HOLLYWOOD — There is life after Oscar for Matt Damon. It’s a damned good life, even with the embarrassment of dumping your dates under the glare of the public spotlight.

“I’m knocking on wood so hard my knuckles are bleeding,” Damon says of his lot in life as a popular actor, as a sex symbol and as an Oscar-winning screenwriter for Good Will Hunting. “I’m like the luckiest guy in the world.”

Damon is now on screen in the title role of Private James Ryan in Steven Spielberg’s enormously successful World War II drama, Saving Private Ryan. It is currently the number one box-office hit across North America.

“It’s incredible!” Damon says of working with Spielberg. “It was incredible when I got this job, to know I was going to work with him. He’s incredible. He’s literally incredible!”

For a young screenwriter, the 27-year-old Damon is running out of words, especially out of appropriate adjectives to describe the euphoria of success after years of “abject poverty” and rejection in Hollywood.

His tributes sound like hyperbole. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Despite some negative rumbles about Damon over his bitter public breakup with Good Will Hunting co-star Minnie Driver, Damon still has a squeaky-clean image as one of the good guys in a nasty business rife with ego. He maintains humility, even with the Oscar.

ALWAYS LEARNING

“We certainly don’t want the little statue to mean that somehow we’re deferred to and that we know what the hell we’re doing,” he says of his writing partner and best friend Ben Affleck and himself. “We’re still on the learning curve and will be.

“The great thing is that you can learn until you’re six feet under.We’re looking forward to new challenges, but we’re not overconfident. You’ve got the elephant on your back. The Oscar can be a bit paralyzing, too.”

Ironically, the Oscar hasn’t meant much to his career — yet. His next four movies were signed and delivered before the Oscar ceremony. Damon had already shot Rounders, a professional poker players saga, for John Dahl.

The day after Oscar night, he and Affleck flew to Pittsburgh to finish guest cameos in their friend Kevin Smith’s Dogma. That was a pay-back favor for Smith’s participation in getting Miramax to back Good Will Hunting. Smith intervened after a cynical Miramax executive, since departed, had rejected it.

Damon is now shooting The Talented Mr. Ripley with director Anthony Minghella of The English Patient fame. Then he will do All The Pretty Horses with Billy Bob Thornton directing.

The Minghella and Thornton movies are crucial steps in building his career, says Damon. “They mark the chance for me to really try to be Tom Hanks.” He says that with reverence and respect for his Saving Private Ryan co-star.

WILD RUMORS

Meanwhile, Damon has reluctantly learned to keep his mouth shut about his love life, which now involves actress Winona Ryder. Damon won’t even take the hook when mention is made of wild rumors that the two are now engaged (Ryder, however, has dismissed the idea as ridiculous).

“At least the rumor isn’t that I’m marrying Ben,” Damon jibes. “But the trial by fire has taught me not to talk about that. That’s a weird adjustment for me because I’ve never thought of myself as a guarded person at all. I’ll talk about anything at any time. But (in terms of his private life) I’m going to do that with people around me and not do it publicly.”

Instead, he’ll talk movies, he’ll talk issues. In the case of Saving Private Ryan, Damon hopes that audiences will be re-sensitized to what men go through fighting wars.

“I hope that people come out with a new appreciation for veterans. Hopefully, Memorial Day would not be just a day of beer and BBQs. I know I’m guilty of that. Take a moment.”