He’s the world’s most famous normal person, the Hollywood Everyman, the good guy who finishes first. This month, he makes himself even more popular by returning to his most successful character, the rogue CIA agent Jason Bourne. Over coffee in Toronto, Matt Damon tells Esquire about surviving early acclaim, overcoming career setbacks, and why he won’t be running for president any time soon. (OK, maybe vice-president.)
HE WALKS IN OFF THE STREET ALONE, NO DRIVER, no handler. He’s just a guy in Levi’s and boots and a practical black sports coat. Juice and Java is a trendy coffee shop in the Beaches district of Toronto, and there’s a smattering of late afternooners around, a few students, some mums and toddlers. He walks past them all and sits at a regular table like it’s nothing. As though beneath that grey beanie with the Guinness logo, he’s not, unmistakably, Matt Damon, the movie star.
“Isn’t this place great?” he says. “I’m staying round the corner, about a block from the lake. It’s like a proper beach community, except no one has their designated section, everyone’s on top of each other, which is great. We go down there with the kids.
” You go to a crowded public beach with your family?
“Sure. Why not?”
Maybe it’s a Canada thing. People are famously nice here, down-to-earth and polite—unarmed Americans with healthcare and manners, not slaves to the celebrity industrial complex in quite the same way. During our 90-minute interview we’re only interrupted a couple of times, and never for selfies or autographs. Just a pat on the shoulder and a “Welcome to Toronto!”
But Damon insists it’s like this everywhere. He never gets bothered, not even in New York. “Well, if you’re in Soho by The Mercer Hotel where all the faces hang out, then you’re asking for attention,” he says. “But when I lived on the Upper West Side, I never saw anybody. I guess they just don’t come north of 72nd Street.” Even back home in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, he manages to move through life like a civilian, to the envy of his friends.
Denne historien er fra August 2016-utgaven av Esquire Philippines.
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Denne historien er fra August 2016-utgaven av Esquire Philippines.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
What It Means to Be Beautiful
At the trial of Phryne in 350 BC, the courtesan, who was acknowledged to be one of the most beautiful women in Athens, had been accused of defaming the gods and was losing the case, and was about to be sentenced to die.
Of All Time
Both an athlete and a symbol of noble defiance, Muhammad Ali was a hero to men everywhere. Long after the Thrilla in Manila, and certainly long after his death, he will be remembered as the greatest.
Twenty Years Later
Kobe says goodbye, and hello.
Being Miss Universe
Seven months after being named the most universally beautiful woman in the world, Pia Wurtzbach has grown into the job.
So You Think You Know Baron Geisler
The Controversial Actor describes the Angels and Demons in his Lifelong Arch of Stumble and Stir.
The Nice guy
He’s the world’s most famous normal person, the Hollywood Everyman, the good guy who finishes first. This month, he makes himself even more popular by returning to his most successful character, the rogue CIA agent Jason Bourne. Over coffee in Toronto, Matt Damon tells Esquire about surviving early acclaim, overcoming career setbacks, and why he won’t be running for president any time soon. (OK, maybe vice-president.)
N
The road to the north is not narrow at all. But it feels narrow, as all roads are narrow, as a straight, taut bridge to somewhere in the far distance is narrow, no matter how wide the bridge really is, as the eyes narrow, even when you’re only looking at the map and there are no complicated directions, and even when you ignore the instructions given out by the rigid voice on our devices.
