"I don't care if we're nominated for Best Morons, because I'd think, well, I got nominated with Ben and that's pretty cool."

"It's so much better that (stardom) happened to (Ben and I) at the same time. It makes it more special. To look over and see it happening to your best friend is pretty cool."

"Ben used to ring my doorbell and then cower on the other side of the street, because he was afraid of the little kids at this school right next door."

"Say, Ben, why don't you tell us about the time you played the Caterpillar in Alice In Wonderland?"

"(Ben and I) were basically best friends since I was 10 and he was eight."

"Cambridge is not that big of a town. It's like the People's Republic of Cambridge."

"My mother is a professor of early childhood development, and she knew of Ben's mother--who's a teacher of little kids--and sought her out after we moved back to Cambridge. So I was pretty much forced into hanging out with Ben."

"Our childhoods were pretty normal. I remember exactly what Ben was like: gregarious, outgoing. It was no surprise that he grew into the totally obnoxious guy he is now. Number one, he claims that I never struck him out in little league. Which is total bulls---. I was the best pitcher in the league."

"Well, there's a considerable chance that Hollywood won't be there (in ten years). I mean, Nevada might be beachfront property, so the business might be in Florida. That's why I'm staying on the East Coast."

"48 Hours (was the first movie I ever made-out during). And it was so cool, it was an R-rated movie that I was really afraid I wouldn't get into because I was twelve."

"Fame will f--- you if you're not ready for it, and it will f--- you if you're not grounded. I've got a great family, and I'm surrounded by people I love and trust who will not hesitate to knock me down if they see me getting arrogant."

"(Minnie and I) we're trying to keep (our relationship) under wraps because I never wanted to take anything away from her performance, which is tremendous. The last thing I would want is for anyone to misconstrue it, to think that she got the part because we were going out. We met for the first time at the audition."

"A lot of people got hot off (School Ties), but I wasn't one of them. I thought my performance was pretty good, but I didn't have a publicist, I didn't do many interviews, and the phone just didn't ring."

"(Writing Good Will) was our way of saying, screw the system. We're doing our own thing."

"No one has ever accurately played a Boston accent, much less the cultural aspect of the city. Actors start doing a weird Kenny Brahmin thing. Robert Mitchum came close in The Friends of Eddie Coyle. You've got to be from there to do it. I don't even think Meryl Streep could do it."

"I'm not as good-looking as (Matthew McConaughey). I'm certainly never going to be anyone's sex symbol."

"(Ben and I) are pretty inseperable, in terms of our experiences. We look at things in exactly the same way."

"It wasn't like someone was good at structure and someone at dialogue. The only difference between us is Ben can type."

"We must have written 15,00 pages. We had Will Goes to the Zoo episodes."

"The (first) reader at Miramax had passed (on the script). I don't think he works there anymore."

"(I haven't) had any time to process what's going on, and where I am."

"(A $10 scarf I bought in Greenwich Village) was a big purchase. I mean it. I always bought a winter jacket for myself after each movie, but now people give me clothes, so it would be wasteful to buy myself one."

"(Halfway House, my upcoming writing project with Ben) is sort of a low-concept stepchild of Good Will Hunting. We've got 150 pages, and about five are good." "(Ben and I) kind of stand up and act out the scene and we use tape recorders--for like every hour that we improvise we get like 30 seconds of dialogue that we'll write down and keep. Then we'll probably rework that. We really go moment to moment as actors--that's what's interesting I guess. You (reporters) are like the real writers. You take like a blank page and impose a structure on something--I know I can't do that. I know I can't do that because I was an English major--I've written papers for years, and I'm just not good at it. It drives me nuts--I pull my hair out in front of the computer watching the cursor blink. This is more improvisational through acting."

"I loved Harvard. It was like a huge, huge part of my life. I still have time left and I want to go back when I get a chance. It's interesting because I grew up in Central and we are proprietary about our city--we kind of view Harvard students in a different light. I always had an underdog complex growing up, even on an unconscious level. But, my time at Harvard was amazing. I still keep in touch with all my college friends."

"I started working when I was 19. It was this thing on cable for TNT called Rising Son. That was my second semester sophomore year so I left (Harvard). Then School Ties came the second semester of my junior year and I left and then the movie suddenly got postponed. So I lost that semester but did the movie the following fall of what would have been my senior year. And, a year later, in the spring I left to do Geronimo. What was happening is that I would keep coming back, and I would almost get done with the semester and then I would be yanked out. But I thought it was serving me well, and everyone at that point was saying Geronimo was going to be a big hit, so…"

"The last play I did at Harvard was Burn This. I did it in Winthrop House. I did a shepherd play directed by David Wheeler. I did a play over at the North Theatre Company. We did a bunch of plays here. But I really would have done more--I knew people who were doing like 2 and 3 shows a semester. I would have done that if I would have been guaranteed to stay there the whole semester. But a lot of times I wasn't, so they'd say 'Well, this show is going up in a month' and I knew I wasn't leaving that month, so I'd do that show. But college theater is fun--doing student directed stuff is great because everyone gets in there together."

