Matt Damon on the training he went through to prepare for Invictus

Awards Daily points to this great article and interview about what Matt Damon went through to prepare for Invictus. As Awards Daily points out, he went from gaining weight for The Informant! to having to bulk up to play the captain of a rugby football team. And in rugby, they don't wear pads like in American football, so he had to be ready for some physical punishment on the field. Matt Damon was amazed that the story of the team captain, Pienaar, and Mendela was true.

But after looking up Pienaar online and seeing photos of him, Damon was also incredulous he'd been asked to play the part. "Clint, this guy is huge," Damon protested. "We've never met, but I'm only 5 foot 10."

Eastwood started to laugh. "Oh hell, don't worry about that," he said composedly. "You go worry about everything else!"

Damon had six months to master an elusive South African accent and pack some new muscle on a frame that – because European rugby is a sport that doesn’t use the protective gear of North American football – would be facing pulverizing punishment on the field. He would be playing a real-life character who, in the course of his career, has broken his nose 14 times and received 400 stitches to his face.

“I had to build myself up to try to pull off the illusion of being the captain of a South African rugby team,” Damon says. “Ultimately, I was trying to look at every possible pitfall: What are the things that could possibly blow this illusion?”

That’s the way Damon works: thinking hard about a role long before he hits the set. “So I kind of made my little checklist of things to do.”

The 39-year-old actor will always remember his first meeting with Pienaar. He and Freeman received an invitation to Pienaar’s house for a gourmet dinner the South African sports icon was cooking himself.

“He invited me to meet his wife and two boys, and Morgan and I went, and I remember I rang the door bell and I looked UP at him! The first thing I ever said to Francois Pienaar in my life was – ‘I look much bigger on film.’ And he laughed and laughed and gave me a big hug and took me into his house, and that was it.

 Read the whole great article here.   I think this is going to be a fantastic holiday film.

Matt Damon - Character Actor

The NY Times did a great profile of Matt Damon last week, saying he's an A-list character actor:

Details matter to Mr. Damon, who has put together his quietly impressive résumé with a curatorial eye, working his way to the top of the Hollywood heap while avoiding the traps of a typical A-list career. “The leading-man stuff doesn’t come easily to me,” he said. “I’ve always felt like a character actor.”

Matt Damon has had an incredible year, with an amazing performance as Mark Whitacre in The Informant! and upcoming roles in Invictus and The Green Zone.  His list of upcoming films is also very varied and very interesting:

Mr. Damon is solidly booked for much of the next year. After “The Adjustment Bureau” he’ll work with Mr. Eastwood again in the supernatural thriller “Hereafter.” He’ll also be in the Coen brothers’ adaptation of Charles Portis’s novel “True Grit,” opposite Jeff Bridges; George Clooney’s “Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld,” about the United States government’s case against Osama bin Laden’s driver; and Mr. Soderbergh’s film about Liberace, with Michael Douglas as the kitschy pianist and Mr. Damon as his bodyguard and lover.

It's definitely worth reading the entire article. And no surprise, Matt wants to direct.

Invictus Trailer

From director Clint Eastwood, 'Invictus' tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) joined forces with the captain of South Africas rugby team, Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africas underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.

Invictus is due out December 11, in time for Oscar consideration.

The poem 'INVICTUS', quoted in the trailer, is by William Ernest Henley, from which Nelson Mandela drew strength while in prison.

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."

Green Zone Trailer

We finally get our first look at Matt Damon in Paul Greengrass's Green Zone. The movie is due out in March of next year.

But are audiences ready yet to see a movie about the Iraq war?

Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon teamed up for all of the Bourne films, and this has a similar look. The action thriller stars Matt Damon as a CIA operative trying to on the trail of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Jason Isaacs, Brendan Gleeson, Greg Kinnear and Amy Ryan also star.

The Informant! - Film Review

The Informant! is a very interesting film. I read in an interview with Matt Damon, that Steven Soderbergh told him that they couldn't remake The Insider with this movie, and boy, they sure didn't. The Insider, with Russell Crowe as the whistle blower, was a tense suspenseful drama. Matt Damon's Mark Whitacre seems to think he's in that kind of a movie at all times, but Soderbergh has found a deft comedic tone for this film. It's not a laugh out loud comedy, but similar to a wry Coen Brothers film. The craziest thing about The Informant! is that it's based on a true story. Mark Whitacre worked with the FBI for over two years to expose the lysine price fixing at Arthur Daniel Midlands. This story was all over our local papers in Chicago at the time, but I had no idea the twists and turns that it took.

Roger Ebert found this quote in the Decatur paper from Mark Whitacre:

“It's like I was two people. I assume that's why they chose Matt Damon for the movie, because he plays those roles that have such psychological intensity. In the ‘Bourne' movies, he doesn't even know who he is.”

Mark Whitacre went to the FBI with information about the price fixing, and seemed to delude himself that by being the whistle blower he would end up running the company. He was a very highly paid executive in the company, and Soderbergh filmed in his actual mansion in Decatur, Illinois.

Matt Damon is amazing in the film. He walks that fine line, fooling his bosses by being such a blunderbus. Matt Damon had only a few moments to show his comedic talents in the Oceans Eleven films, and this film is his showpiece. With the crowded field this year, I don't know if he will garner an Oscar nomination, but he deserves one. At one point in the trial, Matt Damon says the exact words that Whitacre said in his statement to the court, but Soderbergh asked him to do it as if it was an Oscar awards acceptance speech. We'll see if he gets to give a real one.

Scott Bakula is perfect as the FBI agent, and his partner is Joel McHale from Talk Soup. I was also amused to see both Smothers brothers in cameos (Tom is the judge.)

I give this film three and a half stars. It's very entertaining. Interestingly, Mark Whitacre is still married to Ginger and he's CEO of his own company.

Matt Damon Loses It in Entourage Finale

I'm practically crying from watching this. Hope to get to The Informant! today. It's just so funny, because Matt Damon has such a nice guy rep.

The Informant! Trailer

I didn't realize when I saw the set pics of Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre that this was going to be a comedy!

Michael Douglas as Liberace???

Okaaaay. Variety reports:

Steven Soderbergh is in the early stages of developing a biopic about Liberace for Warner Bros., which he will direct.

The filmmaker said he has drafted his "Traffic" star Michael Douglas to play the flamboyant pianist.

Richard LaGravanese (P.S. I Love You, The Bridges of Madison County) is writing the script, and Jerry Weintraub will produce.

Soderbergh is in discussions with Matt Damon to play Scott Thorson, who sued Liberace in 1982 for $113 million in palimony, claiming he was the entertainer’s companion for five years. Even though Liberace never wavered from career-long denials that he was gay, Thorson reportedly settled for $95,000 in 1986.

Um, not the news I was expecting in my inbox from Variety this morning. I'll reserve judgment, but it's a little difficult to picture at the moment.

Matt Damon slams Palin

Watch this video of Matt Damon expressing his doubts about Gov. Palin's qualifications. "It's like a bad Disney movie!"

Nice Hair, Matt

Matt Damon walks to the set of his new movie, The Informant, in Los Angeles on Wednesday. The film, directed by Steven Soderbergh, stars Damon as Mark Whitacre.

Sarah Silverman, still feel the same way about Matt? LOL

I TOLD you to clean your ROOM!!

Actually he's protesting about Darfur.