Oh that Matt Damon*. He usually just tells the same stories over and over again in his press tours, so it’s nice to see him very occasionally bitching about politics. I get the sense that he’d like to say stuff like this in every interview, but that he holds it in until it comes seeping out like steam from a boiling kettle. Remember when he called Sarah Palin “absurd, like a bad Disney movie” way back in 2008 before that was pretty much the accepted opinion about her? A quick glance at our archives reminds me that he’s also expressed discontent about Obama, whom he campaigned for, earlier this year and last year. So he does mete out his political opinions rather judiciously.

In a new profile in Elle, they seem to realize that the most headline worthy Damon is one that has a strong opinion. The bulk of the piece is just an overview of his life and career. There aren’t many quotes from Damon in the story, but the ones they do include at the end pack a punch. I wonder if he said a bunch of other stuff and they just left it out, or if they only asked him about Obama.

Is it mere coincidence that today, just down the Vancouver street from where Damon sits, the first day of Occupy Wall Street–offshoot wildfire has flared up over the border? “I’ve talked to a lot of people who worked for Obama at the grassroots level. One of them said to me, ‘Never again. I will never be fooled again by a politician,’ ” Damon says, his disappointment ringing with a now-familiar tone of wounded idealism. “You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.” Damon gestures in the direction, just out of sight over the tree line, of the sign-wielding picketers who are beginning to gather steam. “If the Democrats think that they didn’t have a mandate—people are literally without any focus or leadership, just wandering out into the streets to yell right now because they are so pissed off,” he says. “Imagine if they had a leader.” And, as on the day of that DC rally, it is momentarily possible to get swept up in the moment, to imagine—however ridiculously, whether in reality or coming soon to a multiplex near you—exactly that.

[From Elle.com]

I don’t disagree with him, but I think it’s much more complicated than just blaming the President. I like angry/impassioned Matt Damon the best though. He’s the sexiest when he gets worked up about something. This guy has said multiple times that he’s not going to go into politics, but I don’t believe him. It may take another 10 to 15 years, but I expect to see him try.

*Note that I wrote that before I checked E! Online this morning and saw that they started their article on this story the very same way. Great minds.

Here’s Damon campaigning for Obama in 2008. He’s also shown in December and September of this year. Credit: WENN and Fame

Note that I wrote most of this story focusing on the angle that Damon is leaving the door open to return to the Bourne franchise, and explaining his beef with the current writer/director. Then I listened to the full interview and he gave more quotes about Brad and Angelina, yet again. So if you’re interested in that part of the story and don’t give a whit about Bourne, you can skip to the end, the part after the second line.

To recap – in GQ Damon was quoted as saying that screenwriter Tony Gilroy handed in a script for Bourne Ultimatum (the third movie, he also wrote the other two and the upcoming fourth, starring Jeremy Renner as another spy) that was “unreadable.” Damon said “I don’t blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in. It’s just that it was unreadable. This is a career-ender. I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that dude. It’s terrible. It’s really embarrassing. He was having a go, basically, and he took his money and left.” Later in that GQ article, the journalist explained that Damon called him up afterwards and tried to smooth over his statements. Damon said “If I didn’t respect [Gilroy] and appreciate his talent, then I really wouldn’t have cared.. My feelings were hurt. That’s all. And that’s exactly why I shouldn’t have said anything..” Only of course GQ still ran those quotes, because they were awesome.

On The Business, Damon gave the background for why he said all that about Gilroy: he was filming another movie that just happened to be right next to the offices for the fourth Bourne film. Gilroy is both writing and directing this version, which Damon clearly considers a travesty. He’s loyal to director Paul Greengrass (who also has issues with Gilroy) and has said that he’ll do another Bourne movie only when Greengrass is on board.

In a radio interview with this reporter for KCRW’s The Business, Damon explains that he was caught off guard in Vancouver on the set of his next film, Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium, when he found himself next to the just-opened offices for The Bourne Legacy, the fourth movie in the franchise, which is being written and directed by Gilroy — and has no role for Damon.

Those offices “opened up right outside my trailer,” says Damon. “I was seeing this every day, and then I came back to New York and did this interview and kind of blurted it out. … It was idiotic of me to say anything. At the end of the day, it’s between me and Tony, and we’ll figure it out or we won’t.”

