Matt Damon says he’s been “really lucky” to avoid living under the same media scrutiny Ben Affleck has for the last thirty years.
Although the careers of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have arguably followed similar paths (I’ll leave it up to the comment section to decide who is the bigger star), Damon hasn’t had to face the same scrutiny from the media as Affleck.
Damon spoke on the Radio Times Podcast (via People) to say that he “can’t imagine” having all that attention over his head. “I’ve been really lucky in that way … especially when I look at Casey’s brother, Ben,” Damon said. “I can’t imagine living under that kind of scrutiny. And it’s been like that for 25 years and we’ve had parallel careers in a lot of ways and so I’m fortunate to have been kind of excused from that part of [it].“
As Affleck faced relentless tabloid attention thanks to his relationship(s) with Jennifer Lopez, Damon was spared as they found him boring. “That magazine culture that was so huge … 25 years ago, kind of ignored me,” Damon explained. “Right, like a guy who’s married, it’s so boring. What would sell those things were scandal and sex and all that stuff … and as long as you didn’t do any of that stuff it wasn’t really worth their time to wait to take your picture, and so I ended up kind of getting left alone.“
The actor added that he initially found fame to be a “bizarre, disorienting feeling” when all he wanted to do was work. “I just wanted to get to work and so I kind of hid for a few years while I got my bearings,” Damon said. “Luckily fell in love with someone who was not in the business who would tolerate that side of it and that really helped me.“
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have been working together more frequently in the last few years. Their next project is said to be RIP, a crime thriller written and directed by Joe Carnahan. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but they will also star in and produce through Artists Equity. It was previously reported that shooting will get underway this fall. They’re also set to produce a Hulk Hogan biopic with Gus Van Sant in talks to direct, and there have even been rumblings that the pair could star in the movie as well.