Calendar:
2 August 2008 - Matt scheduled to host a fundraiser for Barack Obama in Miami
Fall 2008 - Running the Sahara to be released (TBC)
September 2008 - The People Speak to be released
8 September 2008 - Matt to host the OneXOne event at the Toronto Film Festival
23 October 2008 - Matt to host the OneXOne gala dinner in San Francisco
Early 2009 - The Human Factor to start filming in South Africa
27 March 2009 - The Informant to be released
TBA - Release dates for Margaret and Green Zone

Matt will host the OneXOne gala dinner in San Francisco on 23 October in addition to hosting the OneXOne event at the Toronto Film Festival on 8 September. More details at the official site, which includes these comments for the Toronto event.

Evening Ambassador Matt Damon

Matt Damon has been a dedicated frontman for the foundation, not only acting as master of ceremonies for three years running, but taking an active role in both fundraising and fact-finding. Damon’s own charity, H2O Africa, which he founded in 2006, is a major philanthropic partner of the ONEXONE umbrella organization.

An article on Running The Sahara is the feature story at the Energy Times magazine.

Running the Sahara isn’t an environmental film but a story about human nature, exploration and fortitude. Endurance athletes Charlie Engle and Ray Zahab were running an Amazon marathon when they wondered what it would be like to run more than 4,000 miles across the brutal Sahara Desert. Two years later, in late 2006, Engle, Zahab and fellow endurance athlete Kevin Lin set out to traverse the Sahara across six North African countries on foot, an unprecedented challenge.

Along the way, the team adapts to the elements and the physical and political landscape while fighting their own better judgment and limitations. The suspense of finding out who runs the full distance—the goal is to bring at least one runner across the finish line—makes for gripping storytelling. Aided by spare narration from executive producer and Oscar-winner Matt Damon, Academy Award-winning director James Moll brings to life the runners, the stark backdrop and African culture with equal billing.

Photos of Matt at the dinner for George Clooney in London are in August's Harpers Bazaar, (UK edition), available at Clooney Unlimited. There are new photos of Matt with George, with one of their photos captioned as follows:

When Matt met George
‘Brothers from another mother’
Matt Damon and Clooney spent the whole night ribbing each other

Another article is at In Touch about Matt's weight gain and expected weight loss. It's summarised in this National Ledger article.

According to a report from In Touch, Damon gained 40 pounds for The Informant, but now he's got to shed the weight — fast! "Matt has to lose it to do reshoots for Green Zone," his Informant co-star Joel McHale recently said. In the movie, Matt plays a fit military officer and "the reshoots are in the next couple of months," says an insider.

But check this out, Matt even at 37 years old isn’t stressing just yet. "He plans on running five miles a day outdoors and on the beach," his pal says. "He'll eat zero carbs, lots of tuna, chicken and almonds — his favorite snack."

Sarah Silverman's video with Matt was nominated for two Emmy nominations, including "best music and lyrics".

Matt, Ben and Jennifer Garner are scheduled to host a fundraising benefit for Barack Obama in Miami on 2 August. Details at the Miami Herald:

The Oscar-winning stars of Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, are slated to headline an Aug. 2 fundraiser for Democrat Barack Obama on Miami Beach. Affleck's lovely and talented television and movie star wife, Jennifer Garner, is also scheduled to be there.

Damon, also well known for starring in the Bourne Identity thrillers, has a house on Miami Beach and is registered to vote as an independent in Florida.

A quote from Joel McHale at the New York Post's PopWatch:

PW: What was it like working with Matt Damon in "The Informant?"

Joel: It was awesome. All the clichés and stories about Matt being the greatest guy you've ever met are true. You'd want to hang out with him if he was just a guy working at Blockbuster.

PW: He gained a lot of weight for the role, how did you contribute?

Joel: Well, I didn't make out with him, but I did shave him. We were in Decatur, Illinois, where the salads are deep fried.

The article from People about Matt's weight gain is below.

Yes, It's Matt Damon

Where are the six-pack abs? The bulging biceps? PEOPLE's reigning Sexiest Man Alive lets his looks (temporarily) go.