"I started (the story of Good Will Hunting) in this class for Anthony Kubiak taught--it's a class all you Harvard guys should take because he's just an awesome teacher I think he's still there. And he told me to keep going with it. It was essentially a paper that I wrote for him--an end of the semester project. I handed it in and it didn't really go anywhere, but it had a couple of these characters. He told me that I should keep writing it--it was supposed to be a one act play. I kept telling him that I couldn't end it, but he would say that it was a full-length thing and you should really write it into a full-length piece. So he really encouraged me to do it. I showed it to Ben when I went out on Spring Break in the spring--in the spring clearly figuring it was Spring Break--but this was all before I auditioned for Geronimo."

"Well, (Ben and I) grew up together, and I think we just look at the world in the same way. He's the funniest guy I know and the best actor I've ever met. I just admire him greatly. You gotta admire a close friend of yours."

"The only reason (Ben and I) wrote (Good Will Hunting) was to get jobs! We were like totally unemployable and we knew it. That's the frustrating thing about being an actor--it's like you're just not controlling your own destiny. And I felt like I had given up college, and all these great experiences, and all my friends that had graduated--I had missed out on a lot and here I was back at square one living in L.A. It was really like a horrible feeling."

"I had created Will in Kubiak's class so I kind of said 'I don't want to do a movie unless Ben is in it too.' So Ben's like 'Who I do I play ?' and I'm like 'You play Mercutio but you don't die.' So he was like 'Alright, that sounds cool.' And he read it and liked it and we both kind of decided that this was something we could do together. We didn't write it for like a year-- we didn't touch it and one night we were just sitting there. We were kind of spitballing and then it took off."

"We left Castle Rock (after the movie deal collapsed) and we realized that we had a limited amount of time to get this thing set up somewhere because there was a lot of money against it. But the movie was being sold on two kids nobody knew. They were all like, 'Well, you're pretty much screwed.'"

"Courage Under Fire hadn't come out (when we were trying to sell the script)-- I actually was just starting to lose weight for it. And, people knew enough to be like 'Yeah, people have employed these guys before' but Ben's last movie was Mallrats and mine was The Good Old Boys for TNT. People certainly weren't like 'Let's let these two knuckleheads headline our movie.' And they certainly weren't gonna pay lots of money for it and then give away the two best parts to us. It was Kevin Smith who read it because Ben was doing Chasing Amy and he gave it directly to Harvey Weinstein. Those guys at Miramax bought it the day after Harvey read it."

"(Minnie Driver) was just like, wow, like totally, like wow--absolutely amazing. The character itself, I'm sure you can see, is kind of like a device. It's certainly read a lot more that way on the page than how it appears on the screen. And Min is just an extraordinary actress--she's like the best actress I know. She just--everything from ideas to 'let's do this' to 'let's try this scene here'--the rehearsal process was amazing just to watch her work. I mean we're two guys so how are we gonna write a female character? It's really tough to do. It's like writing stuff down that girlfriends have said to us and stuff from stories. And then we gave it to the best actress we could find and said 'Please do whatever you want with it.' And with that freedom--Robin Williams is like that too--a great actor can find the right moments and bring something to the confines of that role. She's just so extraordinary, just so real."

"We read with the prospective women. When Minnie came in and read, it was a tough room there were five guys. And when she left, every guy in the room had like tears in their eyes. It was just clear around the room that we would never get a better actress than that. I mean, we all knew who she was. I mean it was intimidating enough when she walked into the room and get this. We started doing this scene in a movie where we get in a huge fight and she did it three times in three different accents. She did it in an English accent, an American accent, and an Irish accent. It was just like extraordinary in each one. And finally, she's doing it in this Irish accent and it's the third time she's doing it-- she starts the scene and I like totally blanked. After four and half years of trying to get this movie made, I didn't know where I was, who I was, or what was going on. And she's standing there with this Cheshire cat smile thinking 'Would you like to join me in the scene or are you gonna stand there with your tongue hanging out?' I was like 'Uh-uh, can we start again' all dorky and stuff. But she's just tremendous."

"I think the best actor in the country is Morgan Freeman. I think he and Robert Duvall--it comes with their age and experience. They can make things happen without doing much. I'd obviously love to work with both of them."

"When (Marlon Brando) was my age, he was like the hardest working guy. He had a discipline that was unmatched. But now, because he gets away with everything--I mean the mistakes he made influence young actors. The younger guys are like 'Oh all I gotta do is like get fat and go to Fiji.' I mean that's just not true. What's true is just look at the young Marlon Brando and how he worked and what he did. He busted his ass--and Robert Duvall, for example, is still like that. That's why I think Duvall is such an amazing actor. He's in his 50s and he's still doing it. I hope that the ethic hasn't been lost, because that's what defined actors and made acting great in America. We had these great teachers and these students who busted their asses--I think they're still some good guys out there."

"I think the masters of today are in films-- people like Duvall, Denzel Washington, Mickey Rourke, Jon Voight, Francis McDormand, Terry Kinney, Sam Shepard, Minnie, Robin, Stellan Skarsgard--and I like just get to watch them. I feel like I grow exponentially when I watch them. There's actually an acting teacher at Harvard named David Wheeler who I think is the best acting teacher in the country. Pacino goes to him every time before he plays a role and talks to him about it. He teaches a class called "Introduction to Acting" for undergraduates-- he got his hands on me when I was 17. I took every class that he offered and he placed me in a couple of plays. He's just extraordinary."

