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6 Reasons That Pretty Much Everyone Loves Matt Damon

My dad loves Matt Damon. This is particularly noteworthy to me because he is a man who expresses little to no enthusiasm for contemporary movies or television. He enjoys things like Law and Order reruns and televised sports and playing Bejeweled while listening to country music. He doesn’t even say outright that he likes, I mean loves, Matt Damon, but any time Matt Damon shows up in a trailer for something, he will say “Hmm, that looks pretty good.” I was recently at the movies with him and he saw the poster for Elysium and asked me what it was about. I don’t remember my dad ever asking me what a movie was about before in my life. Maybe The Informant.

4) He has a sense of humor about himself

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Matt Damon

Another testament to how funny Damon can be are the instances where he has played the character of Matt Damon on screen. Perhaps the best example of this can be seen on some of his devastatingly realistic appearances on Jimmy Kimmel’s show, but he’s also shown up in Entourage and House of Lies, parodying his trademark intensity and charitable efforts. Entourage in particular plays off the perception that he can switch from super cool nice guy who’s just chatting with you to terrifying monster who will threaten your life for crossing him.

It’s becoming more and more common for celebrities to do this in order to show they don’t take themselves too seriously and are able to laugh at themselves and the ridiculousness and artificiality of the caricatures we in the public are able to get to know of them. This Is the End is the most recent example of stars taking seeming criticisms or observations about strange aspects of their publicly perceived identities and playing them up for laughs, exaggerating them in a way that is meant to show the absurdity of reducing a person to what is known of them through magazines and Entertainment Tonight.

It’s hard to argue against the opinion that Damon is one of the best at this, though, not only through the quality of the “Matt Damon as Matt Damon” performances, but the sheer quantity and willingness for him to do them.