the Oprah Winfrey show

Oprah: A month ago nobody knew his name, well what a difference one month makes. Matt Damon is hot, hot, hot. He is Hollywood's golden boy. The next big thing, the face of tomorrow. Starring roles in The Rainmaker and Good Will Hunting have catapulted him onto Hollywood's coveted A-list of top young actors. Well just a couple of years ago he starved himself to get noticed in Courage Under Fire. He's not starving anymore. Directors are throwing scripts his way, critics are singing his praises and that Oscar buzz has begun. The story of Good Will Hunting sounds like a movie itself. They're two life long best friends, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, wrote a script and after years of sweat and struggle they finally got the script made and not its this huge movie called Good Will Hunting. Please welcome Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Well the people say you're (referring to Matt) hot. They say your smoking. Now the people aren't quite sure what that means. What does that mean? Audience member: I love his smile. O: Oh my god, his smile. Now is this what you thought would happen during the days when you were spammin' it? Matt: No, not even close. Actually Robin used to scream on the set. Robin: (screaming) Its Matt, Its Ben. He's so hot. Oh!!!! O: Has it always been this way, Ben, he's the one who gets all the attention? Ben: Always, all the time, yeah you know.... M: I don't know what you're talking about. O: I think this is the coolest thing cause everybody knows that I have a best friend, Gayle. I think what would it be like if we ended up writing the script that became the hugest hit. What does it feel like now? M: I can't wrap my brain around it, actually. It's just so amazing. If you could have seen us a couple of years ago we really had nothing. We had nothing. O: What's nothing? M: Well he (referring to Ben) was living on my couch. B: I'm still living on the couch M: And we couldn't really make the rent and uh... O: You were friends since you were what? 8? M & B: Yeah O: That is the sweetest thing. B: I was 8 and Robin was 32 and he and the rest of the guys took us in. (jokingly) O: So you've been buddies and lived in 10 different apartments, I hear. M & B: Yeah. O: And you wrote the script when you(referring to Matt) were in school. M: Yeah, I was in college and started writing it in English class and didn't know what to do with it, so I showed it to Ben and we kind of decided to write it together. We really wanted to take our time with it so we put it on the shelf for about a year and then eventually one night we were up probably doing nothing productive and we just started talking and the script poured out from there. O: How did you start the process, Ben, to sell it? B: You know the process of trying to sell it is sort of like it either happens or it doesn't. We already had agents as actors and you know, I think we weren't the first actors to tell their agent, like you know, we wrote a script. O: Right, everybody does. B: Luckily he was a nice enough guy to read it, and then decided well you know, its not any worse than any of the other scripts and so he just decided to try to sell it, and its not you know, I guess it's like publishing or a lot of things you know, the agents just sort of send it out to people and then you know, through using smoke and mirrors and lying to them you know this is great you gotta read this. Eventually they get somebody to read it and you know they do whatever it is they do to get people to buy it. O: Where were you guys when you found out it was sold? M: We were at our house in Los Angeles and uh our agent actually came to the house. It was like such a big thing. He was there and he was kind of finishing it up um the deal on the phone. The phone rang and we thought it was them and we picked up the phone like Hello (nervously). And um it was a call for our friend from high school. Some Girl, and he gets on the phone and he's like "hey, how ya doing" we're like hang it up, hang up the phone. So you know we were...Thank god for these agents too because we really would have taken anything that was offered so they stopped telling us kind of what was happening until the very end because it happened over a four day period. O: And you would've taken anything? M: Oh anything. O: Like....what? M: Like a piece of chicken. R: So you work for parts? The colonel sends over a bucket of chicken. It's all yours. Here you go, and for a breast I'll give you everything. Sold buddy. O: And so you got lots of money for it. I'm not gonna ask what you got but you got more money than you expected? M: More money than we ever had B: More money than we earned in a lifetime . O: Really? B: Yeah, which is you know 20,000 dollars, Oprah. $20,000. O: 'Cause you're no where without the words. People pay a lot of money for scripts in Hollywood. They do because you're no where without the words. M: And they paid us a lot less then they would've, if we had not been in it. B: That's the thing. The really sort of outrageous thing was that