If there are scientific facts, such as the Theory of General Relativity or Murphy's Law, that seem irrefutable, in the cinema there are also some commandments based on their infallibility. One of them maintains that when Ben Affleck goes up, Matt Damon goes down. And vice versa. The careers of the two Bostonian friends have developed like two parallel roller coasters, in which their respective wagons intersect because of truncated personal relationships, bad artistic decisions or out of tune statements. And, obviously, good screen work and wise artistic choices; some even shared (they have made a dozen films together), such as
The Indomitable Will Hunting, Dogma
or
Chasing Amy.
Just a month ago, during the Cannes festival, it seemed that this law was breaking down.
Before the journalist appeared a 50-year-old Damon smiling and looking tired.
The night had been long, when the celebration of the gala premiere of his film
Cuestion de sangre was added
to the soccer triumph of Argentina in the Copa América: Damon's wife, Luciana Barroso, is Argentine.
Meanwhile, Affleck was enjoying his resurrected relationship with Jennifer Lopez and the two actors and screenwriters were preparing to present in September at the Venice competition
Final Duel,
a medieval drama that they have both co-written and co-starred with under the direction of Ridley Scott.
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But the balance was precarious. At the end of Cannes, Damon had to point out a few words from an interview in
The Sunday Times
in which, overjoyed, he had described a family dinner in which one of his daughters had risen from the table in scandal when her father told her about the hackneyed that it was the term "
fagot
(
fagot
)" in the Boston of his childhood and adolescence, and that he himself had pronounced it in
Pegado a ti.
"After that talk I have never used it again to refer to a homosexual," he said.
The fire on social networks was manual.
It was of little use that days later he clarified: "I have never called anyone fag in my private life and this conversation with my daughter was not a personal awakening."
It is not the first time that the actor does not measure his statements.
In December 2017 he showed that he had not understood the MeToo movement when he said, among other phrases: "One thing that is not being talked about is that there are a lot of men, most of them, who do not do this kind of thing" .
After a month he retracted.
Matt Damon in July in Cannes, at the presentation of 'A Matter of Blood.' Andreas Rentz / Getty Images
On the other hand, that midday in Cannes the waters were still calm. In the small room of a luxury hotel, the silhouette of a lonely Damon magnifies when he stands up to say hello. He asks if he can speak without a mask ("I'm vaccinated and I suppose you are too", argues the protagonist of the prophetic, in pandemic,
Contagion)
and apologizes for not talking in Spanish: "I understand it more than I speak," he points out with an accent very closed. For the sake of your family relationships, that is expected. "Yes, if not, I would not understand the talks between my daughters," he ends in English with a laugh. Damon and Barroso are the parents of three girls, and Damon adopted the daughter Barroso had previously had as a single mother. The theme of parenthood fuels the dramatic engine of A
Matter of Blood,
which opens this Friday in Spain and in which Damon plays a construction worker in Stillwater, in the deep America of Oklahoma. His only daughter is imprisoned in Marseille, convicted of the murder of her roommate. When she asks for his help to delve into a new clue that could show her innocence, Damon's character moves to the French port city. "For once, the superhero is simply a father," he explains.
“When I choose a script, I decide on intimate details, as in this case the relationship that the two characters rebuild in France.
It has nothing to do with me, because mine carries a lot of shame and guilt for not having been more present in your daughter's life before.
The nice thing is that he is a lost character, who neither understands what is happening around him in France because of the idiomatic abyss, nor does his skills as a worker serve him for any human relationship ”.
Father's love
That is why he recognizes that, as a father, he loves his character: “I love him. Surely I will not agree with him on almost anything, but I like his emotional journey towards sentimental wisdom. That is why he also defends it: “He never apologizes for his values, close to Trump, or his beliefs, which serves to reflect certain misunderstandings between Europeans and Americans. Those people will always vote Republican, and I understand, even if I don't share, their reasoning and their support for industries like oil ”. From there it goes to Marseille. “Boston and Marseille have a similar energy for their working souls. If you leave the typical tourist circuits, in both cities you feel that impulse. In that sense, I felt at home, surrounded by weathered familiar faces ”.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, in Los Angeles in October 2018, during the World Series of Baseball between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers.Jerritt Clark / Getty Images
On the similarity of the plot of the Tom McCarthy drama with the Amanda Knox case, the actor acknowledges that he was indeed "fascinated for a time with that story."
A week ago, Knox explained on social media: “By setting aside my innocence in fiction and my absolute lack of participation in fact, by erasing the role of the authorities in my unjust conviction, McCarthy reinforces the image that I am a guilty and unreliable person ”.
And in
Variety,
she clarified: “I am not discussing legal arguments [McCarthy had replied that it was not based on his case].
I am discussing human arguments ”.
In a master class two days before the interview, Damon recalled the various times he has almost directed a movie. "I've been about to direct several times," he details, "I almost did it with
Manchester facing the sea
.
"
Are you a quasi-director? “Yes, it is a good definition. Spielberg told me to start my first film small, not to cover too much. Surely I will do it with a script of my own, but I get too many good proposals as a performer ”. In your heart, in what percentage do you feel like an actor and as a screenwriter? Damon has been nominated for an Oscar three times as an actor, once as a producer for best picture for
Manchester
by
the sea,
and he has only won it as a writer along with Affleck for the script of
The Indomitable Will Hunting.
“When Ben and I started writing decades ago, we played all the sequences;
As an actor, today I feel the voice that tells me that something is not well written.
I cannot divide it, and for that I am grateful to be an actor and a screenwriter ”.
Matt Damon, in his new film as an actor and screenwriter, 'Final Duel'.
Damon confesses to being passionate about acting. He grew up in Cambridge, the university city attached to Boston, and there in a theater course for children he met Ben Affleck; In a classroom on that campus they wrote the first treatment of
The Indomitable Will Hunting,
and at the age of 18 he debuted with a phrase in a
Mystic Pizza
dialogue
.
Since that time it does not stop. “I don't believe in theories, I do believe in work. And I enjoy, for example, the differences between theater and cinema, in the use of the physical, the looks depending on where you are working. In cinema I pay a lot of attention to the size of the screen, because the physicality of characters like the one in A
Question of Blood
adds a lot of information to the viewer.
In Stillwater, I saw a lot of these workers, muscular from their daily work.
In their movements you feel their strength ”.
Have you ever chosen a movie for the money?
“No, notice I turned down
Avatar
because
I
was engaged to
Bourne
.
I have never chosen conservatively, acting in a film without risk, at least I think so.
Years ago I chatted with an actor, I cannot say who, and it became clear to me that he was going to participate in a project that did not appeal to him at all and that meant being pigeonholed into a cliché.
I thought, 'Treasure this conversation for the future, because I have to avoid that feeling anyway.
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