Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman Invictus Press Conference
Morgan, Mandela is one of the most revered people in the world. How did you go about developing a plan and preparing to play him? What was the most important thing you wanted to get across in portraying Nelson Mandela?Morgan Freeman: "When he said that he would prefer that I be the one to play him in 1990 or whenever that was, I had to start then preparing myself to do it. So, I met him not long after that and I said to him, 'If I’m going to play you, I’m going to have to have access to you. I’m going to have to be close enough to hold your hand.' And, over the years, while we were trying to develop Long Walk to Freedom, that is what happened. Whenever we were in proximity, like a city away for instance, I would know about it and I would go to him and have lunch, have dinner, or sit with him while he’s waiting to go on stage for whatever. And during that time, I would sit and hold Madiba’s hand. Now, that’s not for camaraderie. I find that if I hold your hand, I get your energy. It transfers, and I have a sense of how you feel. That’s important to me trying to become another person."
"I have a lot of pressure to bring a character like that to life in any kind of real sense. The danger, of course, is always at caricature, sort of indicating what the person is like. [Singing] 'I’m Superman!' The biggest challenge I had, of course, was to sound like him. Everything else is kind of easy to do – to walk like him. He has a few tics and things that I noticed and I picked those up. I didn’t have any agenda, as it were, in playing the role other than to bring it as close to reality as I possibly could. The agenda is incorporated in the script and all I had to do was learn my lines."
Back during Unforgiven you said that Clint Eastwood ran a very good set, a comfortable set. Can you can amplify on that? And Matt, how was your experience working on an Eastwood film?
Matt Damon: "Morgan and I were saying yesterday maybe if we sit out like for the next few years and let Clint get some more experience, he’s really going to be a good director. (Laughing) We’re going to let him get some more films under his belt."
Morgan Freeman: "I think about three more."
Matt Damon: "Three more, he’ll be solid. It’s incredible. Both of us having been on, between us, probably 100 different film sets, it doesn’t get any better than the way that he runs it. As Morgan was saying earlier about him enabling and allowing things to happen, Clint says, 'Look, I hire the best people I can and I put them in a position to do their best work and I get out of the way and take credit for all their stuff.' (Laughing) He’s got this crew that just is the top flight crew, and every key and every person working under that key for every department."
"You walk on some movie sets and it’s like walking into an emergency room and you’re like, 'We’re just making a movie here.' But that tension bleeds into the performances and into the film itself. Clint just runs an incredibly tight ship. It’s very laid back but everybody, because we all have experience working on other movie sets, everyone is aware that they’ve been given enough space to do everything they need to do. And if you need something, it’s given to you. If the key of a department says, 'I need this,' or the camera department says, 'I’d like a jib arm for this or a little techno crane,' it shows up."
"It’s just very easy. We’ve been entrusted to do our jobs. And then, he’ll come over occasionally and give a little bit of direction. But it’s not a lot of chatter. It’s just a suggestion, a little suggestion here, a little suggestion there, and anybody who doesn’t want to hear a swear word cover their ears for a second. Clint’s favorite saying is, after you do a take he goes, 'Well let’s move on and let’s not f--k this up by thinking about it to much.' You hear it every day on a set with him."
Morgan Freeman: "You don’t really want to go to Clint and say, 'I’d just like to talk a little bit about the character.' [Mimicking Clint’s voice] 'Why?' He expects you to know what you’re doing and he’s going to take two giant steps back and let you do it. I just have such deep appreciation for that part of him. And, the other part is – Matt says it’s a tight ship, I think it’s a well oiled machine. Try to imagine yourself as the captain of a ship that really runs well. You don’t do anything. You just get credit for the fact that it runs well. The engine room does their job, the steering does their job, the deck crew do their job. It’s all done and done well. 'Well Captain, you run a very nice ship.' 'Thank you very much.' So that’s what Clint says he does, and it’s wonderful. And everybody who works with him has this very same reaction to him. 'Can I stay with you?'"