The sight of that office was so disturbing because of a deep years-long rift over who is the true keeper of the Bourne flame: Greengrass, who directed the second and third films to ever-growing grosses, or Gilroy, who has been a writer on every Bourne. As a result, it is not clear that Damon ever will reprise the Jason Bourne role, though he says that’s what he wants to do.

The first Bourne film, directed by Doug Liman, was a deeply troubled production, and Gilroy, along with producer Frank Marshall, pulled it back from the brink. But when Greengrass came on to direct 2004′s Bourne Supremacy, he and Gilroy began to loathe each other. “Paul and Tony have clashing styles,” says a source with knowledge of the conflict. “Tony does all the work before and delivers a finished script. Paul wants the script to be ever-evolving during shooting.” But Damon believes the director is king, and his loyalty was and is to Greengrass.

So Gilroy would not even have worked on 2007′s Bourne Ultimatum, except Greengrass couldn’t develop a script in the time allotted. And the clock was ticking: Not only had author Robert Ludlum’s estate imposed a timetable, but also the studio did not want to let Bourne disappear for too long. “It was an important franchise,” says Stacey Snider, then chairman of Universal. “We went to Tony and said, ‘Can you come up with something?’”

Gilroy did, and though Damon bashed him for walking away after writing one (allegedly lousy) draft, several sources including Snider say Gilroy had made it clear that he would do only one draft and possibly a revision because he was committed to his directing debut, Michael Clayton.

Damon’s allegation that the draft was “unreadable” is something that Snider and others dispute. Universal co-chairman Donna Langley says she was “thrilled with the script Tony submitted and greenlit the film based on that script.” (Greengrass subsequently brought in other writers, including Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi, who were awarded credit alongside Gilroy.)

Bourne Ultimatum grossed a robust $443 million worldwide, and Universal naturally wanted another movie. The studio had backed Greengrass in making the $100 million-plus bomb Green Zone with Damon in hope of keeping them on board for the next Bourne. But again, Greengrass failed to come up with a workable script in the time
allotted.

In November 2009, with Greengrass still uncommitted, top Universal brass — Ron Meyer, Adam Fogelson and Langley — flew to New York, took Damon to dinner and explained that they wanted to move ahead. Damon said that for him, there was no Bourne without Greengrass.

After that, says Langley, the Ludlum estate turned again to Gilroy, who had an idea for a script. This one would focus on another agent (Jeremy Renner) but leave the door ajar for Damon’s character to return. To Damon’s camp, this seemed like good news because Universal had considered pulling a “Bond,” simply replacing Damon in the lead.

Fast-forward to October 2010, when news broke that Gilroy would write and direct the next movie. No one from Universal had informed Damon that Greengrass was being replaced by his old adversary. The studio has not discussed it with him since. “It certainly wasn’t an omission for any reason,” says Langley. “You just have to move on with your business.” For now, she adds, “the franchise can live on [with Renner]. If at some point it can include Matt Damon, fantastic. If it can’t, we’re reconciled to that.”

Damon says he fully expects to return to Bourne. “I think if [Bourne Legacy] doesn’t work, we can just ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen, and that’d be fine,” he says. “But I expect that it will work and only help us if we did another one, which I’d love to do.”

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

To me the takeaway from this is that Damon really cares about Bourne, that he’s committed to that character, and that he’s open to doing another one. Whether that will ever happen given the complicated issues between director Greengrass and the studio remains to be seen. It is to Universal’s credit that they didn’t just replace his character with another actor. They’re going to make bank either way, and there’s no other Bourne than Damon.

There’s more in Damon’s interview with The Business, including how Cameron Crowe wooed him to play the lead in We Bought a Zoo. (Crowe brought Damon his intended soundtrack and a film called Local Hero that he wanted to capture the mood of.) Damon also talked about Brad and Angelina yet again and added Aniston in there for good measure. The dude has talking points. I’ve heard him repeat himself several times in this press tour. (He told the same story about a young barista in Starbucks to both Parade and on The Today Show.) So I don’t think he is fixated on Brad and Angelina so much as he just says the same things over and over again. (He also repeated on The Business the same thing he said on The Piers Morgan show about coming to terms with fame.)