"Knowing that I am the greatest guy in the world really makes it simple (for fame not to go to my head). No, seriously, it's family. I've got a great family who keeps me in line. And I'm the youngest of two, so being a little brother, I've gotten my ass kicked my entire life. And it doesn't stop, even now. I'm 27, and my brother Kyle is 30. I don't think I could ever get away with misbehaving."

"I couldn't have had a more amazing year of experiences if I'd dreamed them up. I think Francis' taking a chance on me was a huge factor in getting Good Will Hunting rushed into production. And because we were doing Good Will in Boston, when Steven Spielberg was shooting Amistad there, Robin went over to see him and dragged me along. So, I met
Steven who had seen me in Courage Under Fire but didn't realize I had lost 40 pounds for that job and didn't always look like a skeletal junkie. A week later, I got the Private Ryan part. It's been serendipity, really. I'm just on a roll."

"It's very scary (that everything in my career is happening at once). Honestly, the anxiety level is very high. No one has bought a ticket for a movie yet. But either way, I'm happy with my work. I gave it my all, so if it doesn't work, I have no regrets."

Yeah, (Good Will Hunting) is about engaging in life, going out and living every day. That's a philosophy I've always had about acting. There are a lot of times when I look back on things I've done--when I really tried my best--and they're embarrassing. Hey, that happens. But I think the worst thing in life is to look at yourself and say, What if? What if I'd just taken that opportunity more seriously?"

"(Ben and I) couldn't get arrested. We were living out in Eagle Rock. It was a pretty desolate place, and we were out there for a couple of years. We were frustrated, because all we got to look at were the scripts everyone on the short list passes on, then it's you and everyone else brawling for these meager table scraps. We finally said, Why not just make our own movie? We'll raise the money on our own, and it doesn't matter if nobody sees it, 'cause when we're feeling bad, we can put this videocassette in and say, That's a contribution that we made to this field that we love."

"(My agent) read (Good Will Hunting) out of a feeling of total obligation--and probably, dread. But he really liked it. The only thing that mattered to Ben and I was that we were in it. We were offered a lot of money to bow out, obviously, but that wasn't something we were interested in doing."

"From a very early age, (Ben and I) wanted to do (make our own movie). One of the reasons we're so tight is we always had a lot in common, a lot of similar interests and sensibilities. Writing the script was very easy with him. Ben and I just had this reservoir of common knowledge we could draw on."

"When Ben and I heard that Matthew got A Time to Kill, we were just psyched. It really was a feeling of vindication, like, See? We're in the right place, we're doing the right thing."

"Minnie Driver is a delightful lady, you bet. A real woman."

"Although (losing or gaining an extreme amount of weight for a role) obviously not the healthiest thing to do, I just respect somebody who will go that extra mile and make that much of a sacrifice for their work."

"Watching Francis and his pursuit of truthful moments (was the most memorable thing about making The Rainmaker). Like, if I had to knock on a door and wait for a character to open it, he would have somebody who wasn't even in that scene open the door. His point was to always be available for anything, and that created this vibe of spontaneity on the set."

"(Coppola and Spielberg) are both geniuses. Francis indulges the actors a lot more, whereas with Steven, it's about his movie. But Steven's very inclusive. He'll get the actors together and say, 'See, here's what we're gonna do. It's gonna be a really cool shot.' It's kinda like being in a group of kids who stole their father's camera and have to get it all in this one scene."

"Steven said to me, 'Y'know, the best stuff I've ever shot in my life was the D-Day scene.' I'm like, 'Wow, that must have been great for Tom Hanks. Too bad I wasn't there.'"

"Yeah, (we lived with 5 families) during pretty formative years, junior high and high school. It was a great way to be raised, especially for an actor. Lots of different perspectives, just surrounded by lots of positive human beings."

"My dad had this Leave It to Beaver idea of how life should be, and it just didn't work out. But he took us out to dinner on what would have been our parents' 25th wedding anniversary. So, we go out--Mom, me, Kyle and him--and he's like, 'Ah, great. Nuclear family's finally together again.' Then the waiter asks if we'd like wine, and Dad goes, 'Of course! It's our 25th anniversary.' The waiter announces it to the whole restaurant, and Dad has to say, 'Wait, wait! We've been divorced for 19 years!' The whole place just goes silent. Oh, it was good."

"(Marky Mark and I are) not related. But it's a good year for young actors from Boston, isn't it?"

"Success is not something I've wrapped my brain around. If people go to these movies, then yes, that's big-time success. If not, it's much ado about nothing."

"After Courage came out, a lot of buzz went around the movie. Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan and Lou Diamond Phillips got a lot of attention. I didn't have a publicist back then. I thought, 'That's it.' My phone didn't ring for six months. Also, I got really sick when I did that movie. I couldn't afford a nutritionist, and I was on medication--I'm still on medication. My adrenal system, I overtaxed it. I was losing weight and I ran thirteen miles a day. I'd be sleeping and get flashes of heat and then a charge of adrenaline. My body thought the bear was chasing it."

