THE BROTHERS GRIMM
Q&A with Matt Damon		 Search all of phase9.tv






Take a look at the 1988 film MYSTIC PIZZA. While Julia Roberts will certainly grab your initial awareness as the star of the film, pay close attention during the dinner sequence to the kid who plays Adam Storke’s younger brother. Though he only says one line, for Matt Damon, that was the line that launched a screen career.

Though he did appear in some school plays, the Boston native did not declare his intent to act until he attended Harvard in the late 1980’s. Initially finding the road a bit difficult, Damon discovered that competition was tough for actors his age and though he appeared in a few well received films, notably SCHOOL TIES and COURAGE UNDER FIRE, it was not until he took matters into his own hands that his career solidified. Along with childhood friend Ben Affleck, they wrote a script about a troubled mathematics genius that went on to become GOOD WILL HUNTING, not only securing leading acting assignments for each but an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as well.

While it seemed all was bliss for Damon, making films with Robert Redford and Francis Ford Coppola, the 34 year - old admits that after he filmed THE BOURNE IDENTITY in 2001, he did not receive another film offer for one solid year. But what a difference a day makes for when that film opened to big box-office; thirty offers were on his agent’s desk the next day. Needless to say, he has not looked back since.

A self proclaimed “nice guy” in a town filled with sharks, Damon has managed to stay above the fray of gossip mongers and paparazzi. Declaring to one reporter that he probably cares “too much about what others think of me”, he acknowledges that acting has allowed him the opportunity to be somebody who wants to be all things to all people. One look at his eclectic choices and the answer is clear that he just might be achieving that goal.


Growing up, what was your own relationship to fairy tales?

DAMON: My mom read me the Grimms Fairy Tales. We had a book were I still remember the jacket of it. I actually didn’t remember how dark they were though. I think my mom might have edited a little bit. I was a little surprised when I re-read them for this film how macabre they were.

It is interesting how people talk about how dark and violent comic books are today but they are almost tame compared to the darkness of some of these stories.

DAMON: Comic books don’t have anything on the Brothers Grimm. Parents probably tell their kids more sanitized versions of them anyway.

So what makes them so interesting?

DAMON: I think there are life lessons in them. If you re-read them, you can see some judgments in life but more than that for me, I thought they were the first step that you could make up stories and go into these other worlds. I think that is the primary functions in which they serve for kids is that it can allow you to have this imagination and give you permission to tell stories.

When in the process of this film did you come aboard? The script had been floating around for a while.

DAMON: I came on last. Terry was already on it. I was doing STUCK ON YOU and I got this call. I couldn’t believe that the script was still available. The first thing I asked Terry when I spoke to him was why Johnny Depp was not doing this film. I was sitting with Chuck Roven and Terry and Chuck said, “No, we want you. We want you.” Terry was just sitting there and asked him. He said that they wouldn’t let him do it with Johnny. Three months later PIRATES OF THE CARIBEAN opened and I am sure they were kicking themselves because they could have had Johnny Depp (laugh). I was really amazed that a great role like this in a Terry Gilliam film was still available.

There was talk in the beginning of you and Heath playing the others character.

DAMON: Yeah, Heath and I switched roles. At the time when it was offered, I was offered Jacob. Heath and I both lobbied Terry to switch roles because I always play the Jacob role and Heath felt he was always the Will role so we wanted to flip flop. Terry said he did a similar thing with Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt for TWELVE MONKEYS and he switched them.

As an actor, what did you find interesting about the journey that Wilhelm takes that you haven’t had the opportunity to do on screen before?

DAMON: He is just a total blundering fraud. He is very suave and debonair but the minute the shit hits the fan, he is a total coward and panics. I just thought that would be funny as a character.

He also has this pursuit of fame and money. A lot of actors seem to be on that same journey.

DAMON: Exactly but he does it with absolutely no substance (laugh). The discussions that Heath and I had were that Will never even bothered to learn the tales. Jacob was the one that wrote them all down. Jacob knows the legend of the bridge troll. Will doesn’t care. He just wants to make a buck and find the women in each town.

When you start working with someone like Terry Gilliam, who is such a visual artist, how does that affect you as an actor on set?

DAMON: Everything that he does is highly choreographed and so you always know where you are. He needs like 200 people for his vision to come to life and so he is good at communicating with everyone where they need to be and what their job is shot to shot. Unlike most directors, he uses like 14 and 17 mm lenses, which are really wide screen, and so he packs the frame from side to side and really deep. He has all these elements moving around. When you sign up to do a Terry Gilliam film, then you are just one of his elements that he will use in any shot. You are aware of what you are but you are not in charge of your own choreography. I know my job is to walk from there to there but there will be geese in the background doing another thing and horses coming this way. He sits there with all the elements and tinkers with it until he gets the alchemy to his eye. Then you move on.

Is he a Clint Eastwood style director who does three takes then moves on or other directors who do forty?

DAMON: He will do as many as required. He will do a lot because he knows what elements he wants working in a shot and so he will adjust them slightly. He is also capable of getting hung up on the bird that is not flapping its wing in the top right hand corner of the screen. What bird? But he sees it. The love and passion for him is down to the smallest detail.

As he is a director that likes to shoot in camera, it was you strapped onto that ladder with the fire dancing at your feet.

DAMON: It was the first time I ever had to do a film where I was lathered in fire retardant. Heath and I were soaking in fire retardant in the middle of this forest fire looking at each other going, “Well, this is new (laugh).” It was a first but it kind of pays off. When you see the monitor, then you can actually see what the film will look like. This film actually had more CGI than Terry normally likes to work with because of the wolf and the birds but by and large, it was all in the camera.

Can you describe another incident where another director might have turned to CGI but Terry stuck with a practical in camera shot?

DAMON: The fire was a big one. The mirror probably was the other tough sequence. For the mirror in the old tower, they built the old room and then attached to it the exact replica new room. So in between was just the door. Heath had to do one shot in front of the mirror then step around to the other room and do the exact same thing so the effects team could go in and match the shots. When I raised my arm up after I was stabbed and Heath was sitting over me, there was a photo double on the other side matching the action as if it was a mirror. But it was all being done in camera so we could then go look in the monitor and see what we had done.

Continued on page 2


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