TV/RADIO

Around the Dial

07/28/98
Boston Herald
Page 040
(Copyright 1998)

FOX TROT: Local heroes Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, the Oscar- winning
screenwriters of "Good Will Hunting," are adding another credit to their
resume. Damon and Affleck will serve as executive producers on a 10-hour
miniseries based on Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United
States" for Fox.

We know the two are fans of Zinn's unconventional tome, which looks at
U.S. history from a youth-oriented perspective, because Damon's
character mentions the book in "Good Will Hunting."

Production and premiere dates for the Fox miniseries have yet to be
determined. Zinn and "Hunting" co-producer Chris Moore also serve as
executive producers.

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LIVING

Cover boys pick their best
Beth Carney, Globe Correspondent and Maureen Dezell, Globe Staff

07/28/98
The Boston Globe
City Edition
Page C2
(Copyright 1998)

Material from wire services and other sources is used as well. Names &
Faces can be reached by electronic mail at names(at sign)globe.com.

It's not too surprising that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck made the cover
of Boston magazine's 25th annual Best of Boston issue. In a decidedly
non-controversial headline, the magazine dubs them "Best Local Boys Made
Good." Boston also got Damon and Affleck to breathe a little life into
the magazine's very tired yearly listing of top spots, by picking their
favorite restaurants, watering holes, and hangouts. The boys' "bests"
are low-key and very local -- most, in fact, are in Cambridge, where
Damon and Affleck grew up. For whom the awards Toale

ENTERTAINMENT

MATT DAMON, NOT CARRIED AWAY BY THE MAGIC OF THE MOMENT
JEFF SIMON - News Critic

07/26/98
Buffalo News
FINAL
Page F1
(Copyright 1998)

Matt Damon is still feeling his way in cloudland celebrity. He needed a
certain sort of Hollywood fame to launch his movie "Good Will Hunting"
-- the kind that lands you in the tabloids on a weekly basis as your
romance with co-star Minnie Driver blooms and then dies ignominiously
(and appropriately) on "Oprah Winfrey."

Now that he and his acting/writing partner Ben Affleck have won Oscars
for their script for "Good Will Hunting" and now that both are as hot
and in-demand as young actors get, the celebrity waltz looks a bit
different.

"I still do everything I did before," Damon says of his hot current
post-Oscar life. "I think if you surround yourself with handlers, yes
men, it creates an aura that you're somehow unapproachable. But if
you're just kind of the way you were, it's not really a problem. For me,
I got bitten once talking about my personal life and I'd just as soon
never do that again. There's no percentage in doing it. . . . I was
always really open about everything because there was no reason not to
be. I didn't want to go through life guarded -- especially in terms of
interpersonal growth. You want to keep developing."

Whatever tabloids and other gossip mongers say simply has to be endured:
"Since I don't talk about my personal life, there's nothing I can do."

What he can do is avoid making the mistakes other actors do when they're
hot. (Call it Sharon Stoneism.)

"You start seeing mistakes in careers when people start doing movies and
you can see the reasons they're doing it. 'I need to do this big studio
movie,' etc. You see people blunder because their heart's not in it.
(Tom) Hanks is a really good example (of the right way to do it). He
told me and Eddie (Burns, their 'Ryan' co-star) about movies that he
passed on, movies that were good movies but that he's really happy he
passed on because his heart wasn't in it.

"I think he was talking at one point about 'When Harry Met Sally . . . '
He said 'I couldn't have done what Billy Crystal did in that movie.
Billy Crystal was terrific.' He was the most humble, complimentary guy
telling you about career moves that other people would say were blunders
on his part, but he doesn't see them that way at all. He always went by
his gut. So his heart was always in it."

When he watched "Saving Private Ryan," Damon says, "it was the first
time in my life I totally forgot I was in the movie. Usually when I see
a movie (I'm in), I'm under the seat. I'm totally self-conscious about
what I'm doing. I was totally carried away with the movie. Normally,
you're like a magician who knows all the tricks and you're just watching
to see if anyone else got fooled. I got fooled by this one.

"I'm glad it doesn't pull any punches. It brings it home on a much more
visceral level. . . . Especially my generation. We're naturally
apathetic. You can see us on Sally Jessy Raphael talking about how tough
our lives are because we weren't breast-fed long enough. Try taking a
beach. It puts it in perspective. I really asked myself some tough
questions after I saw this movie, what-would-I-have-done-type questions.
I don't think you can avoid those.

"To this day I say to (director Steven) Spielberg: 'If you ever want me
for a movie, just send me the call sheet. Just tell me where it's
shooting and what time to show up and I'll go.' It's like the chance of
lifetime.