"We sold (Good Will Hunting) for half a million, and we go from eating Ramen Pride to eating real spaghetti. It was amazing."

"The Rainmaker was the first call I got (after Courage)--to come down from Boston to Memphis to screen-test for Francis Coppola. I re-read the book on the plane and didn't sleep all night. They'd faxed me the scenes but I didn't have time to prepare. And Claire (Danes) showed up and it was fortuitous: Whoever she had read with would have gotten the part."

"The day after I got The Rainmaker, I sent Harvey (Weinstein) a fax. We'd been trying to get Good Will done for a year, and I said, 'Dear Harvey, I am the Rainmaker. I'm that guy.' He called back and said, 'All right. I'll call you'--and he saved the day."


"Rudy (my character in The Rainmaker), has a good heart. I think he's overwhelmed but he doesn't give up. And I think he's confused about the law profession, and surprisingly naïve for someone who's been through three years of law school. What I love about him is he honestly wants the truth, and he's really trying to do what's right. And it's not about justice, or legality, or technicalities. It's about right and wrong. It's as if he's banging his head against the wall, but he really just can't help himself. He sees somebody and he wants to help. His naiveté slowly drifts away as he interacts with these different worlds and different people, starts to grow up and realizes what life is really like. In the end he has a tough decision to make about whether or not the law profession is something he can live with. And I find that very interesting."

"I was nervous when I went to Napa because I'd only briefly met Francis Ford Coppola once. But Francis is very good at putting people at ease. He immediately starts telling people about himself, his life, and encourages people to do the same. Suddenly, before you know it, you're in this cohesive group and everybody's working together."

"I started writing (Good Will Hunting) at twenty-two, and I'm twenty-seven now. I never understood how movies could take that long to get made, and would hear stories of "development hell" and think, 'That's not me.' I was in a playwriting class at Harvard and came up with this character I wanted to play. What happened to Ben and I, when we actually got to write it six months later, we basically couldn't get arrested. My acting agent read the script and he gave it to the literary department. They started this bidding war. Here Ben is sleeping on my couch in a tiny little place in West Hollywood, and Ben's six-four and doesn't fit on the couch. It's a pathetic sight."

"The first thing we did (after we sold the script) was get out of that house, and into another house with four bedrooms. We had two other roommates and they were there the year we leased the house, and didn't pay a nickel of rent. One was an actor, who has since quit to go into the world of sports broadcasting."

"When I was eight or nine I was getting into children's theater groups. My parents are divorced, but they agreed if I was interested in it, it was fine. They weren't stage parents or anything. I got my agent at sixteen. I told my mom and dad I was ready to go professional. As if I was a baseball player! Ben had an agent because he'd done a PBS series as a kid which was on Channel 2 in Boston. Ben's two years younger but he's the guy--he knows everything. We've known each other for my whole life and we grew up two blocks apart from each other in Cambridge. Ben at fourteen says, 'I can get you an audition with my agent.' We had a T.J. Maxx commercial, and that paid me $200. That was the money I used to go to New York and get back. The agent signed me and until I was nineteen I felt like I'm doing everything I can professionally, so I did college."

"My freshman year at Harvard...this is a horrible, embarrassing story. This was probably the third "meeting" I'd had in two years. I tell everybody I'm going to New York to meet the president of Walt Disney--and I go to New York and it turns out I'm not meeting the president, it's an audition for The Mickey Mouse Club. Ben and I went together, and we still talk about it. I didn't make it."
 
"I grew up in Cambridge, and went to Cambridge Bridge and Latin right next-door to Harvard. I think the mayor sweeps a few of us in under the carpet."

"I want to graduate. In an ideal world I'd be too busy to go back but it's something I would like to finish."

"(Ben and I haven't been roommates) since we got rid of our New York apartment. He was there for two weeks last year and I was there five days and we paid rent for the whole year. It was crazy."

"I haven't had much of a life this year. I haven't lived anywhere--I've been on the road. And I'm going to continue to be on the road until September. So it's been hard. But it's what I've been waiting for for a really long time."

"I do have a steady girlfriend. She's great, but I don't like talking about her. We talked about it, and she said don't mention her."

"The roles change per decade, from your twenties to your thirties. I'm a slave to how I look and what I can play. I don't mind playing young coming-of-age stories for a while."

"(Will is) a math prodigy and he works as a janitor. My sister-in-law is a graphic designer for MIT, and she told me how at MIT they have chalkboards in the hallways where if you suddenly figure out the key to cold fusion you can spin and just write it there as you're walking to class. Will writes on a blackboard as he's sweeping up, and his talent is discovered. It raises questions like 'Why does Will decide to be a janitor there?' At the same time, he lives in South Boston and is loathe to leave the life he has. It's through this relationship with a therapist, Robin Williams, that he ends up coming to terms with it."

"Francis is a very collaborative filmmaker. He really wants you to try wacky stuff on the set. I'm not kidding--you would open doors on the set and there would be naked people there. It was nuts! He was constantly trying to keep you on your toes. His theory is that in life you don't know what's going to happen next, so why in a movie should you know you're going to say this, walk there, hit that mark? It should be more spontaneous and unplanned."