On the paparazzi and Brad and Angelina
When there’s potential sex or scandal, that’s really what sells those magazines. My life now is so normal that it’s not really worth their money. They go after the picture that’s going to make the money. If you look at Brad and Angie, they’re not doing anything to encourage it and yet what these magazines do is they just make up new stories about Brad and Angelina and Aniston and like, that marriage ended 6,7, 8 years ago. I don’t know, but they just try to keep it going so those pictures are worth something. But in my case there’s just, I really lucked out. I fell in love with a woman who’s not in the business… When you have two actors who are kind of in the spotlight that really increases things.

On Ben Affleck’s tabloid predicament after J.Lo
That was horrible. During that time, talking to him, he was very… sober about what it meant for his career. He knew that it meant he was going into the penalty box for an undetermined amount of time. The worse place you could be is where you’re selling magazines instead of movie tickets. That’s really purgatory, it’s really tough to get out of that. The good news is that what it took for him to get out of there, was what it took for us to get our careers going in the first place. We had to write our way into the game. He had to do it again. With Gone Baby Gone, he wrote that and it was beautiful and he directed that… That still didn’t break him out of jail. He did Hollywoodland and he still couldn’t get out, so he finally did The Town. He wrote that, directed it and starred in it because it was the best acting job he could get, and he was great. And the movie was great, and now it looks like he’s back on the list.

[From KCRW's The Business]

We get it, Damon has a happy family, is a devoted husband and father and he’s above rapproach. I hope that’s true. I hope Lainey’s blind item about Cuba is in no way about him. Or if it is, that it’s not true. He’s awesome, even if he’s like a cranky old dude who tells the same stories every time you see him.

Matt Damon is one the cover of GQ for their January, 2012 issue. As opposed to his sexy Parade cover, which just happens to be sitting on my desk next to me (despite the fact that I’ve already read it of course), he looks rough. Maybe I just like him when he’s not smiling and looks a little surly, but they also Photoshopped his lips pink so it looks like he’s wearing lipstick. Plus his chin looks too long to me. The photos of Damon inside are decent an he’s even wearing a tight revealing t-shirt in one of them. You can see the slideshow here. Matt doesn’t say much we haven’t heard from him before in the interview, but he does dish a little dirt about the Bourne franchise.

MATT DAMON ON OBAMA’S COMMENTS ABOUT HIM AT THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER:
Over the years, he has spoken up about public-school teachers (he supports them), the middle class (he thinks they’re getting the shaft), and President Obama (he feels he’s not delivering on his promise). At the White House Correspondents’ dinner this year, Obama responded directly, saying, “Matt Damon said he was disappointed in my performance. Well, Matt, I just saw The Adjustment Bureau…”

Damon tells me he didn’t see that speech live but got thirty e-mails from friends the next morning and watched the president’s remarks online. “I have to say, it was pretty funny,” he says, getting in his own dig: “Whoever came up with it, it was a terrific joke.”

ON WALKING AWAY FROM THE BOURNE FRANCHISE:
With the Bourne franchise, which has earned more than $1 billion worldwide, he has proved his box-office clout. And then he turned his back on it, at least temporarily. What other A-lister would have walked away from the fourth Bourne film (and an estimated $20 million payday) because, he says, he and director Paul Greengrass felt that the tight timetable set by the studio would endanger its chances of being good?

Damon says they had no choice. “If you look at the first three movies, we kind of pounded that idea of identity and amnesia into the ground. We really got everything out of it that we could. So to reboot it, we need to come up with something completely new,” he says, explaining why the eleven-month turnaround that Universal Pictures wanted didn’t feel doable.

He says he’s “really pulling for this one, even though I don’t have anything to do with it. Selfishly, it’s bad for me if that movie doesn’t do well.” He says he still feels “inoculated” by the franchise—as if it protects him from having to do anything that could be bad for him. “It feels like I can swing freely, like a baseball player—just be relaxed and really do the things that I want to do and not worry, because I know there’s another one out there.”

