Matt Damon on his character, the supervirus and his fellow actors in Contagion
Matt Damon: The movie's about the outbreak of a supervirus. And my storyline is, kind of represents the kind of everyman, kind of human storyline. I play a guy who's been out of work for a while. And he's married and in very short order loses his wife and his stepson. And so his only surviving family member is his daughter. His 15 year-old daughter. And so for movie then becomes about protecting her. I've had the virus and it didn't kill me. But she hasn't and so the whole film I'm just trying to kind of shepherd her through this horrible outbreak. And protect her, after having lost a whole bunch myself.
Once the severity of the outbreak becomes clear. This virus, the lethality of it and the scale of what's happening. You know, social structure starts to deteriorate. And pretty rapidly. And then it's literally a survival. He goes into survival mode basically. With this kid. And it's great. It's terrifying.
I literally, I bumped into Fishburne at the hotel bar. You know. Which I've wanted to work with forever. I said, I finally am in a movie with you and I don't have any scenes with you. But Jude and I worked together a dozen years ago. And I love that. So it's funny, you know. It's one of those movies where people go: what's Contagion? The movie I'm doing and Jude and Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet. Wow, that's awesome! Yeah, I don't work with any if them. I have a little scene with Kate. A little bit with Gwyneth. But yeah, Marion. At least I'm in the movie with all of them. I appreciate the fact that I get to see their work, even if I don't get to be there when they're, you know, and do it with them
Matt Damon also talks about working with Steven Soderbergh.
