Matt Damon Famous Quotes
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I've gotten much better at multi-tasking. It's hard, though. But, writing a script is not totally focused. You're taking little breaks, all the time. If a kid runs in, you give 'em a horsey ride. It's a pretty fluid process.
Oftentimes when I'm deciding to do a movie, the main thing is really, that I look at, is the director. I've come to feel that more and more. The more movies I've done and the older I've - the more experience I have, I always knew it was a director's medium, and I always said that.
I usually play characters that are a lot different than me. I mean, I'm never in a fight in a movie and if I'm in them, I'm usually losing.
Now that I have kids, I'm probably more overprotective than I've ever been. My wife's nickname for me is 'red alert.' I sometimes check just to see if the kids are breathing. But I try not to be a helicopter parent.
As somebody who makes his living in the movie business and wants to contribute to it, I think that the best chance I have of doing that is just consistently working with great directors.
You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.
Right before 'The Bourne Identity' came out, I hadn't been offered a movie in a year.
I grew up in and the teachers. I think I was very lucky. I think I had a lot of social capital, and so when I found myself in this position of influence, I just - then I started to engage a bit with some of the problems in the world and realize that I could actually have an impact.
Success is not something I've wrapped my brain around. If people go to those movies, then yes, that's true, big-time success. If not, it's much ado about nothing.
When you have a child, your relationship with every child in the world changes. It's like you're in a club you didn't know existed before a child came into your life. I believe you should make the world more beautiful for all children in any way that you can.
As a struggling actor, you're not looking for parts that define you; you're just looking for work.
My parents divorced when I was young but I was brought up in two really loving households. I didn't have a contentious relationship with my mom or dad.
As for poker, I've stayed away from that, even though when I was in Vegas for Ocean's Eleven, I would get accosted by these guys begging me to play. They just want to take my money. They see me, think 'actor' and see some easy money.
Paranoid is what people who are trying to take advantage call you in an effort to get you to drop your guard.
My wife is my soul mate. I can't imagine being without her.
I fell in love with a civilian. Not an actress and not a famous actress at that. Because then the attention doesn't double - it grows exponentially. Because then suddenly everybody wants to be in your bedroom. But I don't really give them anything.
If you work at something, you get better at it.
If you can't help people, then what is the point of being successful?
Most films and directors lose their nerve and want to indicate [emotions] a bit more, to show that their story is clear. I'm not saying that's a good thing; as an actor its anathema to good acting, but to have someone with the confidence to say that should I be utterly natural and minimalist is great.
I'd had people say, 'You'll enjoy being famous for a week, and you'll never enjoy it again'. But I don't think I had that week. I may have been working and missed that moment.
You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much.
The only way I can describe it-at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you know how his heart grows like five times? Everything is full; it's just full all the time.
Eventually stardom is going to go away from me. It goes away from everybody and all you have in the end is to be able to look back and like the choices you made.
I can't think of any more important value to instill in our children than the desire to help others. I feel strongly about setting an example for them. Real problems can be solved by the next generation if we instill in them the right values.
Our kids are growing up with more privilege than we had; that's true for most of my friends in L.A. I don't know any actor who grew up with any particular privilege, so everyone wrestles with this. And I think, a lot of times, it's about being patient with your kids.
I've passed on a lot of huge-money jobs. Money doesn't enter into the decision-making. If I do a big blockbuster, it's about how big an audience you'll get and where you can take them.
Fame is really strange. One day you're not famous, and then the next day you are, and the odd thing is that you know intellectually that nothing in the world is different. What mattered to you yesterday are the same things that matter today, and the rules all still apply - yet everyone looks at you differently.
[Americans] can't understand that the water in our toilet is cleaner than 880 million have access to.
Skylar: There was this Irish guy, walking down the beach one day. And he comes across a bottle, and this Genie pops out. The genie turns to the Irishman and says "You've released me from my prison, so I'll grant you three wishes." The Irish guy thinks for a minute and says "What I really want is a pint of Guiness that never empties." And POOF! A bottle appears. He slams it down, and lo and behold it fills back up again. Well, the Irish guy can't believe it. He drinks it again, and again BOOM! It fills back up. So, while the Irish guy is marveling at his good fortune, the Genie is getting impatient, because it's hot and he wants to get on with his freedom. He says "Let's go, you have two more wishes." The Irish guy slams his drink again, it fills back up, he's still amazed. The Genie can't take it anymore. He says "Buddy, I'm boiling out here. What are your other two wishes?" The Irish guy looks at his drink, looks at the Genie and says... "I guess I'll have two more of these.
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.
There are a lot of things that I really question - the legality of the drone strikes, these NSA revelations. Jimmy Carter came out and said we don't live in a democracy. That's a little intense when an ex-president says that. So you know, he's got some explaining to do, particularly for a constitutional law professor.
It's an objective fact, that if you want to solve some of these huge, kind of bigger problems of extreme poverty, you have to include the women. They're the ones who will get it done.
It was shameful and embarrassing that there were two years in a row without a single actor of color nominated. That's insane.
Well, look, I have to go. Gotta' get up early and waste some more money on my overpriced education.
I started really young, like 12 or 13, and then I started doing school plays. We had a really good drama department, so the kind of drama-geek stigma wasn't really there in my high school.
People do things in the names of good, and in the name of ideals, but the world isn't that simple. So they end up doing things that aren't necessarily good. Even if they think they're doing the right thing, but when viewed from a different perspective they can look barbaric and crazy.
I honestly if I get a vacation I'm gonna go and sit on my couch in New York cause that's the one place I haven't been for a very long time.