An 18-oz. steak swimming in Grand Marnier au poivre sauce. Sweet potato pancakes with crème fraîche. A filet mignon--and a pork tenderloin and a Caesar salad with shrimp. What on earth is Matt Damon--who has ordered the above meals recently at Miami restaurants--trying to do? Get fat?

Well, yes, actually. In his newest film, The Informant, the actor plays a schlubby corporate executive--and, as these pictures show, "he always physically embodies his characters," says Shawn Stallworth, who trained him for The Bourne Supremacy.

One hopes the 5'11", normally-155-lb. star is enjoying this transformation a bit more than, say, his 40-lb. weight loss for 1996's Courage Under Fire. "People look at the character and think he's haunted," Damon said at the time. "But all I was thinking was, 'I want a cheeseburger.'" Damon's weight-gain diet for the film (out next year) includes bagels and eggs for breakfast.

The trailer for Running The Sahara is available at the film's official site.

Robert De Niro continues to discuss the planned future sequels for The Good Shepherd, as reported at Variety.

Turning to more professional issues, De Niro said he would like to make two sequels to CIA Cold War drama "The Good Shepherd" -- one bringing the action forward from 1961 to 1989, the other following its hero, Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), up to the present day.

Although he is not currently working on research for the concluding parts of an eventual trilogy, De Niro said being in central Europe offered a good opportunity to begin thinking about the material.

"I had not been planning to do research on that while here, but it is a good idea," he said.

Green Zone producer Lloyd Levin discussed why this film will be different from other recent war films at Chud:

Last weekend I had a chance to talk to Lloyd Levin, one of the producers of United 93 and of Paul Greengrass' new movie, Green Zone, which reteams the director with his Bourne star, Matt Damon. I asked him if he was concerned about the perception that Iraq movies don't do that well at the box office, and Lloyd told me something that I think sets this film about from the Redacteds, the Renditions and In the Valley of Elahs of the world: Greengrass is bringing the sensibility of the Bourne films to this movie. This film will be a thriller, an exciting movie as well as the kind of cinematic journalism that Greengrass did so well with United 93 and Bloody Sunday.

Green Zone actor Jason Isaacs discussed his role in an article at Movie Scope magazine that was posted by Char at the JasonIsaacsOnline.com forum.

Isaacs: I also found working with Paul Greengrass terrifying even though he’s an old friend of mine and we worked together years ago. My part in Green Zone was arranged very spontaneously and all I knew was that there was a script by an award-winning screenwriter and that Paul, the writers and the actors, were revising it constantly.

I arrived in Morocco and was thrown into a helicopter in army gear with real ex-marines and soldiers just back from Iraq, and was told to jump out of the helicopter and take Matt Damon prisoner, or something like that. Paul creates a real situation with as many real people as he can get and creates chaos, drama and suspects, and expects you to improvise your way through it, and then wants it different every time. It was both physically and mentally challenging, and I really enjoyed it.

Matt and Lucy attended the Ante Up for Poker Tournament in Las Vegas. Photos and reports are at Just Jared, PokerStarsBlog, CasinoCityTimes, BodogLife, PopSugar, AP and DailyFiasco. The photos below are from the Las Vegas Review Journal (photo courtesy of Tom Donoghue), Just Jared and Us magazine.

In a video interview for PokerStars.com, Matt spoke about leaving Las Vegas straight away as "my wife's getting ready to have another baby, so we've got to get home." Another video interview with Matt and Ben is here. More great photos of Lucy sitting with Matt at the poker table are at Hutchins Photo.

The upcoming issue of UK's Empire magazine has a preview of Green Zone, including a new photo and quotes by Matt, including:

Loosely based on Rajiv Chandresekaran's book Imperial Life In The Emerald City, Green Zone has Damon as chief warrant officer Roy Miller, a soldier stationed in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and charged with finding weapons of mass destruction. Quickly suspecting that said WMDs don't actually exist, he seeks out the truth, with perilous results.

Though this is Greengrass' take on the situation in Iraq, don't expect the tub-thumping that some other Iraq-centric films have employed, and subsequently watched audiences turn away from. "[We're] not trying to make a statement," Damon tells us. "Particularly with a movie that costs $80 or $90 million. Hopefully this will feel like an accurate portrayal of what things were like for these guys. You can't do a polemic – you should be blogging if that's what you want to do."

