Speaking at a junket for his upcoming collaboration with Paul Greengrass on “Green Zone,” Matt Damon has taken to discussing his massive slate of upcoming projects, as well as revealing his own ambitions to follow BFF Ben Affleck’s footsteps to work behind the camera.
“Scott Burns who wrote ‘The Informant!’ handed in this great script and it’s timely,” the actor revealed. “So it’s more of an ensemble piece and I’m going to play a small part in that and then we’re going to do ‘Liberace’ sometime next year. None of [these movies] are actually lined-up like we’re starting here and we have a green light. They’re all things that I’m really excited about that are movable pieces depending on Steven’s schedule.”
Though, Damon goes on to note another potential delay to the “Liberace” biopic if his newly-announced biopic of Robert F. Kennedy falls into place.
“If this RFK thing goes then that might change. There’s a play I really want to do. But they’re all just really exciting things that are out there…Eben Thomas wrote a new biography of [RFK] and Gary Ross has the rights to it, so yeah, we’re hoping to [do that] but there’s no script yet. It’s a little ways off, but a script’s supposed to come in next month, so hopefully, it’ll be great and I’ll have a job for the fall.”
Soderbergh’s “Contagion” is currently slated to shoot in the fall as well but, being a pretty big production, it would probably take precedence, and if Damon’s role is small enough, he could probably squeeze in both (though Ross and Soderbergh are good friends, the former producer of the latter’s directorial debut, “Pleasantville” so don’t doubt that there is a lot of goodwill there and schedules could be massaged). “Liberace” is seemingly the most likely candidate to be pushed if Ross can get RFK together, which would be a shame as it feels like one the riskier of the bunch, but the tentative plan is early 2011, so it could still be managed.
But before all that, Damon will be teaming with the Coen Brothers for their remake of classic Western “True Grit,” which he describes as “a really great script. They adapted it from the book and the book is amazing, I’d never read it, but it’s worth the read. I love Westerns, but I really love the Coen Brothers, so I’m looking forward to that, definitely.”
Damon also addressed his recent reunion with Affleck on a first-look producing deal with Warner Bros. which he reveals could be the beginning of a new road for him and Affleck and looks set to begin with New York Yankee wife-swapping pic, “The Trade.”
“His last movie is great, ‘The Town,’ I’ve seen the rough cut, it’s fantastic. That’s the idea of the first look deal we set up at Warners, because I want to direct, too, so there are a bunch of different ways we can end up working together. It’s weird that twelve years has gone by since we’ve worked together, it just kind of happened. We were just reacting to the work that was out there and starting families, but we definitely want to try and find stuff. It’s tough though. We wrote ‘Good Will Hunting’ because we were unemployed and had all this time. We definitely don’t have that kind of time anymore, so that’s been the biggest obstacle to writing is just been all the acting work we’ve been getting… and now directing work for him.”
He’s certainly come a long, long way since unemployment. Blowing up with the success of the ‘Bourne’ franchise, Damon has gone from strength to strength ever since, now establishing himself as one of biggest names working today. Not many actors have the privilege of saying they’ve collaborated with the likes of the Coens, Soderbergh, Greengrass, Francis Ford Coppola, the dearly departed Anthony Minghella, Martin Scorsese, Gus Van Sant, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford just to name a few. Is it any wonder he wants to move into directing?