‘Private’ thoughts
Title role in Spielberg movie let Matt Damon observe ‘the best film school in the world’
By Jane Sumner / The Dallas Morning News
After meeting appealing Matt Damon in person, it’s easy to understand why Robert Duvall took a liking to the young actor on the set of Geronimo: An American Legend five years ago.
In those days, the Harvard dropout was still losing parts to Chris O’Donnell, Matthew McConaughey, Joaquin Phoenix and Ed Norton. His boyish good looks hadn’t yet shown up in a bubble bath on the cover of Vanity Fair.
He hadn’t yet stressed out his body, shedding 40 pounds for a supporting role in Courage Under Fire, or shared an Oscar with boyhood friend Ben Affleck for their Good Will Hunting script.
But like the great Duvall, he was curious, brave, funny, intelligent and passionately interested in everything to do with his trade.
On the World War II action film Saving Private Ryan, which opened Friday, he landed the small but key title role, got a hard lesson in history and went through what he calls “the best film school in the world.”
In Dallas last week, the ex-Ivy Leaguer walked in wearing a black suit and white dress shirt open at the neck. A mature “old soul” who still looks like a kid, he talked easily and without a single “you know” about the hard-hitting film, how it affected him and what it’s like to work with Steven Spielberg.
“Watching the movie, I was thinking of my generation and to what extent have we held up our end of the bargain,” he says. “To what extent do we really appreciate what was done for us? I’m certainly guilty of treating Memorial Day like a day at the beach rather than taking a moment to think about why I got the day off.”
Granted, he says, it’s not an easy film to watch. Even the actor who watched it being filmed found himself turning away from the screen.
“We all have this requisite knowledge of history, but the film assaults you so viscerally it’s hard not to look at things a little differently when you walk out.”
Unlike the eight actors who make up the search mission for his fictional character, Pvt. James Ryan, he didn’t go through Capt. Dale Dye’s down-and-dirty boot camp.
For 10 days (five in the field), Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore and company learned how it feels to be a combat soldier. They hiked five miles a day with a 40-pound pack, slept in tents, ate K-rations, drilled with weapons and took verbal abuse from the crusty retired Marine.
“At first I kind of balked at that,” says Mr. Damon. “I realize now why he did it. Since the movie’s about guys, this tight-knit unit looking for one, the boot camp served a number of purposes. It made them look like soldiers. It started to forge that camaraderie and those bonds.”
But knowing Mr. Damon wasn’t crawling on his belly in the mud fostered hard feelings among the movie’s eight rescuers. When he flippantly asked how the eight liked boot camp, he says, their resentment surfaced. “It translated right into the scene,” he says.
For an actor eager to soak up everything he can about a character, the tough-talking Dye was a brisk resource.
“He would sit or stand right next to the camera and watch us like a hawk. If there was anything you were doing that didn’t look like soldiering, he was going to come down and get right in your face. He really felt a responsibility to veterans. He was not going to let us embarrass them.”
Four actors in the cast – Mr. Hanks (That Thing You Do), Mr. Burns (The Brothers McMullen), Adam Goldberg (Scotch and Milk) and Vin Diesel (Strays) – had already written and directed their own films.
“At the time, I was just so happy to be working,” says Mr. Damon. “I was sitting in the foxhole trying to hand scripts to these guys to get them to direct a movie. I was looking for another job.”
With that many screenwriters around, there were bound to be suggestions for Robert Rodat’s gritty script. The director, he says, was open to input.
“Steven was really good about dirtying up the dialogue, making it seem natural, making it seem as if people were talking because they had a reason, not just because they had a line. That’s great. That’s why the film looks so natural. There were a lot of Hollywood moments that got yanked on the day.”
The best way to learn a trade such as acting, he says, is to apprentice yourself to the best people around. The way he did with Mr. Spielberg.
“I tried to follow Steven around for a whole day. It was an absolute joke. I made it almost to lunch and I had to quit. I could not keep up with him, and I’m in shape. We figured out that he made an average of six decisions per 10 seconds.”
On the set, the director barks orders like a nose-mounted machine gun. Warming to the role, Mr. Damon throws himself into an energetic imitation of Mr. Spielberg in action.
“You know, put the camera here. No, 2 inches down. OK, that’s good. I want this man running across the back right here. At that point I want a mortar to go off. I want him to fly, but, Todd, you’re going to be crossing right into frame right then. Take your line right at that moment. Now Matt, after you see him do that, you’re going to come right around the corner. The camera’s going to pick you up. You’re going to jump into this foxhole. You’re going to come up. You’re going to discharge three rounds from your rifle. You’re going to go down, you’re going to reload. You’re going to take your line to Tom. You go back over and right, then the camera’s going to go up at that moment – here move it up 2 feet – and I want you hunkering there in the foxhole. All right, let’s go.”
And that, Mr. Damon says, catching his breath, is how the shot was made. “He didn’t use storyboards. It’s so mind-boggling. Any one of those decisions that he makes would cause me gray hair. It would take four years for me to come up with those decisions.”
Even movies about two people sitting in a room are storyboarded, he says. “And this guy’s doing D-Day without one. And to see what he got. The fact that he didn’t do many takes put pressure on the cast. That’s why we jelled as a team.”
At the end of the take, he says, the cast crowded around the monitor to see if anyone messed up. “If he said, ‘Print!’ the whole place erupted. It meant a couple hundred people had been perfect for a minute.”
Working with Mr. Spielberg was much different from his experience with Francis Coppola on The Rainmaker. “Literally, he’s the polar opposite of Coppola. Francis will shoot a scene all day, then not use it. Steven cut out 3 1/2 minutes between his rough cut and his final print. Francis cut out 3 1/2 hours from The Rainmaker from his rough cut to his final cut.”
Another surprise about working with Mr. Spielberg was his accessibility, he says. “It was like a film school. It was like class began in the morning. Going back to those [actor] filmmakers, that’s who he relates to. That’s why he cast ’em. They’re all him in different ways.”
When he asked Mr. Spielberg one of the many questions that popped into his head, he says the director would stop, turn around, explain and then march off to make another decision.
The highly disciplined actor is moving fast these days. Since Private Ryan, he has completed John Dahl’s Rounders and Kevin Smith’s Dogma. Coming up are starring roles in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley and All the Pretty Horses (“It’s a great book,” he says. “Hopefully, I won’t mess it up.”), to be directed by Billy Bob Thornton.
But he says, “I’m still grateful Walter Hill gave me that job in Geronimo because I needed it. I needed the money. I needed the exposure. I don’t know what I’d be doing if he hadn’t. I’d probably be doing theater back in Boston.”
It was also where he caught the eye of that other Oscar winner. “Every young actor has seen all of Duvall’s movies. I used to go to the set on days I didn’t work, and he’d invite me into his trailer for lunch. I was just a scrub guy. He’d say, ‘C’mon, son, you get in here. You want some pasta?’ He just totally took me under his wing.”
