, Damon adds, because some other Hot Young Thing soon will dominate
the
nation's magazine racks, "I'm going to pig out on the hotel's mini-bar while
I
can."
When Matt was on Leno, he got a bunch of his friends together to watch it. He didn't want to miss himself on TV so he got a bunch of his friends together to wake him up to see himself.
Matt did one entire Rainmaker scene (this was probably cut out of the movie...I think...) with his er...genitals hanging out of his pants to get a reaction from Jon Voight.
Matt wanted to become a professional basketball player before someone told
him that he was the tallest Damon, and he was only 5"11.
A cute little story: one day, when he was about 16 or so, he went with
Ben up to New York to meet Ben's agent, who had arranged an audition. They
thought they would be meeting with the president of Disney, and instead
were auditioning to be Mouseketeers!
Matt is quite a "slob", claims Ben Affleck, who said that one day he had
come home to see Matt watching TV beside a box of old sushi that had maggots
eating through it. (Ugh...)
Matt says he was the best pitcher in the Little League. (How cute!)
He really gets into his roles...to get into the part of Rudy Baylor for
the Rainmaker, he went to Tennessee and tended a bar there to hear the
stories of the townpeople and he attended some college football games.
Matt met Ben when he was 10, and Ben was 8.
Matt and Ben attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin Public High School (thank you Agg for correcting me!) together,
and there were two cafeterias in the school, one of them was called the
media cafeteria, and it was smaller. Matt and Ben would often go there
and hold business lunches together! (Matt says, "we would take our
cheeseburgers and sit down in the media caf, and we would talk business.
(laughing) There was nothing to talk about!")
Ben claims that Matt was usually the one with the girls over because Ben
himself was afraid to call women.
Good Will Hunting came out of a 40 page, one act play that Matt was supposed
to write for his English class in Harvard.
When they were children, Matt and other friends looked at Ben as
the "big star" because he was in a PBS series called "Voyage of the Mimi.
Another little story (from Premiere): Matt was living with a high
school buddy and Ben was sleeping on their couch and times were bad, when
suddenly the phone wouldn't stop ringing, and offers poured in. Then, an
old girlfriend of the high school buddy called and he got on the phone
and started talking to her. Ben and Matt screamed and swore at him, made
him hang up and continued to wait by the phone. The night that their screenplay
was finally bought, they spent the night drinking at Matt's house.
Good Will Hunting was originally supposed to be directed by the person
who had directed Little Big League. Matt and Ben weren't happy with this,
and Mel Gibson was called onto the job. (Matt and Ben were so busy, they
hadn't seen Braveheart.) Mel was busy filming Ransom, so he said he probably
wouldn't be able to direct for another year. Matt and Ben weren't happy
with this, they wanted it done right away, so they politely refused Mel
to direct. Matt says afterwards "We must have sounded like such arrogant..."
Matt was raised in a communal home at one point.
As a child, Matt and Ben and others would play theatre games, and even
do plays.
In the Premiere article, Matt teases Ben about playing the caterpillar
in a play version of Alice in Wonderland!
A little something about Matt and Minnie: Matt met Minnie when she auditioned for Good Will Hunting. When he and she did a romantic scene together where Will Hunting says "I don't love you," 5 men in the room had tears in their eyes.
After reading everything
I could get my hands on about Matt, I still think he sounds like such a
grounded and regular human being. It's just great.
Got any
stories you heard about Matt? (Sorry, they must be true!) E-mail
me!