…ON TONY GILROY, THE WRITER/DIRECTOR BEHIND THE BOURNE FILMS (INCLUDING THE FOURTH):
Damon says that back in 2001, when the first Bourne movie, The Bourne Identity, was still in postproduction, Gilroy saw a rough cut and got worried. “The word on Bourne was that it was supposed to be a turkey,” Damon says. “It’s very rare that a movie comes out a year late, has four rounds of reshoots, and it’s good. So Tony Gilroy arbitrated against himself to not be the writer with sole credit… to have another guy take the bullet with him.” And so someone named William Blake Herron is now cashing residual checks on Bourne, just like Gilroy is. (Actually Damon may have gotten his chronology wrong—one source says Herron initiated the credit dispute, but that Gilroy didn’t oppose sharing credit.)

Gilroy wrote Bourne 2 as well: The Bourne Supremacy. Then, Damon says, for The Bourne Ultimatum, the third in the franchise, Gilroy struck a deal to write just one draft of the script, take no notes, do no rewrites, and get paid “an exorbitant amount of money.”

“It’s really the studio’s fault for putting themselves in that position,” Damon says. “I don’t blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in. It’s just that it was unreadable. This is a career-ender. I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that dude. It’s terrible. It’s really embarrassing. He was having a go, basically, and he took his money and left.”

[From GQ]

In his Parade interview that was out this Sunday, Damon said essentially the same thing about Obama’s joke about him at the Correspondent’s dinner. He said “Anybody with a sense of humor is okay on my list.” I don’t really grasp the politics of the Bourne movies, but I wonder if Damon is throwing Gilroy or the studio under the bus by admitting that the guy cashed in and delivered a script that was unreadable.

There’s more in the full article on GQ, including the tidbit that Damon and Ben Affleck are working on another script together. We’ve heard for some time that they were working on some sort of baseball wife swap movie, based on a true story. That seems to be on hold indefinitely, and Damon told GQ they’re working on a biopic of an Irish mobster from Boston named James “Whitey” Bulger. Affleck will direct and Damon will star as Bulger. It will take a while before that comes to fruition, though, as Damon is going to work on a screenplay with John Krasinski first.

Here are Damon and his wife, Lucy, at the NY premiere of We Bought a Zoo last night, He still looks weird to me without hair, but I like that he’s rocking it.

Update: As Lainey points out, Damon backtracked on those comments about Tony Gilroy. He called up the journalist and said “If I didn’t respect him and appreciate his talent, then I really wouldn’t have cared… My feelings were hurt. That’s all. And that’s exactly why I shouldn’t have said anything. This is between me and him. So saying anything publicly is f’ing stupid and unprofessional and just kind of douchey of me.”

Photo credit: Ben Watts/GQ and WENN.com

Matt Damon is on the cover of Parade Magazine this week to promote the new Cameron Crowe film, We Bought a Zoo. I keep seeing ads for it and I’m hoping that the film is a success. There’s been some buzz that it will suffer due to the exotic zoo tragedy in Ohio, and probably as a result they’ve focused some public service ads on raising awareness of large cat conservation. In Parade, Damon discusses fame, privacy and his family, which are common themes for his interviews. He also compares his situation to Brad Pitt’s, which he’s done before, and says that as opposed to Pitt the paparazzi leave him and his family alone. Parade has some outtakes (we’ve excerpted some below and there’s more here) in which tells a couple of awesome stories about Pitt and Ben Affleck. He also drops an interesting new tidbit here, especially for a Bourne fan like me. Damon reveals that he deliberately didn’t go shirtless in even the first Bourne movie when he was in the best shape of his life. (I disagree, he was too thin there and needed to gain a few.) The way I read it, he realized that it was a slippery slope and that if he started going beefcake in the first movie, he’d have to do it for years to come. That sucks for us. Here’s more:

Despite his movie star status, Damon keeps his life private, especially compared to some of his famous friends.
“Brad and Angie, there’s much more pressure on them than there is on me. He [Pitt] asked me what my everyday is like. I said, ‘Well, I grab the kids from school, and then we go over to the park.’ And he was just looking at me, like, ‘How can you do that?’ Because he can’t.”

Damon’s theory on why he can keep a low profile:
“I’ve been left alone, even by the paparazzi, because what sells is sex and scandal. Absent that, they really don’t have much interest in you. I’m still married, still working, still happy.”

