DAMON

I thought I first saw Matt Damon in Gus Van Sant's 1997 film "Goodwill Hunting".As the titular character ,Will Hunting,Damon was effortless in the role of a janitor at MIT whose carefully concealed genius is found out by a professor. Seeing the film I realised I had seen him play supporting roles in two earlier films -"Courage of Fire "(1996,directed by Edward Zwick) where he played the role of a soldier suffering from a guilty conscience(for this role he lost 18 kilograms;in the very next year he gained his normal weight for GWH)and in " School Ties"(1992,directed by Robert Mandel)where he played an anti semitic college goer.GWH turned out to be his breakthrough role ;in the very same year as GWH he starred in Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of John Grisham's "The Rainmaker."Here he was a fresh out of law school lawyer handling his first case against a greedy corporation.In the 2000s he starred in two franchises -the Ocean series and the Bourne series.The Bourne series was a physically arduous challenge for him as he performed various stunts on his own;he also managed to make a character who is mostly seen running from his adversaries a very compelling one.Even today he is regarded as one of the most reliable character actors in Hollywood acting for directors like Clint Eastwood and Steve Sodenbergh.His list of previous directors include Steven Spielberg and Anthony Minghella as well .An impressive resume if one may say so. His willingness to play various roles is at odds with the image of a typical Hollywood star(in fact he is probably the actor least mentioned in the page 3 news);his acting chops are as apparent today as they were a decade ago.Let's hope he does not lose his touch.