Matt Damon & Gus Van Sant Tue Nov 27, 2012 7:15pm EST Tue Nov 27, 2012 8:15pm EST Actor-writer-producer Matt Damon the 2012 Gotham Independent Film Award honoree and star of one of the year s most highly anticipated films joins director Gus Van Sant to talk about their careers and collaborations, including their third film together, Promised Land, which the actor co-wrote with co-star John Krasinski, who will also appear. J - John Krasinsk V - Gus Van Sant D- Matt Damon Minute 30: M: Maybe you can explain, what kind of idea did you present to Matt at that time? J: I had always wanted to write a movie about American identity. And my dad grew up in a steel mill town just outside of Pittsburgh, Natrona Heights, and I don t know the way he talked about the town was just simple in the best way, not a cliché way, about faith and friends, and faith and family, and faith that tomorrow would be a better day. And I just felt that with the political landscape heading where it headed, that we were all forgetting about the people being affected about the rigamoral that was happening in the big dance, and I just wanted to bring it back to a conversation about people. So this story about natural gas was the perfect back drop, ya know whatever side of the issue, there is huge potential gain and huge potential loss, so for us, that complex situation people find themselves in is a decision making process that people should be having every single day with every single issue so we thought it was a perfect back drop. M: And what was your knowledge base of fracking at that point? What was your understanding of the situation at that point? J: At the time, it wasn t even really on the national radar it didn t feel like. It was definitely an issue but it was starting to just come out slowly, and we immediately jumped on it. I remember the New York Times did a series called drilling down which was phenomenal, and we got addicted to that, and then we saw a 60 minutes piece called Shaleionaires and then we finally saw Gasland after we started writing the piece. It was interesting that the progression of how hot this thing was getting, we were done writing our script pretty much when this started to get really really big so we didn t even really know what was coming when we wrote the draft. M: So the idea was Dave Egert was involved, he wrote the story? D: Well he worked on it really early on and then he had to leave to write his book, and so he was kind of like I m not taking a writing credit. J: Well when I had the idea I wasn t sure if I was going to write it myself and I had worked with him on other things and he s a great guy and a great writer so we just sat in a room and hashed out a story. These issues are very important to him to so he and I just had the big discussion which led to me bringing it to Matt.
D: And I was just looking at it as a director, but a director is very much involved in that process. So John and I every weekend, we just kept writing and writing and writing. And it started to take shape really quickly. And we kind of hit that point early on that the characters start fleshing out enough that they start talking back, and it s really exhilarating. Pretty early on we showed a draft to Frances McDormand, telling her that we wanted her and that she was our first choice for the role that she ended up playing. And she said yes really early on so we had three actors we knew we were writing for which makes things go a lot easier and a lot faster. M: Why the decision to not direct it yourself and to start working with Gus? D: It was the worst moment of the whole process. It was December 15 th of last year and it was when all of my work for the year ended, and I had beeng away from my kids and my wife and had two intensive weeks of press to get the movie out, and I had the Daily Show as my last commitment. And I realized that night I d have to go to pre-production January 1 st, and I just realized I couldn t do that. So I called John {Discussion continued regarding John and Damon s agreement to bring in Van Sant to direct}. M: At this point was the film fully funded? D: So that s the other thing. Ben Affleck and I have a deal at Warner Brothers, and I ve done 10 movies there over the last decade and they ve been really good to us, and this was a smaller movie but because I was directing it they wanted to support me. So when I said I m not doing it I knew I was screwing our funding too. (laughter). But once we talked Gus and had his notes, and started to incorporate them, and started taking financing meetings. M: Now one thing the movie has attracted criticism for is that one of the funders of the movie is Image Media, Abu Dhabi group which I gather is owned by the UAE which obviously has an invested interest in stopping the fracking movement in the US. Curious its been written about in conservative blogs, curious what your response is? D: We found out they were involved when we saw the rough cut and we saw their logo. We met with Focus Features and Participant, and they made the movie. Participant has a blind slate deal with these guys and these guys take a 10 percent piece. I don t know these people at all and I didn t know they were involved in the movie.it was literally a surprise to us to, but I guess something that these guys have latched on to. M: Tell me about how the movie developed, did you write them for yourselves from the beginning? D: Yes. And ya know another criticism we ve heard about is that we changed the script in the middle of the shoot. M: I was curious to see they ve been posting the script. Is that something that happens with other movies you ve worked with? D: No, a lot of movie that I work on they ll watermark the script, that kind of stuff, and super protective. And we just made a decision early on not to do any of that, we had nothing to hide. These guys posted the script, and I guess technically we could sue them but like I want people to read the script so go ahead and post it. I don t care. M: John I was reading, you were in the Hollywood Reporter and said, The idea of manipulating your audience to believe something is incredibly dangerous, but to delve into certain subject matter is always important. So long as at the end, this is not what I believe happened and you should all take it as truth. I