If there's an idea I think is really good and I feel like I can write it, then I'll do it.
I think marrying somebody who's not a celebrity, it just takes a lot of the pressure off.
It's very frustrating [ to work under director's control], not just because you're getting rejected constantly, but also because you're at a time in your life where you have an enormous amount of creative energy, and there's no way to express it. That's why a lot of people get into drinking or drugs or whatever.
Some people get into this business and they're so afraid to lose anything. They try to protect their position like clinging to a beachhead. These actors end up making really safe choices. I never wanted to go that route. If I go down, I'm going down swinging.
Sending our kids in my family to private school was a big, big, big deal. And it was a giant family discussion. But it was a circular conversation, really, because ultimately we don't have a choice. I mean, I pay for a private education and I'm trying to get the one that most matches the public education that I had, but that kind of progressive education no longer exists in the public system. It's unfair.
For a lot of actors, our biggest fear is that we're going to start talking about things we don't fully understand and sound like idiots.
Liberty is a soul's right to breathe.
I think what makes a good actor's director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie.
Any moron with a pack of matches can start a fire. Raining down sulfur takes a huge level of endurance. Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, next to soccer.
Morgan: How fuckin' retarded do you have to be to get shit-canned from that job? How hard is it to push a fuckin' broom?
Chuckie: You got fired from pushing a broom, you little bitch.
Morgan: Yah, that was different. Management was restructurin'.
Billy: Yah, restructurin' the amount of retards they had workin' for them.
I should have done it years ago. It's amazing I didn't even want cigarettes anymore.
I never wanted to do the same kind of movies over and over anyway, so my theory on it all is I'm just gonna try and dodge the label and keep doing what I am doing.
I don't see as many movies as I used to. Or, I should say, as many movies as I would like to.
I found myself getting more publicly shy when the gala events and big crowds started. Some people embrace it. To me, it's not worth enough to risk my private life being public.
I think what's important for kids to know is that your decisions here on earth matter, your behavior matters and how you treat other people matters.
Will: Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you never met your wife?
Sean: What? Do I wonder if I'd be better off if I never met my wife? No, that's okay. It's an important question. 'Cause you'll have your bad times, which wake you up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to. And you can fail, as long as you're trying hard. But there's nothing worse than regret.
Will: You don't regret meetin' your wife?
Sean: Why? Because of the pain I feel now? I have regrets Will, but I don't regret a single day I spent with her.
Will: When did you know she was the one?
Sean: October 21, 1975. Game six of the World Series. Biggest game in Red Sox history. Me and my friends slept out on the sidewalk all night to get tickets. We were sitting in a bar waiting for the game to start and in walks this girl. What a game that was. Tie game in the bottom of the tenth inning, in steps Carlton Fisk, hit a long fly ball down the left field line. Thirty-five thousand fans on their feet, screamin' at the ball to stay fair. Fisk is runnin' up the baseline, wavin' at the ball like a madman. It hits the foul pole, home run. Thirty-five thousand people went crazy. And I wasn't one of them.
Will: Where were you?
Sean: I was havin' a drink with my future wife.
Will: You missed Pudge Fisk's home run to have a drink with a woman you had never met?
Sean: That's right.
Will: So wait
It's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.
All parents are trying to balance. Look, I'm lucky in the sense that I can control my hours. I can choose my jobs, and not everybody has that choice. But I definitely, it's a family decision every time I take a job.
That's the way this business works: if your movies do well at the box office, you will be offered more movies. It doesn't matter if you're a nice guy or you're a prick. If your movies do well, there's a job waiting for you in Hollywood. It's not any more complicated than that.
Before the days of video village a director should stand right next to the camera, look with his naked eye and if he sees something that is real to him, he'd look up at the [camera] operator and if he gives the look to indicate he'd seen it to, then you print and you'd move on.
I need to know if she [Sarah Palin] thinks dinosaurs were here four thousand years ago ... because she's going to have the nuclear code.
I'm always cautious about overstepping any boundaries. At the end of the day, it's a director's medium, and if they don't want to hear from me I just step back.
If we listen to the better angels of our nature, there are creative and good solutions to serious problems.
My heart goes out to the people of the city of Boston. My thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost loved ones in such a senseless and heartless way.
I'm not Brad Pitt or George Clooney. Those guys walk into a room and the room changes. I think there's something more ... not average, but everyman about me.
I'll play Pretty Pretty Princess with you if you just let me watch a little bit of March Madness.
Generally, the bigger the budget, the less interesting the characters become.
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.
Sean: …………And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my life apart. You're an orphan right?
[Will nods]
Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I re
Now I feel I have an unspoken deal with the paparazzi: 'I won't do anything publicly interesting if you agree not to follow me.'
The first time I smoked was at home with my mother and stepfather; they were like, If you are going to do this, we'd rather you did this with us.
Clean water is only as far away as the nearest tap, and there are taps everywhere. There's a faucet everywhere. But the reality is, the water in our toilets is cleaner than the water that most people are drinking.
And you know, we were talking about American identity, and where we've come from and where we are and where we're headed. We knew that we wanted to have a hopeful ending and we wanted it to be pro-community, and a pro-democracy type of movie.
Being known as a writer did change the relationships I had with directors. The rap on actors is that they always want to inflate their parts. But when directors know you write screenplays and have a different view of things, you really get invited into the huddle in a much fuller way. And those collaborations end in friendships.
The better the actor, the less you know about his life. I mean, nobody's better than De Niro and you don't know anything about him, right?