‘What connects us is so much greater than what divides us’: Matt Damon on challenging his own perceptions in new role
Matt Damon’s new film, Stillwater, sees him playing the father of an American student who is in prison in Europe for murdering her flatmate.
It sounds familiar because it is loosely based on the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in 2007 and the subsequent imprisonment of Amanda Knox.
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were placed under suspicion. Both were initially convicted, but after a series of different decisions Italy’s highest court threw out the convictions in 2015.
Ms Knox is never named on screen but Damon says the case was an initial “jumping off point” for Stillwater, which focuses on his character – an oil-worker or ‘roughneck’ from Oklahoma who has struggled with addiction and spent part of his life in prison.
Matt Damon stars as Bill Baker in Stillwater. Pic: Focus Features
Damon, 50, told Sky News: “The Amanda Knox case – Tom [McCarthy – director and co-writer] and I never talked about that because it served as kind of a jumping off point for this story, It’s really about what happens to this father and his daughter after all the cameras go away and how they move on with their lives.
“They’re both kind of broken and they both need each other very much – he’s carrying all this anger and pain and grief and regret and shame for having been an absentee father, for having been an addict, for all the ways in which he failed her and he’s trying to redeem himself and he’s trying to help her in any way he can, and yet he has none of the skills or tools that one would need to do that – yet he’s still trying.
The film is inspired by the murder of Meredith Kercher. Pic: Focus Features
“I just thought there was something beautiful and heartbreaking about it – you can feel that it’s probably not going to go well, and it’s a story about what feels to me like real people.”
The film invites us to challenge our preconceptions about others, and the Bourne star admits that’s exactly what happened while he was researching the role.
He says he spent time with real roughnecks in Oklahoma and found plenty of common ground.
“I come from a very different culture within America. I’m from the northeast and Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a very different place from Stillwater, Oklahoma, or some of the smaller places outside Stillwater where these guys live,” Damon explained.
“And so I had my own ideas about what I was going to see when I went down there, and as always, as happens literally every time in a world in which we’re constantly being told by, particularly by politicians, how divided we are and who are stoking those flames in order to kind of self-promote – you get past all that and it’s what connects us that is so much greater than what divides us.”
While Damon didn’t dwell on the real case that inspired the film, his co-star Abigail Breslin, who plays his daughter Alison, says she did research it, and even went as far as contacting Ms Knox.
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“I didn’t want to do anything that was mimicking or copying that trial because Alison is a very different person, and I was not trying to portray Amanda in it, but it was an amazing source of reference material,” she said.
“I had a brief Twitter conversation with her, but I don’t feel out of respect to her that it would be appropriate to share what we discussed.”
The film has divided critics, though many have praised Damon’s performance.
But the actor hopes that the movie will ultimately unite audiences.
He says that if we take the time to get to know those we are politically opposed to, we may come to understand them – as he did with the roughnecks he spent time with while preparing for his role.
Damon spent time with real roughnecks in Oklahoma to prepare for the role. Pic: Focus Features
Damon said: “We’re very different, politically we’re very different.
“Kenny Baker was this guy that was our consultant on the movie and we named Bill Baker [Damon’s character] after Kenny as a nod to him because we were so grateful for all his help.
“And he’s got unbelievable values and he’s such a good family man and such a good person, and, you know, you understand suddenly his political decisions in the context of that.
“I hope [the film] just blows up some of those kind of caricatures that we have about each other in ourselves.”
Stillwater is out in cinemas on 6 August.
A guitar used by John Lennon in the recording of The Beatles album and film Help! is going up for auction after being found in a loft.
Believed to have been lost, the 12-string acoustic guitar had not been seen or played for more than 50 years before it was rediscovered in the home of a British couple.
It is now going up for auction where it is estimated to fetch between £485,000 to £647,000.
Auctioneers believe it could set a “new world record for the highest-selling Beatles guitar”.
The Hootenanny model, made by German firm Framus, was used by the Liverpool band in the 1965 Help! film, specifically in the scene when the group perform You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away.
It was also used during the recording sessions for It’s Only Love and I’ve Just Seen A Face and Girl along with the rhythm track for Norwegian Wood played by George Harrison.
Lennon’s lost guitar on display in London ahead of the auction. Pic: AP
“Finding this remarkable instrument is like finding a lost Rembrandt or Picasso, and it still looks and plays like a dream after having been preserved in an attic for more than 50 years,” said Darren Julien, co-founder and executive director at auction house Julien’s Auctions.
