Six Things We Learned from GQ’s ‘Encyclopedia of Matt Damon’

Ben Affleck, Tina Fey, and more stars dished on the Jason Bourne actor in an oral history for the fashion magazine.

Matt Damon

Photo by Mike Flokis / Getty Images via iStock.com

In honor of Matt Damon dusting off his super spy skills for the upcoming Jason Bourne movie, GQ decided to take a look back at the actor’s life and career with help from some of his famous friends.

The fashion magazine interviewed Damon and a few of his Hollywood pals like Ben Affleck, Tina Fey, George Clooney, and other A-listers in order to put together a pretty awesome oral history and factoid-filled guide on the Boston-loving star titled, “The Encyclopedia of Matt Damon.”

From his tumultuous time being roommates with the Affleck brothers to his feelings about Team America: World Police, check out six things we learned about Damon from his GQ feature.

Prince once dropped some serious knowledge on him.

Damon and his frequent Bourne co-star Julia Stiles recalled a hilarious story of The Bourne Ultimatum cast meeting Prince following the movie’s premiere in London. “Prince actually came to it, then got tickets for the cast to come see him [perform],” Stiles says. “We were summoned into a room to meet him [after the show].” The actress brought up an interesting moment when Damon kept asking the musician, “So you live in Minnesota? I hear you live in Minnesota.” According to the actor, the Purple One gave an epic response to the question: “Prince said, ‘I live inside my own heart, Matt Damon.'”

It wasn’t easy being roommates with the Affleck brothers.

Things got a little contentious between Damon and the Affleck brothers when a 19-year-old Casey moved in with them. According to Damon, the younger Affleck had a penchant for wearing other people’s clothes. “He would walk in the room, and I’m like, ‘Is that my shirt?'” Damon says. “It got so bad with the Affleck brothers that I was at the point where I wanted to label all of my stuff, ’cause it would just f–king show up in Casey’s drawer.” After a while, the actor claims Casey would start believing the clothes were his since he would where them so often. “It’s like some version of squatters’ rights, where suddenly he’s like, ‘No, dude, this is mine. You saw me. I’ve been wearing this since December,'” Damon says. “Like, that doesn’t mean it’s yours! Just because you washed it doesn’t mean it’s yours.”

Team America: World Police made him feel dumb.

Damon revealed that a lot of people ask him to sign pictures of his fake puppet persona from Team America: World Police. “They always say, ‘Will you write Maaaaaatt Daaaaamon?'” Damon says. “I’m like, ‘Okay. Matt, with, like, 16 a’s in it.'” While the actor called the film’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone “legitimate geniuses,” he was a bit bummed by his portrayal in the flick. “I thought, Wow, is that what people think of me? That I’m really dumb?” Damon says. “I remember asking friends of mine, and they all told me that it didn’t really make sense that I was dumb. I was like, ‘Are you just saying that?'”

Tina Fey thinks Matt and Ben look like sweaters.

Whenever people would tell Tina Fey that Affleck and Damon “are so cute,” the 30 Rock star would reply by comparing them to sweaters. “They’re J.Crew sweaters,” Fey says. “When you see all the colors next to each other, they look cute, but when you get one home, you’re like, ‘Damn, I just got an orange sweater.’” She admitted, though that “in person, Matt holds up.”

Ben doesn’t buy Matt’s nice guy routine.

Speaking of Ben, the older Affleck brother had some pretty harsh words about Damon being a nice guy. “The quality that has allowed Matt to maintain the illusion that he is Mr. Nice Guy is that he found a young TV actor who was just a pretty face and made friends with him so he would always look good by comparison,” Affleck says. “Matt is very media-savvy and manipulative in that way. He’s like a mix of [O. J. Simpson defense-team members] Bob Shapiro and Alan Dershowitz.”

He made John Krasinski feel bad after kissing Emily Blunt on a movie set.

Fellow Massachusetts raised actor John Krasinski got a taste of Damon’s not-so-nice-guy side one day during a kissing scene on the set of The Adjustment Bureau. “He kisses my wife [Emily Blunt] in a very big way,” Krasinski says. “When I went up to him, he turned to me, and the first thing he ever said to me was, ‘Hey, man. I was just totally tonguing your girl.’ And I went, ‘Oh, okay. Cool.'” Damon couldn’t keep up the bad boy schtick for too long as he quickly apologized to the former Office star. “He saw my face and he just cratered,” Krasinsiki says. “He said, ‘Oh, my God. I am so sorry. I am so sorry.'”

Check out the full “Encyclopedia of Matt Damon” on GQ.