On being the father of four girls, ranging in age from 13 months to 13 years:
“I jumped into the deep end with Lucy. I mean, Alexia was already 4. I was an extra dad…The only way I can describe it – it sounds stupid, but – at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you know how his heart grows, like, five times its size? Everything is full; it’s just full all the time.”

On staying away from shirtless scenes:
“On the first Bourne movie, I was in the best shape of my life, and we purposely never did a shot of me with my shirt off. There’s one scene where [Bourne’s lover] is pulling the shirt over my head, but what the camera sees are the two bullet holes in my back. It’s not gratuitous; there’s a point to it. I try to stay away from the beefcake shots.”

On the paparazzi plaguing his famous friends.
“Brad [Pitt] has told me stories. . . . He threw a cheeseburger at somebody. The guy had followed him to the drive-thru and Brad was like, ‘Can I just eat my cheeseburger?’ The guy pulled up next to him and Brad ended up throwing it at him, and they both looked at each other in total shock for a long moment. Neither of them could believe that it happened, you know? And then the guy went to raise his camera, and Brad sped off. So he did not get the picture. Brad left that experience feeling like, ‘Well, I didn’t get to eat my cheeseburger. I really wanted it.’”

“At the height of the whole thing with Jennifer Lopez, I remember Ben [Affleck] telling me about one of his days off. It was a Sunday, and I think he’d been shooting, like, six-day weeks. The gas tank in his car was full, and he pulled out of the driveway where they were living, and there were 20 cars there waiting. He just drove toward San Francisco, checking the gas gauge. When it was halfway full, he turned around and drove all the way back– driving for five, six hours. He never got out of the car. I saw him after that, and it was a circus, people taking pictures. I said, ‘How are you doing this?’ And he told me that story. He said, ‘I was so angry at these guys for invading my life, that I was taking the very little free time I had and wasting it, in order to get back at them.’ I think he kind of broke through to this other place. He said, ‘I just can’t give it any more energy.’”

[From Parade]

That story about Affleck driving around for hours reminds me of when Britney used to do the same thing just to get some peace. Damon also talks about working with John Krasinski and Dave Eggers on writing a screenplay, and about how he doesn’t tie his identity to his fame or movies. I love reading his interviews, he’s wise and has a lot to say. The print edition of Parade will have even more on Sunday, and I’ll be sure to pick it up. I’m also really looking forward to We Bought a Zoo. It looks cheesy, but if anyone can pull that movie off without making it too schmaltzy, it’s Damon.

Also, he looks so much better with hair than he does bald, but I’ll take him either way.

Here’s Damon outside the Late Show on 12/6/11. You can watch his interview here. He comes on at 24:00 in. Photo credit: Fame

When Reese Witherspoon was called out by PETA for carrying a (gorgeous) python handbag, Reese didn’t respond at all to their letter about the poor pythons suffering for fashion and instead just started using a different bag. In Reese’s case, she was able to ignore PETA but tacitly acknowledge them by putting the bag away, and PETA gloated about it a little. They’re an insufferable organization and Reese probably knows that it’s best not to directly address them. Well Matt Damon can’t say the same. PETA called him out for attending a bullfight in Mexico (photos are here and he looks like he’s having a great time), and then he personally called them and said that he doesn’t support bullfighting, that bullfighting is awful, and that he was just doing research or something.

We wrote to Matt Damon as soon as pictures of him at a Mexican bullfight surfaced—and within 24 hours, he personally telephoned PETA Vice President Lisa Lange to correct the false impression that he had given,” PETA’s Jane Dollinger tells RadarOnline.com.

“Matt said that he went to the bullfight believing that bullfights should be stopped but felt that he should see the cruelty for himself while he was in Mexico. He said that seeing with his own eyes what these tormented animals go through only reinforced an already strongly held belief that bullfights should be relegated to the history books.

“He also said that he was upset to think that his attendance was in any way construed to be an endorsement of such a barbaric activity.”

[From Radar]

This is the right stance to take on bullfighting, and I’ll give Matt Damon this – he probably called them instead of issuing a statement because he wanted to get the least publicity for this as possible. Knowing PETA, he had to realize that they would go public with this information about his shameless ass-kissery. I guess I don’t blame him. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t where PETA is concerned. I’m surprised they don’t issue press releases whenever a celebrity is photographed eating a steak. You know they would do it if they could get away with it.

Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana, are shown at the Contagion premiere on 9/7 and at the Venice Film Festival on 9/3. Credit: Fame and WENN.com

The story of all the slaughtered exotic animals in Ohio makes me incredibly sad, especially after seeing the photo of the poor creatures laid out dead on the grass. You wonder if authorities could have handled it more humanely and if the lives of those endangered animals could have been saved. It’s no one’s fault except for the awful man who collected them and set them free, and police were just trying to make sure that no one was harmed. I wonder if they could have done it differently and asked for large animal veterinarians to help before they shot them dead, but it’s hard to judge from the outside. The Human Society has issued a statement that they “do not fault [authorities] for using lethal force” in that case. This article on CNN explains how tranquilizer darts don’t work as effectively or quickly as we might think, and can actually agitate animals and make them more dangerous. Cops may have legitimately feared for their lives and the lives of nearby citizens and may have had no other way to defend themselves than to put the animals down.

A lot of people are saying that no one should have been permitted to privately own that many exotic animals at once, or really at all. I guess they’re relatively simple to obtain at auction and there are no regulations against ownership of wild animals in Ohio. Never one to pass up an opportunity for publicity, rabid animal rights group PETA is asking the upcoming Cameron Crowe film, We Bought a Zoo, to include a warning against ownership of exotic pets in its promotional materials and on screen during the credits. We Bought a Zoo is out on December 23, 2011 and stars Matt Damon and Scarlet Johansson.

Based on Benjamin Mee’s memoir, the film stars Damon as a father who moves his family to the countryside to help save a struggling zoo. Johansson plays a keeper at the animal park, which is home to an assortment of lions, tigers, zebras and bears, among other creatures.

PETA says it has sent a letter to Zoo director Cameron Crowe urging him to include a warning at the end of the movie about the dangers of owning wild animals.

“We Bought a Zoo conveys the misleading and downright dangerous message that no special knowledge—just a lot of heart—is needed to run a zoo,” PETA’s Lisa Lange said in a statement.

“As the tragedy in Ohio gruesomely illustrates, wild animals aren’t Disney characters. They have very special needs that all too often aren’t met by people who buy them on a whim because they think it would be cool to own a tiger.”

PETA has asked Crowe to also insist that 20th Century Fox, the studio behind the film, include warnings on all marketing materials, including movie posters.

There are up to 15,000 captive big cats in the U.S., mostly privately owned, according to the animal rights group.

A rep for Fox did not immediately comment.

[From E! Online]

I hate that I’m defending PETA here, but it’s actually a reasonable request and they’re not mocking anyone or sounding especially rude in the letter they’ve sent to Crowe. (That we can tell.) It’s not like they’re calling for a boycott of the film, or the movie to be pulled or anything. Compared to some of the crap they usually pull, this is pretty “tame.” It’s also quite clever, for PETA, in that they’re using a recent event to raise awareness and sympathy without alienating people by condemning anyone. I’m sure they’ll do something next week that’s just as outrageous as we’ve come to expect from them, though.

Here’s the trailer for We Bought a Zoo. It looks really good and that child actress is adorable.

Here are some new photos from the Contagion premiere last night in NYC. For such an all-star cast, I’m surprised by how few A-list celebrities showed up for the premiere. Maybe everybody was exhausted after Venice…? Perhaps. Anyway, Matt Damon is always a good promotional soldier, so he and Lucy were there. Plus, Marion Cotillard walked her first red carpet (I think) since giving birth to baby Marcel. She’s still breastfeeding. Marion wore Dior Fall 2011, which is lovely. I like the detailing on the gown, although I think many of the gorgeous details might get lost in photos. My only problem with Marion’s look is her hair. These braids… they are not flattering. She has such a pretty face, but the hairstyle makes her look matronly, dated and square-faced.

Now for Lucy and Matt. When I covered the photos of them in Venice, many of you absolutely hated Lucy’s gold gown, especially the way it fit at the top. Some of you even whispered some stuff about breast implants. Can I just say… I agree. I think Lucy got her boobs done after giving birth and breastfeeding all of those babies. I think Matt is a tit-man, and Lucy got ‘em done. I’m not judging – obviously, Matt can’t keep his hands off of her, and I think it’s kind of cute that she got her boobs done for him. Plus, she looks great in turquoise. Matt looks nice too.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

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Matt Damon was just on the Today Show brightening up my morning with his deep voice and new chrome dome. (That video is above.) He’s promoting Contagion, the killer virus movie by Steven Soderbergh. It’s out this Friday and fingers crossed that it will dominate the box office. I know I’ll be seeing it.

