On July 19, while promoting his next film Jason Bourne, Matt Damon conducted an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on social networking site Reddit. Damon, who routinely shot thrilling car chases and underwater escapes as CIA assassin Jason Bourne, answered 19 questions from fans about projects with best friend Ben Affleck, improving sanitation in African countries, and why a hotdog is not a sandwich.
The Hollywood actor, who is best known for the Bourne series based on Robert Ludlum’s novels, has played a variety of roles from a genius janitor to an astronaut left in space. The actor made his debut with Mystic Pizza in the late 1980s, and has since carved a niche for himself in the action film genre. Damon last had an AMA in 2014, where he answered questions ranging from the best prank George Clooney played on him to his uncanny resemblance to fellow Hollywood actor Mark Wahlberg. AMAs are commonly used by celebrities to interact directly and candidly with fans, showcasing their easygoing, fun side.
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While some questions were related to his profession, others involved his opinion on what would go into his ideal taco. Here are some highlights from the AMA on 19 July:
Corydoran (a user): Hello, Matt. Are there any skills or trades that you learned while preparing for your early roles that you can still do well today?
Matt Damon: That’s a great question. The thing about acting is often time what happens is you end up being a jack of all trades and a master of none. So I’ve had to learn things for the Bourne films for instance, like being upside down underwater in a car which required me to learn. I went to a swimming pool in Berlin everyday after work and practiced being at the bottom with a scuba tank, getting my air taken away, and tying shoes and doing small menial activities without my air in order to be comfortable underwater so I could shoot that scene. I didn’t walk away being certified as a scuba diver which would probably be a better use of my time, but I walked away being able to be in a car underwater and perform the scene I needed to performed, so it’s an odd set of skills you end up learning. Though I did for the Bourne movies start boxing and I never did that before, I was 29 and I fell in love with doing it. I never did it as a sport. I wouldn’t put me as a ring against anyone. I’m an excellent movie fighter, probably wouldn’t be in a real fight.
d.abernathy89 (user): What are the ingredients of your ideal taco?
Matt Damon: The ingredients of my ideal taco, oh my god. Fantastic question. My ideal taco is actually the taco I’m not supposed to have which is the taco we have on taco night at my house. It’s the crunchy corn shell with the good meat, just ground beef in there. It’s all about the layering. The meats gotta be hot, and the cheese goes on first so that it melts. And then you’re gonna get in there with a little bit of tomato and lettuce but not too much cause it’s not a salad, it’s a taco, and then you’re gonna throw some avocado on top and some sour cream and then a bunch of cholula. I don’t know if you know what cholula hot sauce is but it’s the best. Throw a bunch of cholula on there, maybe squeeze some lime on top, and go to town.
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Many of the questions focused on Ben Affleck. The duo’s Good Will Hunting (1997) has been lauded as their best collaboration. Jokingly saying that Affleck “gives himself the best roles”, Damon blamed lack of time for the duo not collaborating again.
“I love Ben, I love his work, he’s been my buddy for 35 years. The big issue is time for us. We have a company together so we work on a lot of projects together, but to try to carve out the time is really tough. I mean we both have a whole mess of kids now, and these other days jobs. He’s directing all the time and I’m off working with these other directors. The thing about Good Will Hunting is that we were unemployed and we weren’t writing the script on a deadline either. Nobody was expecting it, so we were just these two idiots in our basement writing this thing, and now we have all of these pressures of the lives grownups have,” he wrote.
Bearing Good Will Hunting in mind, Damon was asked about how it felt like working with the late Robin Williams. Calling him generous, Damon recalled how Williams would always launch into standup comedy mode after a tiring shoot. “I’ll never be able to thank him enough for what he gave us. In my heart, that’s where he is, as this person that I’m deeply deeply grateful came into my life and changed it for the better,” he writes.
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Damon also spoke about his experience co-founding Water.org along with engineer Gary White. Water.org is a nonprofit developmental aid organisation. Having researched the extreme poverty and sanitation conditions in the African continent during a trip, Damon decided to work on a series of well projects, confessing that his fame could influence others to take it up seriously. Since its inception in 2009, the organisation has delivered water and sanitiation solutions to 4.6 million people. “Rather than spending $25 to do a well project and give someone clean water for life, in our most mature loan programs we are down to about $5 per person,” he adds.
The water sanitation project is not limited to countries in Africa. It also functions in many states in India, offering grants and WaterCredit programs.
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On a lighter note, Damon answered a question about whether a hotdog was a type of sandwich. Acknowledging that they both involve bread, he reasoned, “I mean technically it comes between 2 pieces of bread or one fold it into two, so I guess you can classify it as a sandwich. Then what would you call it, a hot dog sandwich? That’s like a hat on a hat so let’s just keep it as a hot dog.”
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Amused fans responded in kind, “I just want to thank you for taking the time to answer the important questions like this. I feel like with all the craziness and violence going on that we’re losing sight of what’s important and that’s the fact that a hot dog will never be a damned sandwiche [sic].”
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Damon ended the AMA with the trailer of Jason Bourne, and said it would be released on 29 July.
Photo credits: Reddit.com & Wikipedia