Word: ripley
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...wouldn't believe I sat there and let people say stuff like that to me." Before The Rainmaker and Good Will Hunting--the one-two punch that threw him into the spotlight and led to six more back-to-back roles, including his latest, in The Talented Mr. Ripley--Damon struggled for seven years to get enough work to feed himself. But tough as those years were, they are eclipsed in his memory by an experience he had when he was nine or 10. "I moved to a neighboring city, and I really wanted to go back...
...although it might seem that if one were making a movie about a charismatic, handsome, wealthy young man and the lonely misfit who desperately wants to be him, one would cast Damon in the glamour boy's role, he says he identifies with the dork. "I really relate to Ripley," says Damon. "I always did. I think most people will." And while there are differences--Damon says he played Ripley as a virgin, which, given his dating history (Claire Danes and Minnie Driver are two of the famous ones), must have been a stretch--there are also similarities. Damon...
...After Ripley, for which he lost 25 lbs. in order to appear pale and skinny, Damon spent a month learning to ride and bulking up for his portrayal of an 18-year-old cowboy in All the Pretty Horses, which will be released in late 2000. When Ripley director Anthony Minghella visited Damon on that set, he barely recognized him. "He was like the more successful, more centered, more handsome, just generally more masculine and surefooted cousin of Ripley," he says. And as Damon conducted a barrage of press interviews for Ripley, he was squirming under a brace because...
Ironically, the star and the guilt-ridden murderer have something else in common. Both Ripley and Damon work their way through conversations like poachers in Yellowstone. They sense they're being watched, so they constantly observe themselves. Halfway through talking about the responsibilities of fame and how it should be used for good, Damon breaks off. "Oh God," he says. "I sound like Miss America." He seems to have an acute sense of what others, particularly reporters, want to hear. He talks sports with the guys. He does classic movie routines with the show-biz old-timers. To a thirtysomething...
...glaring difference between Ripley and Damon is that Damon has managed to pull off what Ripley doesn't: he has achieved the trappings of privilege and success, but not, it seems, at the expense of his soul. Partly this is thanks to the support of his friends, most famously his childhood buddy Affleck, with whom he has been so closely entwined in the public eye that they now try to avoid speaking about each other to the press. ("It's not like we're bitching ex-husbands, or anything," Damon says.) More important, it's thanks to his family. They...