"I got the part thanks to Robin Williams. We were in Boston rehearsing
'Good Will Hunting.' Speiberg came up for a day to work on 'Amistad.'
Robin and Steven are buddies. They did 'Hook' together, too. Robin went
down to see him. He dragged me along. It turned out later that I found
out Steven had seen (me) in 'Courage Under Fire' and told his wife,
'That's the guy I want, but he's too thin.' I had dropped all that
weight for 'Courage Under Fire.' When he saw me (with Williams) he
figured out what happened. So after he saw me, two weeks later I got the
call. So it was really lucky.

"It's another reason I owe my firstborn to Robin Williams."

Damon has lost weight again for a role, this time for the film that
Anthony Minghella ("The English Patient") is making from Patricia
Highsmith's amoral "The Talented Mr. Ripley."

"It's a great role. I'm as excited as I've been in a long time about
work. I'm playing the piano (for the role). I'm trying to learn a little
Italian. I've dropped 15 pounds already. I want to go about five more."

At the time of the interview, Damon hadn't yet seen "Armageddon," the big summer blockbuster starring his best friend, Affleck.

If there's any friendly competition between the two about their movies in the summer of 1998, Damon immediately declares himself a loser.

"In our books, he already won because he has an action figure. I can't compete with that."

Matt Damon says he must endure what the tabloids say: "Since I don't talk about my personal life, there's nothing I can do." Says Matt Damon: "I got the part thanks to Robin Williams. We were in Boston rehearsing
'Good Will Hunting.' "

Showcase
REGULAR SUPERSTAR DAMON SHUNS ENTOURAGE MENTALITY
BY LOUIS B. HOBSON, CALGARY SUN

07/26/98
The Calgary Sun
Final
Page SC2
(c) Copyright 1998 The Calgary Sun. All Rights Reserved.

Matt Damon says he's learned a thing or two about fame from rock
superstar Bruce Springsteen.

Three years ago, Damon was just another struggling young actor in
Hollywood. He managed to nab himself cameo roles in School Ties,
Geronimo: An American Legend and Courage Under Fire, but he barely
earned enough to pay for the rent on his L.A. apartment. Then something
happened.

Damon and his childhood friend Ben Affleck sold their screenplay for
Good Will Hunting to Miramax Films and even got to play the roles they'd
written for themselves when Gus Van Sant came aboard as director.

No sooner had Damon come off the set of Good Will Hunting than he was
cast as the young lawyer in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker and was
signed to play the young soldier lost behind enemy lines in Steven
Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.

Good Will Hunting earned Damon Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for
best actor and best original screenplay and this past March, he and
Affleck went home with the screenplay Oscars.

With his new profile in Hollywood, Damon was able to snatch the title
role in Anthony Minghella's thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley away from
Leonardo DiCaprio and snag the equally prestigious lead in Billy Bob
Thornton's screen version of All The Pretty Horses. All this and a
$5-million US per-picture deal.

"I'm the same guy I was last year when I was doing interviews for The
Rainmaker and Good Will Hunting. I wasn't turning heads back then and
I'm not turning many these days either," insists Damon.

"The only time the press is interested in me is when I attend some big
movie-related function in Hollywood or New York. Otherwise I can go
anywhere I want."

And this is how Damon wants to live his life and deal with the fame that
has dropped into his lap.

"Back in the mid-'80s, Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen were the
biggest stars in the world. Michael couldn't leave his house without 25
bodyguards, whereas you could bump into Bruce at a local bar." He's
found a lesson in this phenomenon.

"Fame is what you make of it. I'm never going to do the whole bodyguard
nonsense. It's just not me. Leonardo has become the new Michael Jackson
and I'm Bruce Springsteen."

Next month, Damon flies to Italy to begin filming The Talented Mr.
Ripley. His co-star is Gwyneth Paltrow, who is dating his best friend
Affleck. Damon is dating Paltrow's best friend Winona Ryder.

"We'll all eventually end up in Italy for a few weeks. That's
inevitable, but I don't want to talk about any of that. I never
considered myself guarded, so I'd talk about my personal life.

"I can't do that any more and that's unfortunate. That's one lesson I've
learned about fame."

Reading about his public breakup with ex-girlfriend and Good Will
Hunting co-star Minnie Driver and having his salary common knowledge
stung, but Damon refuses to complain.

"I have a lot of friends who are still struggling. The shoe was on the
other foot not too long ago, so you won't hear me complain about these
intrusions into my life. I am so incredibly lucky. I'm living my dream."

To prepare for the manipulative opportunist in The Talented Mr. Ripley,
Damon has lost 15 pounds and hopes to lose another 10.

