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BOURNE TO PLAY DAD
Fresh from the latest successful instalment of the Bourne franchise, Matt Damon is looking to spend some quality time with his young
daughter, Isabella, as he tells FQ.
FQ: What do you like about fatherhood?
MD: The whole thing, it’s kind of indescribable for anybody who has kids. To me, I always say it’s like describing a guitar chord. You can’t really do it justice. It’s just that life changed in really indescribable and miraculous ways. Everything kind of changes. (then he sniffs)
FQ: Bourne wouldn’t sniff.
MD: (coughing) Bourne’s daughter was up all night! (laughs)
FQ: Has that changed things for you?
MD: Yeah, well in the middle of filming Paul (Greengrass,director) said, “You really look like shit.” And I said, “Yeah, I’m up all night with my daughter.” And he said, “Yeah, it’s great for the part.” Diaper duty was harder probably. That was a change. In the past I didn’t realise how little of a life I had. I would work all day and then go to the gym or whatever and then get ready for the next day. And everything revolved around the next day at work and getting through the next day. And it really changed on this one. I came to work. I was in shape and ready to go and then instead of going to the gym at the end of the day I’d want to go home and see my daughter. So I stopped going to the gym and by the end of the movie Paul was shooting around my stomach, I think.
FQ: Where do you call home?
MD: I would probably have said Boston. That’s where I’m from, but I lived for many years in New York and now I live in Miami. At this point I would have to say home is where my family is. That’s really what feels like home.
FQ: Do you want to stay home more now that you have a baby?
MD: I do stay home more but this year especially was tough. I mean, in her first year we were on a plane coming back from Europe, I don’t remember where but we were coming back to Miami and I looked at her passport and she was eleven months at the time and she had eleven stamps and that doesn’t even account for the travelling within Europe because they don’t stamp you anymore because it’s all EU.
FQ: How is she on the plane?
MD: Generally she’s good but babies go through stages. We’ve had some tough flights. The toughest flight we had was from Paris. Air France, the studio flew us and we sat in First Class. This class so it was my wife with the baby and me and my step daughter. And then there was this woman there, and I looked at the ticket price, they were really expensive. I mean |
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“I have my stepdaughter and my daughter but I definitely want more”
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really expensive. Obscenely expensive tickets and this woman got on and she looked over and saw the baby. She kind of went back to what she was doing. My baby cried from the moment we took off to the moment we landed – the entire time. This woman read a book, ate her dinner, watched a movie, slept, unbelievable. And I was saying to Lucy (whispers), “I think she’s deaf. Maybe she’s deaf?” So we went in the customs line and then my curiosity got the best of me and I tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Excuse
me, we’re the people who were sitting…” and she said, “Yeah, I know who you are.” And I said, “I just want to apologise if we disturbed your flight.” And she looked at me and said, “I have nine children.” She was about 60 years old and she said, “I’ve spent 35 years raising kids…” It was great. She said it reminded her of those days. So we got lucky but we try to fly at night if we’re going to do a big flight. We stopped doing day flights and plus when they’re walking…
FQ: That’s what Children’s Calpol is for!
MD: (laughs) Calpol? It’s like… make sure nobody is looking…
FQ: Do you always take the kids with you?
MD: Always in the last year, yeah. The Tangiers sequence they didn’t come. That was the first thing that started the movie and we were in Tangiers for three weeks and instantly we realised when I got there that it was a mistake that being apart wasn’t good for us so from then on they came everywhere.
FQ: Do you still party at all?
MD: I live around the corner from crazy, and that’s a good place to be, around the corner. So occasionally if my wife and I want to go down to South Beach we can and people are cool down there. But there is a great life for us there, great restaurants and a lot of stuff for us to do. So it’s a good place.
FQ: Do you think you will have more?
MD: Yeah, I have my stepdaughter and my daughter, but I’m not the one who has to – talk to my wife. I definitely want more.
FQ: Do you feel the female admiration has changed now as a married father?
MD: I have no idea. Honestly, it’s really hard to know. So many other questions about image are almost impossible because I don’t really spend any time thinking about that for myself. And I can’t control it so I don’t really know if it’s changed.
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FQ: Any special feelings about becoming a father at the same time Ben Affleck did?
MD: It’s great and it’s very nice to watch our kids together. Certainly my daughter is not quite aware that she’s playing with (Affleck’s daughter) Violet. My daughter just likes to pull hair right now. But it is pretty wonderful to see that. It’s a trip when you’ve known somebody for, god, I met Ben 26 years ago, and when you’ve known somebody for that long, and for 20 years we’ve been really, really great friends, or even more than that I guess, to see your kids together, when you have this huge reservoir of common experience that doesn’t include children, and then suddenly you are at this stage where your kids are playing together, it’s pretty cool.
FQ: Did Ben give you any Parenting tips?
MD: Yeah, he’s about six months ahead of me so he’s been very helpful (laughs). The best advice I got early on, he told me when the baby was nursing that I had to master the art of asking my wife if she needed anything while I was still asleep. Because whenever you ask your wife in the middle of the night if there is anything I can do, she says no, because there is really nothing you can do. The baby is nursing. But he said it’s very important that you ask that question. So you have to wake up enough to ask if she needs anything. And before she even answers say, “Okay, okay, good, and then go back to sleep.” So that was very good advice.
FQ: Did you and Ben ever get competitive?
MD: No, Ben and I, from the time we were kids we auditioned for the same roles. When we’d go to New York together we’d be going to audition for the exact same role. So there was never a competition between us. We’d just hope that one of us gets the role. And the one time I think we had big summer movies coming out was when we had ‘The Bourne Identity’ and ‘Sum of All Fears’, and I just remember being nervous for both of us. Suddenly there just seemed to be so much riding on it. I know for me that there was a shitload riding on it.
FQ: And finally, who would win in a fight between Jason Bourne and James Bond?
MD: Well, neither of the characters are real. So, you mean not me and Daniel Craig, but Bourne and Bond? Then I’ll say Bourne. |