"I hope in fifty years acting still makes me excited. I look at Jon Voight (my Rainmaker co-star) who's so enthusiastic, and I hope I can be like that."
 
"Steven (Spielberg) was awe-inspiring to watch. I used to follow him and just shake my head and laugh."

"I went to Knoxville (to do research for The Rainmaker), where Rudy's from, for a month before filming. I made some friends and I had them take me around to their neighborhoods, to figure out where I was from. I watched some high school football games."

"(When I met John Grisham) I think he knew I was nervous and he tried to put me at ease. He's a very charming Southern gentleman. He said, 'Just take it easy, you'll do all right.'"

"I read Brave Men, true accounts of people in combat in World War II (to prepare for Private Ryan). Everyone from airborne to infantry, done by a great writer who traveled around and ended up dying."

"(Saving Private Ryan) is about Tom Hanks; I'm only in the last quarter of the movie. Private Ryan starts to stand for everybody's chance to go home. The film starts with D-Day, and Hanks going on the (Omaha) beach, and Steven says it's the best stuff he's ever shot. I think it will be pretty impressive-looking."

"The (Ripley) character is fascinating. It's certainly the most unconventional in terms of movies I've done. As Anthony says, he's going to be accused of making another big art-house movie. The guy (Ripley) goes and falls in love with this man and his life--to the point where he wants to be in his skin."

"This is want I want to accomplish (with the role of Ripley): I want to be very well-versed in opera and jazz, which are very important to the movie. I want to be fluent in Italian. And I'm going to take an etiquette class. Anthony saw me and said, 'You're pretty virile.' I'm more beer and Ripley is more...delicate, the arrogance of an esthete. I'll lose about twenty pounds. I said to Anthony, 'I need to do this with a nutritionist,' and he said, 'Absolutely.' And twenty pounds, as opposed to forty-five, is not that bad."


"My mother had written some books on war play and those cartoons that are like commercials for action figures. What worried my mother about those shows was not only that they encouraged violent play, but also that they hampered creativity. So growing up for me was like you'd get some blocks and then you'd have to go make up a game. I was always making up stories and acting out plays; that's just the way I was raised. Ben came from a more prestigious acting background."

"I knew since I was 12 that I was going to be an actor. I was originally going to be a basketball player. Tiny Archibald was my favorite player--he's called Tiny because he's only six foot one. My father sat me down and said, 'I'm the tallest Damon to ever evolve and I'm 5'11. But I'm never going to play in the NBA.' I gave up basketball at that moment and took up acting. Whatever I did, I wanted to be the best at it. I remember that moment in The Natural when Robert Robert says, 'I just want to walk down the street and have people say, 'there goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was.' So I was talking to my motehr one day--this was when I was 16 or 17--and she goes, 'Matt, why are you so obsessed with acting? And I said, 'because someday I want to walk down the street and have people say, 'there goes Matt Damon, the best there ever was.' And she said, 'did I raise you? That's just an egomanical pipe dream. How does it help other people?' Of course I hadn't given much thought to that."

"(Ben and I) weren't too rebellious. But every time we sat down to dinner, Chris (Ben's mom) would say, 'why don't you guys become doctors?'"

"We used to have what we called 'Business Lunches' in high school, which ment we met at the smaller cafe and got a table--"

"But you know, long ago Ben and I convinced ourselves that (narcissism) didn't mean us, too."

"If one kid had enough for a candy bar, then the candy bar was bought and split in half--that's just the way it's been."

"Because somebody is on a TV show or in a movie, does that qualify them to talk about an important issue? I have no problem with people who walk it like they talk it, but very few people do. It's easy when everybody's paying attention to you to say. 'well, here's a cause.' But very few actors are moving out of their houses and getting out of their Range Rovers to pick up their fellow man. There's few who are the real thing, and they usually don't talk about it."

"Look, I totally believe you should do things to better the world, but oftentimes there's so much bulls--- that just rings so hollow that it kinda mucks up the waters. But then there's a well-known actor I know who has a life goal to change the laws so that tax credits will be given to big corporations for investing in orphanages. He's got a whole system worked out, but it's not about him. I think that some actors are more interested in having people think they want to help people than in actually helping them."

"(Harvard) saw that I was dedicated to something and that I tried hard at it. The opening line in the essay for my application to Harvard was: 'For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be an actor.'"

"There are few colleges that Ben hasn't gone to."

"Ben's too modest to tell you this, but he's the most well-read person I know. He's certainly a lot smarter than I am."

"I didn't want to say anything with Ben in the room, but yes, he did kill somebody and he feels really strongly that the scene has to stay where it is." (Joking)

"(Ben) cheated on me in '87. That was a really dark time. But to answer your question: no, we don't really fight."

"Well, you do throw those screeching hissy fits." (To Ben)

"We're constantly accused by people who come in and out of our circle of friends that we're the most boring people ever. There are people who go, 'I got tickets to see so-and-so, and why don't you guys come?' We're like, 'Yeah, whatever,' and end up at the same bar every night with the same people telling the same old jokes. We've always been that way."