This is not the first drastic weight loss Damon has achieved for a film.
When he starred in Courage Under Fire he lost 45 pounds over the course
of the shooting so he could show the ravaging effects of a heroin
addiction on his character. He ate only egg whites, crackers and a few
vegetables and ran miles every day.

"It was the most foolish thing I've ever done. I almost wrecked my body
for good. This time, the studio paid to have the nutritionist who worked
with Dennis Quaid for his weight loss in Wyatt Earp to supervise me. I
was pretty heavy in Saving Private Ryan. It's entirely the wrong look
for Mr. Ripley."

Damon hopes to accomplish at least two personal things before returning
home from Italy.

"I want to be able to speak Italian. I don't need to for the film but I
think if I'm going to be there for almost five months I should get some
kind of handle on the language."

He also hopes to work with Affleck on getting at least the first draft
of a screenplay. The writing partners owe scripts to both Miramax and
Castle Rock studios.

"Realistically, it could take as long as five years to get our next
screenplay to film. We've got a few ideas but nothing definite yet."

It's difficult for Damon to concentrate on writing because he feels he
is in the middle of an incredible apprenticeship program.

"To me, acting is a trade. It's like carpentry. If you want to be really
good at it, you have to apprentice yourself to the master carpenters.

"On Saving Private Ryan, I got to work with two of the masters -- Tom
Hanks and Steven Spielberg. I learned so much just by observing them.
That was a humbling experience."

For the record, Damon no longer has that Hollywood apartment he could
hardly afford. In fact, he doesn't have a Hollywood address.

"I've been working on location non-stop for the past year, so I don't
have a permanent address. I don't have any place to put my Oscar, even,
so my mom is taking care of it until things slow down a little."

If the buzz in Hollywood means anything, Damon's mom will be taking care
of little Oscar for years to come.

2 photos BACK IN BATTLE ... Matt's back in fatigues with Saving Private
Ryan (above). He also donned the greens in Courage Under Fire with Meg
Ryan (right).

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Showcase
PRIVATE RYAN'S LEADING LADIES DAPPER DAMON A BUSY GUY ON HOLLYWOOD
DATING SCENE
BY LOUIS B. HOBSON, CALGARY SUN

07/26/98
The Calgary Sun
Final
Page SC3
(c) Copyright 1998 The Calgary Sun. All Rights Reserved.

Yes that's starlet Winona Ryder on Matt Damon's arm these days.

Ryder is hardly the first celebrity the 27-year-old actor/writer has
dated in his brief sojourn in Hollywood.

When Damon was filming Courage Under Fire in 1995 with Denzel
Washington, Meg Ryan and Lou Diamond Phillips, he was dating Elite model
Kara Sands.

That relationship ended shortly before he began filming The Rainmaker
the following year. Damon didn't pine for long. The young Romeo found a
new Juliet in his Rainmaker costar Claire Danes.

That affair proved to be a movie romance and ended when the film
finished shooting.

Next up for Damon was the filming of his own script Good Will Hunting
where he quickly did a bit of romantic hunting and began dating his
newest costar Minnie Driver.

The couple dated for seven months. Much to Driver's surprise, Damon
announced during his appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show that he was
single again.

He actually remained single for a couple of months until longtime friend
and writing partner Ben Affleck played matchmaker.

Affleck had just begun dating Gwyneth Paltrow, who had recently broken
up with fiance Brad Pitt. Paltrow was staying with Ryder when she and
Affleck became an item.

Ryder wasn't a third wheel for long. The foursome quickly began
double-dating.

Damon was born in Boston. His mother is a professor of early childhood
education and his father is a stockbroker.

Damon's parents divorced when he was only two but have both remained
active in bringing up Damon and his older brother Kyle.

Damon and Affleck became friends when they played on the same little
league team.

"Matt was never without a girlfriend. He was a real chick magnet," says
Affleck, who insists he was the "serious one who was always looking for
a love."

