Today’s is the easiest pick of the 31 Day Film Challenge by a long-shot. I really, truly, deeply and categorically cannot stand Matt Damon.
As much as I wish I could, I cannot put a finger on exactly what it is that irks me so much about Matt Damon. I like many, even most, of his films. I haven’t seen any of the Bourne films, because those seemed to be too much Matt Damon for me to stand, but I thought Good Will Hunting was solid and I really loved the Oceans Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen movies. So, it’s not that I think Damon makes bad films or is a particularly bad actor. It’s just something about him.
For one thing, I think that Matt Damon is more or less “Matt Damon” in every single movie he makes. So, though I don’t think he’s a terrible actor (like Brendan Fraser, for example), I also don’t think he’s a great actor… or much of an actor at all, really. I think he’s done a pretty good job of choosing roles that allow him to be the handsome, witty, slyly-funny guy of above-average intelligence that he was in Good Will Hunting and (if we are to believe what we see of him off-screen) appears to be in real life. But, I don’t know why, I just don’t like that guy. Damon practically oozes inauthenticity to me. His charm seems rehearsed, his cleverness seems arrogant, his wit seems snarky, his vulnerability seems phony, even his smile seems artificial and synthetic. I’m sure this is true for everyone, but there are other actors/actresses who I dislike because they remind me of some real person that I know (and also dislike) in real life. That’s not the case with Matt Damon. He doesn’t remind me of any real person in particular that I don’t like. He just reminds me of a generic “that guy” category of person that I don’t like. A kind of over-privileged, unreflective, too-full-of-himself poser.
One of my colleagues and good friends, Steve, has been pressing me to give a better explanation of my Matt-Damon-animus for a while now, ever since we were first chatting about actors/actresses we hate over happy hour drinks several months ago. So, I’m a little embarrassed to report that, despite the fact that I’ve been thinking and talking about this a lot recently, I still don’t have a very good account. I just don’t like Matt Damon. Full stop.