"Ben and I've lived together in probably ten different apartments with ten other people who we grew up with at different times, and the arguments are always the same. For example, I'm a slob and I get yelled at for not cleaning up when the house is a mess. When Ben brings the hookers over, it's--" "If the worst thing that happens to me is that I'm considered un-hip, I can live with that. It's always strange to me when you meet really good actors in person and they act cool and affected like the job really doesn't matter -- as opposed to being, you know, total drama geeks. I don't think there's anything wrong with that."

"You can't just show up on a set and, because you're you, have your performance be good. The work is done when nobody's around. You're disciplining yourself, running at five in the morning. Just because you're you -- the guy still has to look this way. As great as it is to have realized at least part of this American dream in the last six months, I still have to do the work. I mean, I say 'Go hard or go home.' If I get to the point when I got to parties and just show up...I'll quit."

"I think a lot of young actors today model themselves after Tom Hanks. He's a great professional and such a decent human being,
too. He's pretty much the guy. Maybe there has been some kind of cultural shift, I don't know."

"The paparazzi thing has gotten pretty intense. Ben had to do a U-turn on the freeway recently to avoid them. And I've seen people trailing me and had to take, like, three left turns to shake them. I feel fortunate to be so overpaid to do what I do, but when it gets to the point where people hang outside your house..."

"The business is rife with temptations. To be constantly reminded of that, especially by your idols, is important. Because even someone who's not necessarily evil or a malcontent might still take advantage of the things that are offered."

"I can't believe they let them develop this land. The rents are gunna go right up and everyone is gunna get pushed out. S---! This is unrecognizable. They've made it just like every other place in the f---ing country!"
--On his hometown in Cambridge, Mass.

"My mom? She's doing great. Yeah, Dad to..."

"This (when I have no bleacher time) is when it's a drag for me."

"Sports are a huge part of how I interact with my father and my brother. Man, there's nothing like taking some B.P. together. Sports are just a huge part of who I am."

"We just wanted to see it."
--On Larry Bird's childhood home.

"(I sometimes wonder if I have) whored out my personal life for professional gain."

"You get realistic. I wasn't looking to become an over-paid sensation."

"At nineteen I did a TNT movie for $25,000. Five years later, after two feature shots, here I was getting $20,000 for another TNT movie. Talk about a lesson in humility -- somebody was obviously trying to tell me something."

"Everyone is known as nice guys. The movie crews talk about that stuff -- who's an a--hole -- and the word on most of the people we know is, 'He's a great guy.'"

"All those guys were revolutionary. Sure, everybody wants to feel part of something bigger than themselves -- I wish there was something, but personally I don't long for it. There's no unified goal now. I'm still grappling with the fact that I can now do the movies I want to do."

"With us, it's more about self-criticism. Putting yourself out there -- it's a very fragile thing. You don't hit someone who's out there. I mean if, say, Benicio Del Toro came up to me and said, 'Saw your last movie -- what the f--- were you thinking?' it'd probably keep me from doing good work for a year. It's more of a positive-reinforcement thing with us."

"It was surreal. 'Surreal' is an overused word, but it's the only way I can describe the whole thing. I had this Stepford-child glaze in my eyes the whole time. When Ben and I went up and we looked at the front row and saw Jack Nicholson and all those guys we revere, we froze. I mean, last year we were in Toronto, filming some Good Will Hunting scenes, watching the awards with Gus, drinking beers and making smart-a-- comments. And a year later we're in the front row -- and Billy Crystal's singing about us!"

"I was a pretty good athlete. But I was also a pretty serious kid, and though I knew I had the potential to play through college, I also knew I wasn't gunna be able to go pro. So I took up acting. That way I figured I could at least act like a professional athlete."

"Ben was the man back then. He would sit in the bleachers and hold court -- he was a real Hollywood star as far as we were concerned. We didn't know that all he had done was an educational series on PBS."

"Well, Mariah's boyfriend just made a hell of a play."
--On Mariah Carey's boyfriend Derek Jeter, a Yankees player.

"Before the event (of a poker game) someone asked me, 'What're your chances?' I told them, 'Given everything that's happened to me recently, I wouldn't be surprised if I won it.'"

"Guys would say, 'I'll talk to you all you want, son, but the only thing everyone at this table cares about is your money. Just put down your money.'"

"Maybe all this exposure has made me more 'famous,' but what does that mean? They can make anybody a star for a little while -- it will always come down to the work you do."

"But it's not like I want to work hard because I'm worried that people will think I'm just a magazine cover boy; I want to do good stuff anyway. I think Ben and I both have a better shot than a lot of great actors have ever had. We can do well and respect that -- or we can totally blow it."

"I met Paul Newman recently -- which was a huge thrill for me. We were among a group of people, and someone happened to mention the adaptation of All The Pretty Horses. Newman asked, 'Who's in that?' I said rather meekly, 'I am.' He looked at me and said, 'That's a huge responsibility.' And I said, 'I know.'"

"No, I was definitely not a fighter when I was a kid. My mother taught nonviolent conflict resolution all over the country. I got in one fight at school, and I kept hurting the kid when I should have stopped, and it scared the hell out of me. I still remember the shame. It never left me."