Celluloid Chronology

1. All the Pretty Horses(1999)

2. Planet Ice (1999) (voice) .... Cale

3. Talented Mr. Ripley, The (1999) ....Tom Ripley

4. Training Day (1999)

5. Dogma (1998) ....Loki

6. Rounders (1998) ....Mike McDermott

7. Saving Private Ryan(1998) .... Private James Ryan

8. Good Will Hunting (1997) .... Will Hunting

9. Rainmaker, The (1997) .... RudyBaylor

10. Chasing Amy (1997) .... Exec #2

11. Glory Daze (1996) .... EdgarPudwhacker

12. Courage Under Fire (1996) .... Specialist Ilario

13. Good Old Boys, The

(1995) (TV) ....Cotton Calloway

14. Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) .... Lt. Britton Davis

15. School Ties (1992) .... Charlie Dillon

16. Rising Son (1990) (TV) .... Charlie Robinson

17. Good Mother, The (1988) (uncredited) .... Extra

18. Mystic Pizza (1988) .... Steamer

4 Sun file photos DATING GAME ... It was the Matt and Minnie (Driver)
show during filming of Good Will Hunting, above. Matt also was Romeo to
up-and-comer Claire Danes. 2. photo of Winona Ryder 3, photo of Matt
Damon 4. photo of Claire Danes

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NEWS
Pearl Street taps Kubena
CHRIS PETRIKIN

07/27/98
Daily Variety
Page 04
Copyright 1998 Variety, Inc.

Kent Kubena has been tapped director of development at Ben Affleck and
Matt Damon's Pearl Street Prods., which has a first-look production pact
with Miramax Films.

Based in Pearl Street's Los Angeles office, Kubena will oversee all
development for the nascent banner.

Kubena, a graduate of the Film School at the College of Santa Fe, N.M.,
developed an association with the stars and Oscar-winning writers of
"Good Will Hunting" while working the past two years on the desk of
their CAA agent, Patrick Whitesell.

Before joining CAA, Kubena spent eight years working as an independent
TV and film producer in New Mexico and Texas.

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Entertainment/Weekend/Spotlight
`PRIVATE RYAN' STAR DAMON SALUTES SPIELBERG'S GENIUS
Robert Denerstein Rocky Mountain News Film Critic

07/24/98
Rocky Mountain News
FINAL
Page 8D
(Copyright 1998)

Matt Damon, the 27-year-old actor who plays the title role in Steven
Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan felt the same impact from the movie as
audiences will.

"The biggest effect I got out of it was seeing it," Damon says. "That
was as powerful an experience as making it. It was amazing, and it
certainly made me think about the war in a whole different way. It's the
only time I've ever seen a movie that I was in that I totally forgot I
was in the movie."

Damon says he was particularly impressed by the 23-minute D-Day sequence
that opens the film.

"It's such an assault on your senses. I've never been riveted in a film
like that before. Maybe when I was a little kid and I saw Star Wars or
E.T. my attention was as fierce. But I can't think of any time recently.

"Eddie Burns (a young director who also acts in the movie) and I said to
each other, `If they cut out every line we had and there was one frame
where you could see us, this would still be the one we'd tell our
grandchildren about.' As a film, it's a monumental achievement."

Damon, who won a screenwriting Oscar with his partner Ben Affleck for
Good Will Hunting, has virtually rocketed to stardom. For him - and for
the young men who worked on the film - Private Ryan became an education.
Damon talks with admiration and awe about Spielberg's skill.

"We figured he makes about six decisions every 10 seconds that directly
affect the outcome of the film. He's adjusting down to the inch and
knowing exactly what the audience needs and never losing track of the
narrative. . . .

"He'll have an explosion happening in the deep background on the right
edge of the frame while Hanks is delivering a line. It's that ability to
show it and yet throw it away at the same time that creates that
overwhelming sense that you're in a pitched battle unlike anything
you've ever seen."

Damon, who scored in his own little movie, is getting ready to leave for
Italy to make The Talented Mr. Ripley, an adaptation of a Patricia
Highsmith novel that's being directed by Anthony Minghella (The English
Patient). Damon acknowledges the pressure of big-time filmmaking.

"You walk onto a set and you've got to hit this mark because there's
going to be an explosion and this stuntman is going to fly through the
air. It's a minute-and-a-half long shot and you realize that the camera
moves are incredibly complex. . . .

"It's like hundreds of people getting together and your line is a part
of that. It's less about indulging your needs and more about
incorporating into this bigger canvas. The pressure that goes along with
that is pretty severe. It's hard to stay relaxed. You go into it with
the knowledge that if you blow it then it's a significant set up and
re-set. And guys really are risking some broken bones, too."

Damon says he likes the fact that the movie poses a moral question but
doesn't answer it.

"To me, the situation changes every time the variables change. If I
imagine that guy's my brother, I want the guys to go get him. If I
imagine my brother's among the eight going to get him I say, `Why are
you risking eight guys to save one?'

"I like the fact that the movie doesn't condescend and tell you what
should have been done. That's classy. The issues are clear. You can see
it's a political hot potato. Morale was a big issue. You can see it from
different angles. No one's wrong. No one's right. It's just a terrible
situation."

Color Photo; Caption: Matt Damon plays the title role in Saving Private
Ryan. By David James.