“To awaken this sleeping beauty is a sacred honour and is a great moment for music, Julien’s, Beatles and auction history.”
It is believed the guitar came to be in the possession of Scottish guitarist Gordon Waller, known for being one half of the pop duo Peter & Gordon, who later gave it to his band’s road managers in the 1970s.
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It is not the first piece of Beatles memorabilia to be rediscovered.
In February, Sir Paul McCartney was reunited with his 1961 Hofner bass guitar, which he used on songs such as Twist And Shout and She Loves You.
Julien’s Auctions has previously sold another Lennon acoustic guitar for $2.4m (£1.93m), Ringo Starr’s Ludwig drum kit was purchased for $2.2m (£1.77m) and a Ludwig drumhead bass used on The Ed Sullivan Show was auctioned at $2.1m (£1.64m).
The Hootenanny guitar will go up for auction along with the guitar’s Maton Australian-made case as part of Julien’s Music Icons two-day auction on 29 and 30 May.
Also being sold at the auction is an Adam Clayton stage-played and owned rose sparkle Fender bass guitar, used at the U2 Las Vegas Sphere shows, which has an estimate of $50,000 to 70,000 (£40,199 to £56,279).
Tina Turner’s Versace dress, worn during her 1996 to 1997 Wildest Dreams Tour, and Amy Winehouse’s Black Fendi gown made for the opening of the clothes shop during Paris Fashion Week, are also up for auction.
US actor Terry Carter, who starred in 1970s TV shows including Battlestar Galactica and McCloud, has died at the age of 95.
Carter “died peacefully” at his New York home on Tuesday, it was announced on his official website.
He was best known for his roles as Colonel Tigh in the original Battlestar Galactica series and Sergeant Joe Broadhurst on McCloud.
During his decades-long career he was seen to break down barriers, including in 1956 becoming one of the first black actors to become a TV sitcom regular, playing Private Sugarman on The Phil Silvers Show.
His first major Hollywood role was playing Detective Max Jaffie in 1970 hit Company Of Killers, before his portrayal of Sergeant Joe Broadhurst in the US police drama series McCloud which ran from 1970 to 1977.
Arguably his most well-known role came for starring as Colonel Tigh, second-in-command of the starship fleet in original science-fiction series Battlestar Galactica in 1978.
The series came off the back of the success of Star Wars in 1977.
In 1989, he was nominated for an Emmy award for producing and directing a TV musical documentary titled A Duke Named Ellington about the life and work of the pianist, composer, and jazz star.
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His other credits including starring in Foxy Brown and Benji; creating a documentary about African-American anthropologist, dancer, and choreographer Katherine Dunham; and becoming a TV anchor newscaster for WBZ-TV Eyewitness News in Boston in 1965.
He also appeared in three Broadway productions, with his debut in Mrs Patterson, as well as the revival of the musical Finian’s Rainbow, and his final appearance was in the musical Kwamina, opposite British star Sally Ann Howes.
Carter is survived by his wife Etaferhu Zenebe-DeCoste, his two children Miguel and Melinda and Mrs Zenebe-DeCoste’s daughter.
Richard Osman has revealed three out of four of the lead characters for the forthcoming big screen adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club.
Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley will take on the roles of Elizabeth Best, Ron Ritchie and Ibrahim Arif respectively.
Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley. Pic: AP
The Pointless host shared the names of the key cast members on his bi-weekly podcast The Rest Is Entertainment, which he presents with journalist Marina Hyde.
Chris Columbus – the man behind Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire and two Harry Potter movies – is set to write and direct the film, which is being produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment.
The movie is based on Osman’s debut novel of the same name which follows a group of friends in a retirement home who solve cold cases for fun, but become entangled in a real murder.
It is set in a retirement home Cooper’s Chase, in the fictitious village of Fairhaven in Kent.
Osman said the production will take place from “the end of June to September” in the UK.
The fourth main character, a retired nurse called Joyce Meadowcroft, has not yet been confirmed.
Osman hinted at the casting, saying: “Joyce, we’re still in negotiations but again the name is the one that people most shout at me in the street”.
He teased: “Lots more casting to come in the following weeks.”
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An adaptation of the novel was first confirmed in 2020 after Amblin Partners secured rights in a competitive auction.
The fastest-selling adult crime debut, Osman has since written three more books in the series, with a fifth due out next year.
Before becoming a well-known face on quiz shows including Pointless and Richard Osman’s House Of Games, the quiz master and author worked as a TV entertainment executive, producing shows including 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Deal Or No Deal and Whose Line Is It Anyway?
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