"But I'm moving into a time when I might be more violent. I'm not talking about freaking out at a gaggle of photographers, but I could foresee not having the choice under certain circumstances -- there are lines that are crossed and it could get dangerous. I was talking to my mom about this, and she could kind of see where it was going. There's a time when it's okay to fight. I'm lucky; so far I've never been in imminent danger. But listen, there are bigger problems in the world. I don't wanna come off like some griping actor. To not be able to reason with people is just bizarre to me...but I'm getting used to it." "Had we (Ed Norton and I) won (the poker game) we would have given it to charity, but we were sponsored by the casino.

"I don't know that we did fit in (with the other characters in Rounders). Yeah, we're definitely a little skinnier than most of them."

"(Rounders is) a movie set in New York. I play a card player/law student who kind of leaves the world of poker to become a lawyer and my friend here (Edward Norton) gets us into debt and so we have to go back and play some cards to get the money. Pretty straightforward tale of two young guys with this world of poker as the backdrop."

"And Johnny Chan appears in the movie so it was great. So when he came to work in Atlantic City for the movie, he sat down and worked with us a bit. Yeah, these guys have been really nice. They're world class poker players and they've been very, very cool to us."

"Yeah, it's a whole different thing. You know, a weekly game with a couple of beers and potato chips and nickels, dimes and quarters is a totally different thing than this. This is a lot more serious. The home game that I used to play people would feel guilty if someone lost too much money, you know. It's kind of a different vibe."

"My life's like this all the time. Usually I have eight to ten cameras following me around."

"Yeah that was interesting, interesting (when a camera crew followed me into the bathroom). I invited them in and we got to know each other. No, it's been very strange, very strange. Luckily I've been working so I've had my head down.

"No. But hopefully things will cool off and I'll be able to (wander into restaurants) really soon." "It (the household I lived in as a youngster) was governed by a shared philosophy that housing is a basic human right. Every week there was a three-hour community meeting, and Sunday's were work days. My mom put little masks on me and my brother, gave us goggles and crowbars and we demo'd the walls."

"I would have done (more plays) if I could guarantee that I would stay a whole semester. But a lot of times I wasn't, so they'd say, 'Well, this show is going up in a month,' and if I knew I wasn't leaving that month, I'd do it."

"College theatre is fun -- doing student-directed stuff is great because everyone gets in there together."

"This is not a typical thing for me because I was playing my age. Usually I'm playing a 16-or 17-year old kid because I have such a baby face."

"(Minnie) blew me off my feet."

"(Getting Van Sant to direct GWH was an) incredible dream come true. Any sense that 'this is ours and this is the way it has to be' was just gone."

"My dad had this 'Leave It To Beaver' idea of how life should be and it just didn't work out."

"(Van Sant captured) moments of humanity (when filming GWH)."

"It was a great way to be raised, especially for an actor. Lots of different perspectives, just surrounded by lots of positive human beings."

"(Writing a girl's part is) really tough to do. It's like writing stuff down that girlfriends have said to us and stuff from stories."

"(Ben and I) did everything together, from Little League to chasing girls."

"(My first) agency never found a job for me in three years, but it was a good thing. It gave me the illusion of being in the business while I did a lot of stuff at high school."

"I think (I chose Harvard because) I was afraid to leave home."

"I was told how I talked would be very important to the story line since lawyers manage their accents skillfully, sometimes shifting to speak at a specific juror."

"(I) always had an underdog complex growing up, even on an unconscious level."

"We learned from 'Reservoir Dogs' that once Quentin Tarantino got Harvey Keitel, that got the movie made."

"(I went through) five years of a lot of struggling, with very low lows and very high highs."

"When Matthew (McConaughey) got 'A Time To Kill,' we all went nuts. It was such a feeling of vindication -- that one of our peer group, someone not on the A-list, got the part."

"I was thinking, 'I'm killing myself and if people don't want to put me in movies, then I don't care anymore.'"

"Then suddenly I'm standing in front of Francis Ford Coppola and he knows my name. I kept thinking it was a mistake; that another young actor would walk in and I'd realize that I was just the understudy."

"We were (roommates) up until a few months ago. We had a place in New York, but we didn't live there because we were both off doing movies. Now Ben's living with his girlfriend in L.A. and I just finished working on a film so I'm going to stay with a friend of mine, Cole Hauser, who's one of the actors in 'Good Will Hunting.'"

"(Ben's problem with the phone) made one of our roommates mad. He would say, 'would you just call her back? That's all you have to do.' And Ben would say, 'Yeah, I know. I will, I will.' And then the phone would ring again and he wouldn't take the call."

"The warrior-and-the-clown thing again."

"I was doing a playwriting class and a theatre directing class with David Wheeler, who knew this world that Ben and I both came from. And when Ben came back from L.A. for Christmas, I showed him this thing I'd written and because he knows David too -- he came into the class and we acted it out. It was a scene from what later became 'Good Will Hunting.' Then, when spring break came around the following March, I went to L.A. two audition for a part in 'Geronimo,' which I ended up getting. By then I had this 40 page thing and I didn't know what to do with it. I gave it to Ben, and he looked at it and said, 'This is really good. We should write this together.' And I said, 'I know, but I don't know where it should go,' and he said, 'I don't either,' but we agreed to write it. After about a year, Ben and I started talking one night and the script began flowing right out. Then we wrote it very fast."

