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Matt Damon

Matt Damon44 posts

Matt Damon is an American screenwriter, producer, and actor, who is best known for his role as Jason Bourne in the Bourne series of films. He gained national attention after the success of Good Will Hunting, a film that he and his good friend, actor Ben Affleck, co-wrote. The film went on to win the Academy Award for best screenplay that year. Damon is also a philanthropist who founded the H20 Africa Foundation, and supports many others such as the ONE campaign and Feeding America. He is married with three daughters and a stepdaughter.

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14 Sep, 2015

Diversity comments

Makes Statement0 Comments

In the season four premiere of Project Greenlight, Damon and Brown are among a number of producers discussing which finalist would win the contest and go on to direct the chosen script for the season. Brown wants directing team Leo Angelos & Kristen Brancaccio (an Asian man and white woman), in part because Brancaccio flagged the stereotypical aspects of the only black character in the script. Brown:

I want to urge people to think about, whoever this director is, the way that they’re going to treat the character of Harmony, her being a prostitute — the only black person being a hooker who gets hit by her white pimp. You’re looking at this group right here, and who you’re picking, and the story that you’re doing, and I just want to make sure we’re doing our best —

Damon:

The only team that’s left with diversity is the team that announced that they liked this script the most as it is, and that’s Leo and Kristen. Everyone else had major problems with it, with exactly the things that you’re bringing up, and exactly the things that we brought up to each other. I think on the surface, they might look like one thing, but they might end up giving us something that we don’t want. And when we’re talking about diversity, you do it in the casting of the film, not in the casting of the show (italics added).

Brown:

Wow, okay.