nobody knew who we were and they said "this is great. We could get some really good actors for this." and we're like no, no, no we're the actors. And they were like "Yo, you're the actors. That's sweet, that's cute." O: So how hard was that to do--it is one thing to have a script, it's another thing to be able to do it your way. M: yeah, it took 5 years. O: To find somebody who will do it your way? M: Right, and we found Gus Van Saint, who we think is the greatest director around, and he did it our way. B: And the script got kicked around for a long time. And Harvey Weinstein and Miramax really sort of rescued us and helped us and let us say--you know do it in a way--not our way but get somebody like Gus who we thought would be terrific and let him do it his way. O: Now whose decision was it to call up the crazy guy here (referring to Robin)? B: I don't know, somebody who over ruled me, I can tell you that right now. R: Send it to Jack. It would've been a lot different. So it's all about your problems, buddy. O: You all do--you (Ben) really don't have any scenes as I can recall right now, with Robin, but you (Matt) have some marvelous scenes with Robin. M: Its actually interesting that you showed that scene where he was talking about his wife and her sleep. B: And her flatulents. M: Because that was a good example of something that Robin did a lot cause in that scene-- B: It was a struggle. It's like Robin open up. You can improvise you can do your own thing. You're so shy. R: Thank you master Affleck. Just get me a piece of chicken. I'll work. O: So.. M: So, Robin just started talking about his wife farting, and I just started laughing so that scene is just us really laughing.. O: So that's not what you wrote? M: No, no. R: So that's a disclaimer for those watching at home. B: It a scene from Robin's life, that he wanted to share. R: Oh god. (laughing). He's kidding. B: His wife's back there watching. I'm gonna go backstage after like, how did you like the--(fake slapping himself) R: Sit down, boy. The truth is the thing is so good, it didn't need--that was probably the only time I really opened up like that, because the writing is so good you don't have to add anything to it. improvising with great is like putting tits on a bull, not that a bull's not going nice. But I think it was--the writing was so strong--every word--I mean there's that speech by the swan boats that is so powerful that it doesn't need anything--and even then you just want to make everything correct. O: What was it like hearing Robin say the words that you guys had written years ago for the first time. M: Oh that was amazing. Well the first day that it had happened it was pretty emotional actually cause we went to the set and we went as writers, which we never had done before because we're actors, and we kind of showed up like "we wrote it" B: Which in Hollywood is kind of like, we cooked those steak 'em sandwiches. It's like you're the writer, good, you wanna just stand away from the action. O: Leave the actors alone, yeah. M: And we watched Robin and this actor Stellin Skarsgard, who played the professor who is wonderful Swedish actor um we shoed up and we're just kind of standing there and watching Robin. The scene started and they said scene 41 take 41. Roll, sound, speed, marker, action. By the time they said action tears were just falling down my face. I couldn't believe it, and he started to talk and I looked up at Ben, and Ben's doing it too. It was a really profound moment for me. it was like 5 years of our lives, and it would not have happened if Robin didn't do it. O: Good Will Hunting, you know that all comes through on the screen, you know all of that--I think that the passion and the energy and the kind of commitment. All of that comes through on the screen, although we didn't know this particular story. Don't you feel that? You feel that kind of love and commitment, and everybody says when they're watching the movie, he wrote this, did you know he wrote this, they wrote this, oh my goodness. Next they're not only talented and going to be really really rich, really really soon, they're single and lately been linked to some of Hollywood's most beautiful women. O: Ok. Here's the love life segment. Let's talk about your love lives change since you hit it big. Has anything changed? B: Let's not Oprah. Let's not talk about that...Not really you know, I'm still just standing out there going like, hi I'm Ben, nice to meet you, and just walk on by. But this guy(Matt), he's on fire. Let me tell you. O: Did he (Ben) just slide over that way. that was good. Boy are you happy (referring to a screaming audience member). So nothing's changed? Nobody you wanna talk about dating or anything? B: Just Robin and that whole thing, but it almost broke up his marriage. (joking around) R: One night O: What's changed for you (Matt)? M: Well I'm single, (pauses while audience screams). I was with Minnie for awhile, but we're not romantically involved anymore. We're just really good friends. I love her dearly. R: The lines are open. Line 2. O: