That’s one of several hints he gives of deeper currents, as is his account of undergoing hypnosis to give up a two-pack-a-day smoking habit just a few years ago. “I had a terrible temper,” he acknowledges of his youth. I walked away thinking, ‘This guy is so f-ing complicated.’ And of course, we all are. I looked at, and I went, ‘No way.’ But I read it in a couple of days. “I came across it on the shelf and I’d forgotten about it. “ Paul Greengrass sent it to me a year or two ago and said it was his book of the year,” he says. He has just finished Passage of Power, the fourth part in Robert Caro‘s ongoing biography of Lyndon B. The intellect he inherited from his university professor mother and onetime stockbroker father seeps through - it’s there in everything from his articulateness when he speaks about clean water (his most prominent cause) to his taste in books. He’s also more thoughtful, and far more cerebral, than his regular-guy image might lead one to believe.
His emotions rarely slip out whatever passions once rocked him are buried in the past. There’s a gravitas to him, beyond even Bourne‘s. He also seems older and more mature than the boyish figure who has been a familiar presence onscreen since the late 1990s only traces linger of the perky young man who won an Oscar for co-writing (and starring in) Good Will Hunting in 1998. After years of having his weight fluctuate between films, he looks buff in jeans and a tight, collarless shirt - though he claims to be nowhere near as fit as the astronauts he met while researching Martian. Sitting in his trailer at 1 a.m., as we chat during his “lunch break” in the middle of a night shoot, Damon is hyper-alert, much more so than this jet-lagged reporter. “I mean, look, I’ve got a lot riding on this movie.” 2 release The Martian, which THR‘s Todd McCarthy called “constantly absorbing” - weigh heavily on him. He has had hits (three Bournes, three Oceans) and misses ( We Bought a Zoo, Promised Land), and he admits the prospects of Bourne - and, more imminently, the Oct. I always wanted to play him again.”īourne won’t be out until next summer, and between now and then, Damon’s status as one of Hollywood’s few bankable stars, commanding as much as $20 million per picture, will be put to the test. “He’s so smart and resourceful and easy to root for. But he retains the enthusiasm he once had for the part. It’s been nine years since Damon, 44, last tackled the role of Jason Bourne - and eight years since The Bourne Ultimatum was released - almost as long as he’s been married and a father of four kids (ages 4 to 17), during which he has gone from being a young action upstart to an industry veteran shouldering all the responsibilities of fame, family and middle age.