To start the interview, Matt Lauer wore a face mask and said that he uses Purell all the time and found the movie terrifying. Damon explained that it was based on real science and that he learned filming the movie that the people at the Center for Disease control are excellent scientists. He said they “are really a competent, capable, dedicated group of people. … I feel like there’s a great group of minds that are constantly vigilant about protecting us.”

As for the takeaway from the film, Damon said “Don’t panic.” Here’s more:

On remaining calm in the event of a potential real-life outbreak
“That’s the quandary that a lot of these people when they have this information are in. ‘How do we disseminate this information in a way that creates the least amount of panic?’

“When you think about anthrax, which killed two people and shut down an entire airline industry. So if we can’t kind of take a deep breath and count to ten and make a reasonable assessment of what we need to do… the media incidentally is a bit part of that.”

On if the media makes too much of these health scares.
“You’re under pressure to get people to tune in. Fear sells a lot better. In a real situation like that, I think the media would have to resist the temptation to sell the panic because that would actually be putting gasoline on the fire.”

On making six movies with Soderberg
“We’re shooting [the Liberace movie] next summer. I could talk your ear off about him. He’s just a brilliant director. This movie he used just two lenses. The camera’s at eye level the entire time, it moves only when the characters move… When I stand next him and he’s directing I just learn so much, and I’m always very proud of the movies we make.”

On his bald head
“It is [for a role] but it is called the Lauer. [The movie] is called Elysium it’s coming out in 2013.”

On his girls going back to school.
“Red alert [the nickname his wife gave him] is going to be there. Lot of drop offs tomorrow. We have a seventh grader starting a new school,I love it. I used to walk to school as a kid; I just love that part of it. We have a 7th grader starting a new school, and my kindergartener is really excited because she’s going back to school and seeing her friends…. [The 3 year-old] still doesn’t know she’s going to school!”

I know this guy says he’s not going to go into politics, but he would be a damn natural at it. Once he amasses his millions and another Oscar for acting this time, he needs to look into it. He’s gracious, funny, smart and continues to impress me as one of the most genuinely decent actors around. I know there are rumors about him (read the comments on this earlier post) but I don’t believe them at all. You can’t kill my crush, damnit!

Here’s the trailer for Contagion again.

Photos are from the Contagion premiere in Venice on 9/3/11 and of Matt arriving. Credit: Fame Pictures, WENN.com and Kika Press, PacificCoastNews.com

I’ve already covered the photos of Dame Goop at the Venice Film Festival, so here is her costar, Matt Damon and his shiny head too. I know he shaved his head for a movie, but I really, really dislike this look on him. He looks so much hotter with hair. But! I like that now that he’s 40, he’s finally “filled out”. Long gone is his boyish, skinny (but built) body – his face has filled out and he seems like he’s carrying around twenty pounds that he’s never going to lose. It looks good on him. Sidenote: can you believe that he’s 40?!?! When did everyone get so old?

Anyway, here’s Matt and Lucy at the premiere of Contagion. Lucy wore Gustavo Cadile, which looks kind of like vintage Badgley Mischka, or current Elie Saab. I don’t love the dress, but I think it’s kind of cool and unusual that Lucy is showing off her tan lines. In the age of fake-bakes and tanning beds, it’s nice to see someone who came by their tan the old-fashioned way. I always like that Lucy looks like a normal person – she’s really pretty, sure, but she looks like a normal mom of four who just happens to be married to a movie star. I also like that Matt is groping his wife a bit – that’s his hand on her ass. Now we know why she keeps getting pregnant.

