Ahead of his reunion with Ben Affleck in thriller The Rip – as well as his starring role in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Imax epic The Odyssey – we run through the best work of one of Hollywood’s most reliable heroes
Matt Damon is essentially a bland dish that requires the right spice truly to zing, which means he is often at his best when playing beastly. His flagrantly nasty turn as one of the antisemitic bullies who makes prep school life hell for a secretly Jewish classmate (Brendan Fraser) offers an early indication that Damon realised this, too.
Damon lost about 25kg for a handful of scenes as the traumatised, heroin-addicted young Gulf war veteran recalling a rescue mission in which his commanding officer (Meg Ryan) was killed. The sudden weight loss left him reeling: “I was looking for something to set me apart: ‘Look what I’ll do, I’ll kill myself!’” It paid off. “Directors took note of it.”
In this scattershot political thriller, Damon’s storyline has a crisp moral complexity. He plays Bryan Woodman, an energy analyst whose oldest son dies accidentally during a party at the home of a Middle Eastern emir. Woodman is later mollified with a lucrative contract from the emir’s family. “How much for my other kid?” he asks caustically – before accepting the offer. That’s capitalism.