"Once we started, we really got into a groove. While I was away, I'd write and fax the stuff to Ben, and Ben would fax stuff to me, and we'd write on and edit each others faxes. It was basically the same as sitting in a room saying, 'No, no. I think you should say that."

"First of all, let me preface this by saying we are we're the worst people in the world at doing pitches. We could make a really good movie sound terrible and this one's not very high-concept to begin with."

"He's an orphan, a born genius, who's discovered working as a janitor at MIT, and it's about him being caught between all these different worlds; the world of his friends, the world of the therapist he comes in contact with, the world of this really amazing woman he meets who challenges him, and then there's the lure of the world his genius introduces him to, which is represented by this math professor. So he has to face all these different forces that are at work. It's like a comedy and drama and a coming-of-age story."

"It has those elements (of being an autobiographical story in terms of friendship), but it's a totally fictional story."

"We never fancied ourselves writers. And actually, it was a source of embarrassment for us when we sold the script, because a lot of our friends really are writers and can write a lot better than we can, except maybe dialogue. Writing a script is different, though, because to me it's not really writing, it's acting, is what it is. We still don't call ourseves writers, we just kind of go, 'Well, I guess that worked.'"

"And it literally turned into a four day event. It started on a Monday and by the Thursday night there was an all-out bidding war over the script."

"My engagement hadn't worked out, so I was living with our other buddy, Soren (at the time of the bidding war)."

"For five years or so, our bank accounts would get down to the point where we needed to get a job and another job would come along -- although it wasn't always a lot of money."

"It was the first time we realized how Hollywood works. We'd both gone in for a lot of auditions, but when you actually have something that people are trying to buy from you, it's a whole different thing."

"It was like we'd won the lottery."

"We were afraid (that the deal would fall though) on a human level. We were talking about the difference between eating spam every day and being able to buy a three-bedroom house with a pool table and new cars. So here we are, and we sell the script to Castle Rock."

"We sat down with Chris Moore, our producer, and said, 'What are we going to do?' Thanks to Chris, Miramax came to the rescue. Gus Van Sant knew of us and we heard he wanted to direct 'Good Will Hunting.' We loved the idea, because we respect him so much. Gus has a way of delivering earth-shattering news in the most disarming, nonflustered flat monotone. 'Yeah, I want to direct it,' he said. 'That's if you want to do it. Okay, bye.' So, as Ben said, fortune was in favor of us fools -- and we're happy."

"We wrote it right out of frustration. It was like, why are we sitting here? Let's make our own movie. And if people come to see it, they come; and if they don't, they don't. Either way it beats sitting here going crazy. When you have so much energy and so much passion and no outlet for it and nobody cares, it's just the worst feeling. And there are thousands of thousands of people like that in L.A. right now. This whole, 'I'm too cool to care' thing you get among young actors in this country is so weak and stupid and played out, and it just brings everybody down. You shouldn't be too cool to care, for Christ's sake. You should be full of vim and vigor, and trying to do everything you can do to make a change."

"I smoked for ten years, two packs a day, and I said if I ever get 'Good Will Hunting' made I'll quit smoking, thinking that it would never get made. And I had to quit."

"After every call (during the bidding war) we were yelling at our agent, Patrick Whitsell, 'Take it! Just take the offer!' Then there was this moment when the phone rang and Patrick picked it up. It was for my roommate, and it was this girl he had dated in college, and my roommate was, like, 'Hey, how are you?' and we were like, 'Hang the f---ing phone up!' He was really bummed, because they hadn't talked in three years."

"We got to Miramax's offices just before our lunch. And Harvey tells us, 'Mel Gibson is a great director. You can see that from 'Braveheart.' And I said, 'Harvey, Ben and I have been working. We haven't seen it yet.' So without missing a beat, the head of Miramax sits there and says, 'Okay: Scotland, William Wallace' and he told us the whole movie."

"Mel was totally understanding when we said, 'This movie is our life. And we know you're like, the biggest star in the world. But we need a decision."

"I still think about ways I could have played scenes. And I'll never get to do them again -- unless we do 'Good Will On Ice.'"

"The biggest sadness I have, is that I look at my role and I think that Ben could have easily played it. I think he let me do it because, literally, he's my best friend in the world and he's that selfless. But hey, don't feel bad for Ben. He's saving the world. Didn't anybody tell you that there's an asteroid the size of Texas headed toward earth? And if it weren't for Bruce Willis and Ben, God knows what would happen."

"They'd (the cast of SPR) be wading through mud puddles and sleeping facedown in the water. And here I show up all prim and proper and ready to go. They were like, 'Why the hell did this kid not have to come to boot camp? Who the f--- is he?"

"My picture was in one of those teen magazines (when I was in college).My friends put it up on the wall, and everyone would throw darts at it. I'd pull it down, and a new one would go up."

"These movies are not mindless entertainment, nor do I think they're curing cancer. They're just good, solid movies, and that's the kind of work I want to keep doing."