By the way, Matt told reporters that his wife’s nickname for him is “Red Alert” because of how he fusses over their kids. Matt said: “I’m probably more protective than I’ve ever been now that I have children. My wife [Luciana]‘s nickname for me is ‘Red Alert.’ I sometimes check to see if the kids are breathing. I tend be a little overprotective without trying to be a helicopter parent.” Aw… is it possible that Matt is really and truly this nice and decent? Is it possible that he loves his wife and kids, that he has a great marriage and that he’s truly the exception to the “Hollywood douche-cheater” rule? Fingers crossed.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Today is a very special day! Today is the day that CB finally allowed me to write about her boyfriend, Matt Damon. Usually, CB snaps up these Damon stories faster than Luciana gets knocked up. But not today! I think CB let me have this one because it involves Matt talking about Damn Gwyneth Paltrow, his (gulp) friend. Yes, everybody’s favorite buddy/boyfriend/son-in-law, Mr. Normal and Grounded, is friends with Dame Goop, mistress of the humble-brag (“The Dalai Lama says my tofu is the best.”).

Anyway, Matt and Gwyneth worked together years ago in The Talented Mr. Ripley. They were friends before that, of course, because Matt and Ben Affleck were stuck on each other as BFFs, and Ben and Gwyneth had been dating for a few years by then. Years passed, everybody got married to other people and they all became parents and now Gwyneth and Matt are working together again – in Soderbergh’s Contagion. I really don’t want to see Contagion – not because I’m scared that it could happen in real life (if it happens, it happens), but because I think the film will trigger my hypochondria. Even the trailer triggers it a little bit, and I’m sitting here feeling very itchy. Anyway, Matt still adores Gwyneth. And he’ll make you nauseous when he describes her skills:

Matt Damon’s past list of co-stars includes some of Hollywood’s best, but Gwyneth Paltrow’s work on the upcoming plague movie “Contagion” impressed the actor in a completely new way.

“I was reminded of just how amazing she is, she’s a really special actress,” Matt told Access Hollywood at the movie’s junket on Sunday.

“More so than anybody I’ve ever worked with, she’s got an ability to turn it on and off. Like she can just be talking about anything and then when they say, ‘Rolling,’ it’s like she snaps, she just locks in, in a way that I don’t understand, ‘cause I can’t do it,” he explained. “I’ve worked with a lot of great actors and one thing that happens for me is that a great actor is so good that they pull me right in… that’s how I feel when I do a scene with her, I’m instantly brought in because she takes me there.”

Matt was happy to re-team with the actress he last co-starred with in “The Talented Mr. Ripley” in 1999, when they were both single and not yet parents.

“We were talked about kids a lot, it was nice to reconnect,” he told Access. “We were very young when we made that movie… It feels like a lifetime ago.”

Matt also joked during the interview that he has a gender picked out for Ben Affleck and Jen Garner’s upcoming third baby.

“I really hope it’s a boy,” the actor joked. “No, I think that you always cross your fingers for a healthy kid… Everybody would settle for a very healthy, beautiful baby.”

Speaking of beauty, the actor recently had to shave his head for the upcoming Neill Blomkamp sci-fi movie, “Elysium,” a look that he’s digging.

“I love it… I get to keep it until about Thanksgiving. That’s when the movie ends,” Matt said. “I’m actually really enjoying it. It’s real easy, real low maintenance and that I like.”

And despite a political call to action from filmmaker Michael Moore, Matt said he’s staying in Hollywood and not heading to Washington D.C.

“I would never give up this great job that I have; I love making movies; it is way more fun than being a politician,” he explained. “It’s what I’ve spent my adult life doing and it’s what I’m good at. It’s what I like, so I’ll hang here.”

[From Access Hollywood]

Of course Matt is a pro. Of course he would never bad-mouth a costar. Of course he’ll say that he likes Gwyneth, and openly praise her, as many celebrities do. That’s the thing about Gwyneth – only celebrities like her, I think. Maybe because she’s only nice to fellow celebrities?

Regarding the rest of his quotes – I think it’s a little funny that he still gets questions about Ben Affleck, like they’re still connected at the hip or something. I haven’t heard anything about Matt and Ben hanging out in a while – maybe because Matt is always working and Ben is always doing….? Something not involving his wife. And although I would love to see Matt Damon run for office (I really would), I kind of like that he shuts down the speculation immediately instead of flirting with the idea and leading everybody on.

(Yes, I’m slightly loonie for Matt – I just never get the chance to let my freak flag fly!)

Photos courtesy of Entertainment Weekly, Fame.