think that is interesting but after seeing a movie like this, what would you think of someone left saying Fracking that seems like a good solution for rural America. That s not the reaction you necessarily want people to have at the end of the movie? J: Maybe not, I mean honestly the only reaction I ve ever wanted is to start a conversation. Doesn t really matter what side of the issue you fall on as long as you re willing to talk about it and learn more. I I think just as a country, we need to take more responsibility about where we are heading together and not alone. There is one way to tell every story, and Down Fall was his big example that it humanized a man that didn t deserve to be humanized and your creating a story that isn t real so anyone that adheres to it, you ve manipulated them in a way. M: The movie s not even out yet, and there s already some blowback from it and conversation starting already. Are you guys ready for the conversation? D: I mean look when we were shooting the movie guys would come up to us (in Pittsburgh) and ask us if this was a movie about fracking. And guys would say ya know, you shouldn t say anything about that, we need this here, we need this. And that s why the film is so interesting to us, because the stakes are so high and you go and you drive around and you talk to these people. And first all, they all know what s going on and second this is life or death for a lot of these family farms. This is a lifeline to them, this is keeping the farm in their hands. So it s a very complicated issue. And the feelings are very very strong around it. If its people from the energy industry they should just see the movie first, because until then your having a conversation about a book they haven t read and it s just sort of a waste of everyone s time. M: One aspect of the movie is that you are obviously someone that works for an energy company, and as does Frances, and you are not classic villains in the movie. You re normal, slightly okay people. D: The idea was to present people. All the characters should feel like people you know. I mean Gus made a decision early on to not wear any makeup. Fran s character for instance, she just keeps saying it s just a job and you see her allegiance is to her teenager that is back home in Houston. And she s like, it s a good job and that s why she s doing it. It should feel like all of us. M: Gus you ve obviously done a lot of politically charged work in the past. What was your understanding of the issues before you started working? V: I had never heard about hydraulic fracking before I had the script, and the day after I think there was an earthquake around Akron Ohio, and they were suggesting that it was related to hydraulic fracturing, so I was absorbing information mainly from the screenplay. Talking with John and Matt about it, and then talking with people in Pittsburgh about it. I didn t take the time to go see some of the documentaries that had come out, so I was pretty much being guided by things that had been written in the screenplay. When I got there was a conference at the hotel, and a lot of the people there were in the HF business, so there was a lot of interaction there. People in Pittsburgh, everyone has the ups and downs of the business. Obviously, fantastic ups with jobs and opportunity, and a source of power that is on our own soil. And there are the downs. But they were always being discussed wherever we went, the farms we went, the folks were sometimes heading their own meetings, it was everywhere.
M: So the movie s done, what at this point in your career, both you and John too, what s your mind set at this point? What s the concern at this point? Are you concerned about the film critics? The box office? The political atmosphere it creates? What do you think about as it comes up on the opening of the movie? D: Well, it s sort of like sending your kid to school on the first day. You know, obviously we have a huge investment of time and emotion and energy in the movie. So you want people to see it and, you know, with a movie of this size, it was made for eighteen million dollars, or a little less actually, because we came in under budget, but it s not a Jason Bourne movie. You don t have the marketing budget. So, you know, to get the word out you do a lot of Q&A s and you re hoping for good reviews, that s a big part of it. And the reviewers know that films of this size live and die, a lot of the time, based on reviews and book feeders based on how strong the reviews are. M: What one guy three flights from here thinks of it? D: It s true. It s true. The trade reviews come out, and then you re on the phone talking to the theater owner at Coolidge Corner like, look man c mon c mon you ve got to do me a favor and keep it in there. M: (laughs) You don t really do that? D: You don t really want Lincoln, c mon. (laughs) C mon everybody s got that. Spielberg, Schmeilberg. M: What about you guys, you ve obviously had a lot of movies that have been critically acclaimed and done extraordinarily well. You ve had some that have done less well. How much does that matter at this point? How much do you have a thick skin? Or are you nervous right when movies come out? Or are you just, kind of, Zen about it? V: I m very nervous and curious as to what will come about. Critically, is huge. Also, box office. Whether people want to go see it. Whether they re talking amongst themselves. And also, whether you re able to get it in theaters and/or publicize it enough so that people will go. All of those things are huge. Pretty much every movie I make I m really on board with it and think it s done. Whether it turns out well or not, I think it s a really great movie. And I try not to change my opinion after it comes out. But it s like my kids, so. M: And John this is obviously a huge, I mean it s not a debut for you, but certainly having written this the stakes are high and it s also a big moment. What s your emotional state? J: Thank you for saying it. I m in a very unique situation where this is all totally surreal. Truly surreal. The fact that we re even up on stage next to these people is very bizarre to me still. The office is coming to an end in March, shooting wise, for me; and this year will be the last year so, weirdly, this just happens to be this bizarre, incredible transition for me. So the experience is so existentially heavy that it s not just about box office or critics or anything to me. This is so special that I m just thrilled to be going along for the ride and I m so, so proud to be a part of it. M: I d like to hear what your next projects are, the three of you. What s your 2013 look like? D: Well, for shooting I don t have anything right now. M: You don t have anything for shooting? D: No, no. But I have two that are finished. J: (interrupts) Way to make him feel better.