It's really easy to fall in love with your leading lady though, isn't it? M: Um, I don't know. I haven't done that much to kind of have any sense of whether or not that will happen again. O: But are you guys friends till the end of the time? M: Oh yeah. I care about her a lot. We care about each other a lot. We just decided it wasn't meant to be, and if it's not meant to be, then it's not meant to be. O: That's really adult of you. M: Well, thank you. O: I'm gonna let you slide (Ben). R: Don't go cobra on me. Mmmmmhmmmm. (joking around) I won't go there. O: Tell me this. What did you guys do to celebrate when you first got the big check? What'd you do? M: Oh, Chris Moore-- B: Chris Moore, a friend of ours who was gonna make the movie kind of independently, and for no money, was a really terrific producer, and believed in this movie from the very beginning came over to our house and brought a bottle of champagne. M: A bottle of champagne that he had for three years, that somebody told him when something great happens in your career you can open this bottle of champagne. So he brought the bottle over. O: I hear y'all went to Sizzler. M: Oh, we went to Sizzler. B: Let me tell you about some all you can eat shrimp at Sizzler. You know what I'm saying. We went a little surf and turf. they said $6.99, then I was like you know what? The works. R: Then someone says I'm sorry sir you have to leave now, we have no more shrimp B: I think we could do a Sizzler commercial. Everyone's like we're going to Disney World. We're going to Sizzler. O: I read somewhere that you (Ben) said that you guys are such good friends, that he would be the first one you call if you woke up and there was-- B: A dead hooker in my hotel room at 3 am. I said that to people magazine, and they wouldn't print it. They called me up like "hi, we're doing a profile on Matt Damon and we were wondering, what do you think of Matt. What's your friendship like?" and I said Matt's the first guy I would call if I woke up in a hotel room with a dead hooker. "Thank you, thank you very much." It's from The Godfather, you know, those two guys, the senator and they put the hooker in his room and then they kill her and then they set him up. It was a reference. It hasn't happened to me, but if it did happen to me. I would call Matt. That's friendship. M: That's the kind of friends we are. O: And what kind of friend is he (Ben)? M: You know, he's a pretty good friend. (joking around) B: I'm the kind of friend who will call you up at 3 in the morning and say there's a dead hooker in my room. You know you'd call Gayle if the same thing.. you know. O: Not the same thing. Let's not go there. Did you always want to be an actor, I know you (Matt) wrote on your entry to Harvard that you always wanted to be an actor. Did you (Ben) always want to be an actor? B: I was sort of being an actor before I knew it. It was more for me going I kind of like this. It seemed like something--when your young it's just about being comfortable. My mother and father didn't want me to be an actor. O: So now that we have this Oscar talk going on for you guys. Good Will Hunting is undoubtedly going to be nominated for best original screenplay, and what's that gonna be like? M: Oh, God. B: I don't know about undoubtedly. I'm just like come on 7. O: Well you know we get a vote, aren't you nominating it (to Robin)? R: Yes ma'am. O: Yes. R: I'm nominating myself. Hey. I'm not gonna lie. O: Yeah, and what does that feel like, even to have the talk about it. M: To tell you the truth, it's all been so absurd, that it seems like the only fitting way to kind of put a cap on it all. It's just incredible for us. It's absolutely incredible that people are even saying that. B: It's sort of like stepping into someone else's life. It was not long ago, that we'd be sitting at home and the phone wouldn't be ringing, and we'd be watching Oprah like these guys aren't that good. We're better than these guys. You know what I mean? And then all of the sudden you're out there and it's like there's an audience, and its a very surreal very weird sort of transition to make. O: I love Matt's description. It is hard to wrap your brain around it. Next we're gonna find out how Matt almost killed himself for a role. I heard the president watched it. Did you guys watch this with the president? B: We heard the president saw it, and like it. O: You heard the president saw it? B: Yeah. M: Anything else and we probably have to kill you or ourselves. O: You know the president saw it though. R: Yes ma'am (imitating secret service) O: Did the president like it? R: Yes ma'am we hear that too. B: If 7 guys in suits and telephone wires show up at your house, you'd be all quiet. O: But the president saw it? R: Yes ma'am the president did see it. O: Did the president say anything to anybody here? R: He turned to me he said you know Matt's hot. That boy's attractive. I'd walk 15 miles in the snow to stand near that man's garbage. That man is hot. You could cook on that man's forehead. O: That's gotta be a good feeling you know the