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Name: Matt Damon
Username: MattDamon
Hometown: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Occupation: Producer
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What attracted you to the Entertainment Industry, and what was your first job or big break in the business?
Well the first part of this question is harder to answer. I guess I was always just fascinated with movies and by live theater from the time I was a little boy. The first big break I got one was line in the move Mystic Pizza. My line was: "Mom, do you want my green stuff," and that was, I believe, in 1987.
What is the biggest challenge you faced trying to break into the industry, and how did you overcome it?
I'd say there were a number of challenges. First of all, you have to get into the Union (whether you are an actor, writer or director). Then you have to get a job. You also have to get an agent. You can't get a job without an agent …or at least it's very hard. And you can't get an agent without a job, or at least it's very hard. So, I think the way I eventually overcame that hardship was the one line in Mystic Pizza I got on my own. Ben knew an agent in New York and we went to New York together before Mystic Pizza (I think in 1986). They met with me (a very small agency) and said they'd represent me. Very slowly I started to go on auditions throughout high school and throughout college in New York City, eventually getting a cable TV movie three years later. So very slowly (over the course of ten years and after thousands of auditions) things started to happen a little bit. It still wasn't until Ben and I actually wrote Good Will Hunting that we really were able to break in to the industry.
What advice can you give those trying to break into the "industry?"
Whether they're writer or actors or directors, I normally tell people "don't do it." I feel like if they are dissuaded from trying to break into the industry based on what I tell them, they shouldn't be in it anyway. It takes such an enormous amount of perseverance. You have to be somebody who is undeterred and unwilling to believe that it can't happen for you. Generally I tell them not even to try.
Please describe your job for those who might not know what a Producer is.
Well, the job of a producer can be incredibly varied. For instance even on this movie, there's a pretty vast chasm between what I did and what Chris Moore did. Sometimes a producer's job is just to run interference for the talent. Sometimes their job is just to do everything it takes to get the movie made - to physically be there all the time. At the end of the day, a producer, I guess in theory, is someone whose job it is to produce a movie. You're responsible for marshalling all the forces and bringing a movie in for a previously agreed upon price. Our job (mine and Ben's) beyond the contest and beyond picking the winner included consulting and helping Pete with anything that he needed, being there if he called on us, if he needed advice, and occasionally stepping in and dealing with the studio when he needed a little extra help.
Can you share any tricks of the trade that help you work faster/cheaper/better?
Well, I think the best story for this one is what Scott Mosier told us when he produced Clerks. He called every film house, every camera rental place and just lied and said: I have a better deal at your competitor. And he would list the phony deal that he had in an effort to try to bring his costs down. He had so little money to work with that this was really his only option. So I think if you're making a movie for an incredibly low number, like Scott was in that case, you have to be pretty shrewd in how you get your camera package, all your equipment, and everything else you need. It helps to have crewmembers who are your friends and deferring their salaries in the interest of making a very, very low budget movie.
Please illustrate the way the performance of your position can help or hurt a movie. Name a movie that you've seen (or worked on) that we could view and understand the difference between a good job and a bad job.
Well, often times you see, I've seen for instance, producers (since this was my job on this film). I've seen producers draw a salary and not really do anything. In other words, be a producer in name, rather than someone who actually produces the movie. If someone is not actually helping the movie get made in some way or another then they're not doing their job (and that's unfortunately somewhat common in the industry). You get people who have arrived at a position through some amount of luck and aren't really good at their job, don't know how to do it, and just end up being extra weight that the rest of the group is carrying along. For the most part, I've been incredibly lucky with the producers I've worked with. I could give you a thousand examples of some beautiful producing that I've been privy to over the years. I'd say a good example would be The Talented Mr. Ripley. The job that Bill Horberg and Tom Sternberg did producing a movie that cost under $40 million and was a period film set all over Italy. It looked like it cost a lot more because they were striking deals along with an Italian producer by the name of Sandy Norman. They kept us on schedule, kept us going, kept us moving (also with the help of a great AD named Steve). I think the point there is you see that when one person is really doing a good job, really helping a movie, they are helped by line producers, assistant directors, directors, and actors who are professional. So I think good producing, like anything, depends on the whole family kind of doing their job well too. But Ripley was a good example of a movie that people were shocked when they heard what it cost, and what the producers brought it in for. We knew going in that we had to do that because the subject matter was a little more risqué than your average studio film.
What's the best lesson you've learned in regards to working in Hollywood?
I wouldn't say there's one. It's a collection of things you learn over the years. You continue to learn no matter how long you work in the business - which is one of the wonderful things about the business. You can stay in it for your entire life and still be in a position to find out new things about what it is you do. We'll leave it at that.
What advice would you give to writers on how to craft a script that addresses practical production issues?
This is an excellent question. Ben and I, when we wrote Good Will Hunting, were very careful to scale it to what we knew we could do. For instance, we could have made that movie for a million dollars. We wrote the Robin Williams part because we had seen Reservoir Dogs and heard that Harvey Keitel got the movie $500,000 because of his involvement. So we used to call the role of Sean Maguire (that Robin ended up playing) our Harvey Keitel role. We felt like if we could attract someone with a name to make that role then we could get enough money to make the movie that we wanted to make. I think there is some strategizing when it comes to your structure that you need to do to account for the reality of what it takes to get a movie made. The movie would have never gotten made if it was just Ben and I, and we knew that, so there was a certain amount of crafting that went into the structure of that script and that story.
What advice would you give a director on how to make production easier?
You have to be more prepared than you ever have been for anything in your life. When a director knows what he or she is doing you can feel it on the crew. There's anywhere from 15 to 150 people waiting for the director to make a decision. So the most effective people I have seen at that job have been remarkably decisive people who are prepared and know exactly what they want. I can speak to this as an actor too. When somebody is giving you very sure and clear directions (not wishy-washy at all) you feel like you are in good hands. You feel like you trust them and you're willing to take risks for them. That goes for any job on a movie set.
List your top 5 favorite films
That is an impossible questions and one that friends and I ask each other all the time. It's a list that is ever changing and it's incredibly hard to list just five movies. There are movies that I watch over and over again. Obviously the first two Godfathers, and The Conversation. Incidentally there's a great book by Walter Murch called In the Blink of an Eye about editing which would be very helpful to anyone who wanted to direct or even write a film. It's just a wonderful book about filmmaking. But he talks a great length about The Conversation in that book and it's worth picking up. Midnight Run is a movie that not a lot of people saw but that I think is a great comedy. Obviously, All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard. Newer movies: I really like Sling blade, Fargo. I love the new one The Man Who Wasn't There. A great director, Peter Weir, made a movie called Fearless that not a lot of people (I don't think enough people) appreciated. It's a really wonderful movie. I know I just listed a number of movies but, again, it's an impossible question to answer and I'm sure I've left out even more.
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