Monday Minute
No. 27 | February 8, 2010

Talkin’ ‘Bout “D” Generation

There’s a “My Generation” for every generation.  There’s the rock classic from the Who, the punk cover from Green Day, the remix from Will.i.am.  Different times, different tastes, different musicians.

So it is with actors.  One era has Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd, another Brando, Dean, and Clift, a third Pacino, De Niro, and Hoffman.  Each group of actors reflects their time, and in a way, defines their time.

Who will be remembered as the defining actors of our time?  Time will tell, though we can make a few guesses.

The actors featured this week are all movie stars and contemporaries, born between the mid-1960s and mid-’70s.  Except for one, each grew up in a big city on one of the coasts.  They’re versatile, not easy to typecast, and talented.  Each has at least one Oscar nomination.  Each has appeared in a Best Picture winner or nominee.  They’re guys in demand, with twenty or more film credits apiece.  They’re not new faces but they’re relatively young.  They should have long careers still ahead of them.

There’s one other thing they have in common.  Maybe you could call them the ”D” Generation.

Our theme this week
Actors of the ”D” Generation

Matt Damon

The essentials
Maybe it helps to be a baseball fan.  That scene at the therapist’s office.  Sean Maguire, the doctor, is telling the bright young kid with a chip on his shoulder about the day he first knew his wife was the one for him.  “October 21, 1975.”  Game 6, Fenway Park, Carlton Fisk hits one off the foul pole in the twelfth.  The biggest day in Red Sox history and the doc gave up his ticket to “see about a girl.”  Years later, he doesn’t regret a thing.  Never did.  Even a die-hard Yankees fan (at least this one) could see that was big.

That scene, co-written by today’s featured actor, helped Robin Williams win an Academy Award.  The film, Good Will Hunting, is remembered today for launching the career of a certain twenty-something actor from Boston who also picked up an Oscar for the screenplay he wrote with his buddy Ben Affleck.

Matt Damon had already been in movies—opening two weeks earlier he starred in The Rainmaker, probably the best adaptation of a Grisham novel—but the film that put him (and his friend) on the map was Good Will Hunting.  The film with the punny title was very well crafted, had winning performances, and was a big hit.  It became the inspiration for the dreams of a generation of would-be Hollywood stars.

Damon followed it with his title role in Saving Private Ryan, a character of more symbolism than screen time.  Next was his fine performance as a poker player in Rounders.   The following year, 1999, Damon starred as the cold-blooded killer in The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Damon had excellent success with a couple of film franchises during the ’00s.  Steven Soderbergh remade the Rat Pack’s Ocean’s Eleven, leading to Twelve and Thirteen, with Damon appearing as the heist ensemble rookie.  The Ocean films were loose and fun entertainments, and about as cool as movies got during the decade.  As the amnesiac agent in the Bourne thrillers–Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum—Damon was a new model for an action hero.  The fast-paced and popular trilogy raised Damon’s stardom to a new level.

Teaming with friend and frequent co-star George Clooney, Damon starred as an energy analyst in Syriana, a 2005 thriller with intrigue and a political edge.  The Good Shepherd was a spy film set in the early days of the CIA.  Damon was part of the all-star cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio, in Martin Scorsese’s Best Picture winner of 2006, The Departed.  A remake of the Hong Kong film Internal Affairs, now set in the actor’s old stamping grounds of Boston, Damon did first-rate work as an informant for the local crime boss.  The Informant! (with Soderbergh again) was one of two noteworthy Damon films for 2009, a twisted dark comedy about a screwball whistle blower who rats on his corporation and messes up an FBI investigation at the same time.  In Invictus Damon plays South Africa rugby captain François Pienaar, opposite Morgan Freeman’s Nelson Mandela.  The role earned Damon a Best Supporting Actor nomination, his third Oscar nod.  Next month he’s back with Paul Greengrass (director of the Bourne sequels) in the thriller Green Zone.

Beyond the final credits
Partners in crime (frequent collaborators):

• 9 films — Ben Affleck
• 6 films — Casey Affleck
• 5 films — George Clooney, Steven Soderbergh
• 4 films — Brad Pitt, Franka Potente, Carl Reiner, Julia Roberts, Kevin Smith
• 3 films — Don Cheadle, Brian Cox, Andy Garcia, Paul Greengrass*, Eliott Gould, Bernie Mac, Jason Mewes, Brian O’Halloran, Gus Van Sant, Julia Stiles
• 2 films — Joey Lauren Adams, Alec Baldwin, Albert Finney, Brendan Fraser, Martin Landau, John Turturro

        * Includes Green Zone

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Good Will Hunting (1997)
Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, Scott William Winters

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The Departed (2006)
Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio

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Quote of Note
“Why should I pay for my own legal fees when I’m not the one who started the price fixing?  People get their live’s earnings wiped out by these legal entanglements.  I’m gonna pay for that?  That’s not right.  I have kids and Ginger and horses.”
— Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), The Informant! (2009)

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