Which is funny, I guess, since historically I’ve never cared for his character in the movies he portrays. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I didn’t like his character in School Ties because he was, as Brendan Frasier’s character said, a prick. And Good Will Hunting didn’t really do a lot for me either, I thought he was sorta a brat in that one.

But I did like all the Kevin Smith movies he did like Dogma and he was (grudgingly) pretty good in Saving Private Ryan (even though I had to get over the notion that he was being a brat, yet again, by making those poor soldiers stay and defend that bridge). I really liked him in Ocean’s Elevenand the two Bourne movies. And he gets serious cred with me for doing the narrative voice in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, quite possibly the best children’s movie I know of.

Now, I truly have a reason to like him. I read this interview with him in the September 2005 issue of Premiere Magazine and there was one portion that stood out:

Is it important to you to address the current political situation in your work?

[pause] Yeah. There are a lot of people who are not okay with this neocon agenda. And it’s not just, like, knee-jerk liberals. I hope that gets poeple more involved. But it’s just hard as an actor right now to say anything. They do a really good job of kind of characterizing us. So yu can do more harm than good by getting involved. Like the last election, I didn’t feel like throwing my support behind John Kerry would really mean anything. I was really passionate about that election. But I didn’t think me going to Ohio would overcome [the opposition to] gay marriage. And I definitely didn’t think it could overcome the electronic voting machines. I honestly am one of the people who don’t think this guy was ever elected. I don’t think he’s ever been my president.

Amen, brother.

Now I’m sure not all of my readers are on the same page as me, politically. So I don’t mean to offend, alienate or give you reason to hate me. As you’ve seen, I’ve been pretty toned down about my political preferences thus far. But I do have preferences. And I love it when a celebrity or someone of notoriety puts balls to the wall and states their mind. So cheers to you, Matt Damon. You rank higher on my list than Andie MacDowell.