president of the U.S. saw your film. M: It's the ultimate feeling. B: Talk about not being able to wrap your mind around it. You know what I mean? Oh really. B-Bill Clinton the president of the U.S.? Oh wonderful. I voted for him, he saw my movie. You know. O: It's pretty good. You (Matt) lost 40 pounds for Courage Under Fire? You almost killed yourself for that. M: When the doctor finally sat me down, after and he said the good news is that your heart didn't shrink. Then he ran all these test. I mean I ended up on medication for a couple of years. O: So tell us why. M: I needed--I wanted the role to be--yeah those aren't the real pictures (referring to pictures they showed from Courage Under Fire). O: We're gonna try to find some real ones. M: It was like a before and after thing. They were shots from what was supposed to be from desert storm and then the effect of that and to show what kind of happened to this guy, I wanted to mark a difference so one was 180 pounds and one was 139 pounds. And the director wanted to cut from my fact to my face to really show the kind of ravaging effect. O: So what did you do to lose-- M: I ate nothing but egg whites and chicken, and I ran 12.8 miles a day, every day. O: On egg whites and Chicken? M: And low carbs, one baked potato to 2 baked potatoes a day. O: You could get real sick doing that. M: I did. Yeah I did. It was really stupid. Well what happened at the time was I wasn't really a big enough actor for the studio to pay for a nutritionist and I didn't have the money to pay for one so I was like well I'm 25. I'll just do it, and so I did. O: I bet you can get a nutritionist now. M: It's like suddenly now I don't want a nutritionist, and now they're giving me one. O: We were just talking during the commercial break about how in many of the reviews your name wasn't even mentioned in Courage Under Fire, even though you gave an incredible performance there. M: I wanted to quit acting after that, and it was Denzel Washington who would go out an publicly say this kid--and he would mention me. O: Were you intimidated first working with Denzel? M: Oh yeah. I almost couldn't talk. I started--I quote lines to people from their movies. He would--in these scenes I was just sitting across from Denzel-- B: (jokingly) Now Denzel's hot, come on. M: And you know "now at any time did captain Walden--during the rescue did captain Walden" (imitating Denzel) and he would just kind of start doing this thing, and I started doing Malcom X you know "We didn't land on Plymouth rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us" (imitating Denzel) and I started doing all this stuff and he started doing it back, and so that kind of a big kick for me so he loosened me up really fast that way. O: What about when he goes back to the house(talking about good will hunting) What about that scene? Oh my goodness M: When we wrote that scene, it was the hardest acting moment in the story with out giving anything away, but that moment on the porch. He doesn't say anything., and it's to be able to-- O: He doesn't verbalize anything but he says everything. M: Right, right. O: When we come back, we'll talk about Ben and Matt's new movies. Saving Private Ryan's pretty good I hear too with Tom Hanks directed by Steven Spielberg. You're (Matt) in that too? Busy. M: Yeah that was the chance of a lifetime to work with Spielberg. Unbelievable. And Mr. Hanks O: And Mr. Hanks M: Yeah he's not to shabby either, so that's gonna come out in the summertime, and I really-- O: Spielberg really is a genius, isn't he? He's a fun one. M: Oh without a doubt. When I first met him and you know I was on the set, he said "you wanna see a movie I made when I was 14? It was my first war movie." cause this is a war movie. I said sure, and he shows me this. It's got like dolly shots going into over the shoulder, and I'm sitting there watching this thing--at 14 years old and I said wait a minute, did you.. and he said yeah I used that in Raiders. O: Are you and Spielberg friends (to Robin) you and Steven? R: Oh yeah M: Robin introduced me to him. R: We were shooting in Boston they were shooting Amistad in the commons and we went over and said hello. Maybe that was the first time he saw you(to Matt) M: Yeah. R: He said you know this man is hot. O: I heard a story that originally he'd seen you in courage under fire and thought you were too skinny. M: Yeah. O: And so he wanted you for Private Ryan but then he saw you at the lunch with Robin and thought maybe you weren't to skinny. M: And thought oh yeah, this guy-- O: Is normal. M: He said, do I know you? are you the guy from--and I said yeah. He said did you gain some weight? O: We're gonna see you (Ben) in Armageddon this summer. B: With Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thorton and Steve Buscemi. O: You all are working. B: And Liv Tyler. O: Flubber is still out there. R: Still working. It's fun if its a fun children's movie which is great. A little kid walked up in New York after the premiere "Are you going to platform this or go wide? January 12, 1998