M: You re unemployed? D: Yeah (laughs), the unemployment rate just went a little higher. But I have Elesium, which is the big science fiction movie that s going to come out in August. And I just finished shooting, two months ago, Behind the Candleabre, which is a story where Liberace and his lover. And that s going to come out on HBO in May, and Steven Soderbergh directed that film. V: For me, I have some projects that I m trying to talk people into. There s a few screenplays. J: (interrupts) I ll do it. V: (Laughs) And I m trying to wait for Promisedland to come out. It s kind of hard to make a move, for me, until the movie, at least, just plays and then you move on to the next project. M: I was praising Matt s career choices over the years, but you two have had this incredible, like, doing very offbeat, very idiosyncratic personal things and then moving to bigger movies. But it doesn t sound like you re strategic about that at all, you just, sort of, take things as the come up. Is that true. V: Well, I think there are sometimes reactions- like, if you make a particular kind of film you become more interested in something that - at least, for me, is unlike it. So you sort of go from one place to the next. In the case the of Jerry, I wanted to make more films in the same manner. But, yeah, there s sometimes a point where I m reacting to the film that I just made and I want to do something that s completely different. And I think that in an acting sense, you would want that, as well- to play something- not the same character all the time. M: That s a mistake that some people get into. They have success doing one thing and so they keep doing that one thing and pretty soon that the only thing they re allowed to do. So, I was always really leery of that. You know, of not trying to protect my beach head, you know what I mean? Because people do that, they become- Q: Well, speaking of beach head, how did it feel watching a Bourne movie and seeing someone else playing- I mean, it wasn t your character, but it was obviously the same franchise. Did you see the movie? M: I did see the movie. You know, and it felt like- it was very odd watching it. It was very odd watching it. It had a lot of the bells and whistles of the Bourne series, but I didn t know anything about it. But I understand, they had to make it. They had a deal with the estate and they had to get a movie out in 2012. Q: Did it make you more or less- in terms of wanting to make another one? M: I ve always wanted to make another one, but I think it made it less likely that I d be able to because there were things that happened in that universe that would now have to happen in the Bourne universe because they used some of the actors in our movie. So, in the Bourne world- all that stuff happened now. So we would have to think about what that would then mean. I don t think it makes it impossible, it just makes it more of a challenge M: Well, I think it makes it kind of exciting, actually- just trying to solve some of those problems. M: Yeah, but the problem historically with the Bourne movies was that, was that they- and I ve noticed this on big movies- they ll give you a release date and the second that you have a green light and you re going and you have a release date, all of their problems become your problems. You have to figure out everything. Now, the third movie, we literally wrote it while we were shooting it. I mean, the day we were writing it. It took years off of our lives- it was really, so much pressure. Because you re aware of how
much money- I mean, once you get on set the money is just burning. You know, you have to make decisions and they re huge decisions. Paul Greengrass and I would say, We re in the wrong country. This happened and we were in Spain and it was 4 in the morning and we were on a street and saying, Is there anything else we can shoot in Spain. Is there anything else? You know, why the fuck are we in Spain? You know, because that s really- because it feels inefficient. You know, if you come from a world where you re under budget and underschedule on this movie because we had a script. And all we ever said to them, if we could get a script we d really like to do it, but nobody could ever crack what that story was. So, if anyone here or watching on the Webcast- Universal Studios will pay you a lot of money if you can come up with a script idea for a Jason Bourne movie. M: John, do you have a writing project in mind or are you still kind of decompressing from this? What s your plan? J: Yeah, I m definitely still decompressing from this. I ll probably fall asleep for three months and then- uh. Yeah, I m writing a couple things now and just seeing where they take me, and I m working on a couple other projects outside of film. You know, development is really, really exciting- you just never know when it ll get made. It ll be there ready for people until they act on it. You know, I think emotionally I m going to be connected to the end of the show and I want to make sure I do everything I can to be there for the end of the show that s been there for me the whole time. M: Ok. I have one final question. One very trivial question for Gus, but we were talking backstage and I was just curious what you thought about Portlandia. You re like a Portland guy from way back, before it was cool, so I was curious what you thought about the show. V: Um, I m a big fan of the show. Uh, I didn t know at first what it was going to be like. I appeared in one of the episodes before I saw the episodes. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisten bring in local characters and- into the fold- and there s a lot of friends that were in the film, or in the show, but I m a big fan and I ve seen all episodes, I think. M: Well, thank you guys for being here tonight. What day does this movie come out? D: December 28 here in New York and then January 4 everywhere. M: Good, well thank you guys for coming tonight. We appreciate it.