Matt Damon Quotes (63 Quotes)

Some people get into this business and they're so afraid to lose anything. They try to protect their position like clinging to a beachhead. These actors end up making really safe choices. I never wanted to go that route. If I go down, I'm going down swinging.

I think people call him crazy because he's really passionate and energetic and uncompromising, ... and those are qualities you don't really see a lot in Hollywood. It doesn't feel like this bizarre puzzle that only he has the keys to.

I found myself getting more publicly shy when the gala events and big crowds started. Some people embrace it. To me, it's not worth enough to risk my private life being public.

If your movies don't perform, they just stop calling you.

Success is not something I've wrapped my brain around. If people go to those movies, then yes, that's true, big-time success. If not, it's much ado about nothing.

I never wanted to do the same kind of movies over and over anyway, so my theory on it all is I'm just gonna try and dodge the label and keep doing what I am doing.

It she will be a girl,' said Damon in Spanish. The actor has advanced in his classes thanks to his wife, who has dedicated herself to teaching him the language.

It's usually the exact same three things which are, the Scripts, the Director and the Role those are the three things I look for and really any two of them, If I get two of them that's usually enough, but definitely those are the things I look for.

a fairy tale about the guys who wrote fairy tales as seen through the eyes of Terry Gilliam in a wild fantasy world only he could create.

We were totally free to hang out anywhere and no one noticed us. We were not even worth a dot of ink on a page in the local newspaper. It was great to just go out and have a beer with no major hoopla.

And he should know ... No, well, Terry had me take tango lessons to prepare for the movie just because I move like such a mook, you know, that he wanted me to be a little more of a dandy and so he thought if I danced that would happen.

I think it's still hard for me to turn down work if it's really good because for so many years I was so desperate to get a job and couldn't and so it's kind of an anathema for me to turn down work.

I've never seen somebody that famous, ever, ... More than Robin Williams walking down the street in Boston, this guy would walk down the street in Italy and grandmothers would be hanging out of their windows yelling, 'Fiorello, Fiorello.'

It would be a dream to work with someone like Ang,

This whole hot and cold thing is completely ridiculous and totally beyond an actor's control. It's a really insecure, bizarre profession and it's compounded with the whole celebrity and fame thing.

What I have noticed since then is that when some people have gotten to a certain position in Hollywood, they're afraid to lose it. They protect their position like a beachhead. 'God Don't take this away from me.' And so they start making really safe choices. I don't want to do that. If I go down, I'm going to go down swinging.

Some people get afraid to lose it, ... They get something and they try and protect it like a beachhead. God Dont take it away form me. And so they start making really safe choices and I dont want that. If I go down Im going down swinging.

They had to do it quickly and quietly to avoid all the media nonsense. It really is a shame that it's come to the point where celebrities have to sneak around to get married.

For Ripley I learned to play some songs on the piano, and I never really played them again.

Once I threw a soda can at them and it was full, ... But I have to say that New York is great. I don't even get followed anymore. It's more like some construction worker leaning out a building screaming, 'Hey Matt, what the hell are you doing here' That's actually fun.

There are people who appear in the magazines and I don't know who they are. I've never seen anything they've done and their careers are over already. They're famous for maybe 10 minutes. Real careers, I think, take a long time to unfold.

It's better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

The real Brothers Grimm were scholars they were these amazing heroes in Germany who discovered this folklore and shone a light on it, and made Germans proud of their heritage,

When I did the first one I only signed up for the first one 'cause I didn't want to be contractually obligated to do more than one if it wasn't a good experience. And, I'd never done an action movie and I was a little leery of the whole thing,

People who make a living playing poker and in that world, it's not quite as sexy as it sounds.

Even though, by their own admission, the people who voted for that script didn't think it was the best script, it probably was the smartest movie to choose because it does, in an odd way, give the project the greatest chance of surviving, because the movie might actually make money.

It's a fairy tale about the guys who wrote fairy tales through the eyes of Terry Gilliam, ... This film was actually an excuse for Terry to create an entire world. He does this so well with wide-angle lenses. Terry's frames are so densely packed with information that you can't take it all in the first time.

The show was really good this year and yet we had horrible, horrible ratings, ... When we were in conversation with Bravo, they were like, 'Look, the show is good,' we got the best reviews of any show on television, and they said, 'But there's a certain number,' and they showed us the number and I'm not a TV guy, but they said, 'Look, this number, no matter what, we can't bring the show back. ... This is just terrible, we can't justify keeping it on air.'

Now I feel I have an unspoken deal with the paparazzi: "I won't do anything publicly interesting if you agree not to follow me."

It's just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants.

Ben just didn't want the insanity of media outlets at his wedding. He didn't want a circus,

I honestly if I get a vacation I'm gonna go and sit on my couch in New York cause that's the one place I haven't been for a very long time.

At that time they were thinking of themselves as barbarians, ... Suddenly the Brothers Grimm came along and said, 'No, our history is beautiful, our fairytales are beautiful.' They were influential people who rose to positions of real prominence in society. Jacob became a politician, they were famous collaborators they lived together with their families until they were old men working together, sharing, like, a little desk.

I'd love to be a dad. I hope I'd be great at it. That's every man's fear, yet his most important job.

I got the call. He wanted me there and I wanted to be there but couldn't make it because it was such a last-minute thing,

He admitted Miramax wouldn't make the film with Johnny and that I was their choice. They thought Johnny was too weird and didn't have any box-office clout.

Bond is part of the system. He's an imperialist and a misogynist, and he laughs at killing people, and he sits there slugging martinis. It'll never be the same thing as this, because Bourne is a guy who is against the establishment, who is paranoid and on the run. I just think fundamentally they're just very different things.

If you have two famous people, it's not like the attention doubles, ... It grows exponentially, no matter who they are.

I'd had people say, "You'll enjoy being famous for a week, and you'll never enjoy it again". But I don't think I had that week. I may have been working and missed that moment.

It's no mistake that jazz is kind of a recurring theme in the movie, ... because I think that's what Ripley's doing -- he's riffing, depending on who his partner is.

The movie is really a fairy tale about the guys who wrote fairy tales. It's also an excuse for Terry to create an entire world, which is what he does so well. He has his wide-angle lenses and extravagant production design. His frames are so densely packed with information. He directs like no one else.

That definitely helps. I think things can get magnified exponentially when you have two celebrities in a situation. Suddenly the interest it's not just like twice the interest, it's four, eight times depending on the celebrity.

Right before 'The Bourne Identity' came out, I hadn't been offered a movie in a year.

Maybe through some fault of his own, Ben hasn't made the greatest choices in the last few years,

There is stuff that I do where I am just, like, 'Oh man, this is brutal and why did I do that and why did I make that choice and what am I doing' ... This time I just -- I don't know, it just seemed pretty honest when I saw it.

Despite the hit to his ego, Damon took the role, eager for an opportunity to work with Gilliam. He's definitely the type of man who is open to ideas, ... He also likes to gild the lily as much as possible.

If anybody wanted to photograph my life, they'd get bored in a day. 'Heres Matt at home learning his lines. Here's Matt researching in aisle six of his local library'. A few hours of that and they'd go home.

As for poker, I've stayed away from that, even though when I was in Vegas for Ocean's Eleven, I would get accosted by these guys begging me to play. They just want to take my money. They see me, think "actor" and see some easy money.

Your fate in Hollywood is totally beyond your own control,

If you see me or Heath (Ledger) in a movie that you dont like its because we made a bad decision, ... Theres no hiding behind, Well, I needed the money. I needed to pay my rent.