Matt Damon has been on promotion the last couple of weeks for his new movie, The Instigators. It’s a star-studded cast: Hong Chau, Ving Rhames, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alfred Molina, Jack Harlow, Ron Perlman, Paul Walter Hauser, and Casey Affleck and his fiancée Caylee Cowan.
So once again we find Matt working alongside an Affleck. The Affleck brothers have been his lifelong work partners, seeing Affleck (either one of them) + Damon is an annual event in Hollywood at this point. Maybe even more often than that.
But this project is a co-pro in more ways than one. Because Matt’s wife, Luciana, is also a producer on this film. The story goes that Casey wanted to do the movie, Matt wasn’t all that interested, and Casey showed the script to Luciana who was into it and said that she’d try to convince Matt. But then, as Matt said during his recent interview with ET:
"She's been reading every script and watching every cut of every movie for 21 years. This is the first time we ever kind of codified it," Damon explained. "She didn't even want to take the credit. She was there every day, she was doing all this work on the script, and then she was like, 'Nah, I don't want to take the credit.'"
"The other producers on the movie, at the end of the movie -- and I had nothing to do with it -- they came of their own volition [and said], 'If you're not taking credit, we're not taking credit,'" he continued. "[It was] very sweet. She succumbed and took the credit."
This is why I’m now way more interested in seeing The Instigators (streaming on Apple starting next Friday) than I was before – in addition to Hong Chau, who is always delightful, it’s for Luciana, because I’m intrigued by what she’s brought to the production, and what her taste might be as a producer.
Matt and Luciana were joined by all four of their daughters, Alexia, Gia, Isabella, and Stella last night at the premiere. The girls were there in support of both their parents, which is cute and wholesome. It’s not often that Matt and Luciana show up with their kids. And we know nothing about them either. I had to look up their names. I can’t match the names to the people, I don’t know their ages, and it’s kind of incredible considering how famous Matt is and how obsessed people are with him (you’re out there, I know you are) and for how long. But I guess that’s what happens, in part, when your best friend sucks up all the gossip oxygen.