"My tempo is quite high. That's an issue with this film, pushing to get it into real-time all the time. But there's a danger with that -- that you don't get a pulse," Damon reportedly said.

An article at the Boston Herald previews an article in People that will discuss Matt's weight gain for The Informant. There's also a separate article at People Online.

Photos of Matt and Lucy leaving Nobu restaurant in Malibu after dinner with Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Patrick Whitesell and Lauren Sanchez on Saturday are at Gossip Girls and X17 Online. A report on the dinner is at People.



Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck met up with Matt Damon and his heavily pregnant wife, Luciana Barroso, at Nobu Malibu on Saturday night for a two-hour dinner on the patio that included cooked fish and sushi rolls.

"Ben and Matt were entertaining the girls with stories, and they were all laughing a lot," says an observer of the couples.

When dessert came, the celebratory group toasted – after all, Garner and Affleck's third wedding anniversary was the following day.

Crew members from The Informant spoke with children participating in a summer cultural program - a report from the Star Bulletin - below. Another report about the filming in Hawaii is here.

The reason the crew chose to shoot here was because the book on which the script is based described a business meeting at the Makaha Resort - back in the early 1990s when it was a Sheraton - and they wanted to make each location as authentic as possible. "We're all impressed with how professional the local film community is here," said Lavet, who added that they hired about 10 percent of the crew for this shoot in Hawaii.

Though it's not typical for a writer to travel with a production to various locations, Burns did not complain. "Steven (Soderbergh, the director) tends to be very collaborative with the writer," he said. Every once in a while, Burns has had to tinker with a scene that's not working. But he also noted that there's plenty of help, as Soderbergh and Damon have been known to write a bit, too.

Compared with where they started in Decatur, Ill., Hawaii "is sort of a world unto itself," said Burns, who is spending a few days on Maui. "This is the same distance from Los Angeles as New York," he mused. "It's kind of a better way to spend five hours."

Joel McHale spoke briefly about his role here.

TV Guide: You're doing Steven Soderbergh's film The Informant — it sounds kind of serious. What kind of part are you playing?

McHale: It's a dark comedy and I play an FBI agent. It's [based] on a real story about price-fixing in a major American corporation. Now, that doesn't necessarily sound like a hilarious movie, but the guy that Matt Damon plays was such a character. I'm the third lead, [so] I'm obviously very excited. And I didn't have to meet Dina Lohan.

An amusing comment from Burn Notice actor Jeffrey Donovan here:

"I don’t have the good looks of James Bond, and though I am a big fan of the ‘Bourne Identity,’ I don’t have Matt Damon’s chops and probably his intellect," Donovan says. "So I don’t think I’ll ever be confused with anybody really good."

At the Saturn Awards, Bourne producers Frank Marshall and Pat Crowley discussed the next Bourne film, claiming it may film next summer for a release in 2010. Although the script has not yet been completed, the setting is likely to be South America. The video of the interview is at IESB, and a transcript of some of the comments is at Filmstalker. This is all despite Matt and director Paul Greengrass saying in March they had not committed to another film.

Marshall: Absolutely. Hopefully we will be shooting next summer for release in 2010. There was a fourth book written, but it was not by Mr. Ludlum. So we're probably going to take our own direction and we're working on what that storyline's gonna be right now."

Separately, In Touch magazine has suggested (randomly) that Gwyneth Paltrow may be in the film. Scan thanks to Stacie.

More photos of Matt in Hawaii filming The Informant poolside are at Splash News Online and X17 Online.

Filming for The Informant in Hawaii should now be completed. A photo of Matt on the set is below, from here, and another photo is available here. A story about the filming is at the Honolulu Advertiser.

Clint Eastwood talked about The Human Factor to MTV:

MTV: And you're going to be reteaming with Morgan Freeman, directing him as Nelson Mandela in "The Human Factor"?
Eastwood: Yes, that's something we're talking about doing around the first of next year. Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman. It's a very good script.
MTV: Is there any role in that for you?
Eastwood: Nope. "Gran Torino" is a short movie. It's very condensed. It won't take very long. I'll do that one for me and then I'm back...

An extended clip of Matt's comments at the Spike TV Awards is here.

More photos from the Celtics/Lakers game are at Just Jared and PopSugar. Matt's comments to an ESPN reporter about the game and possible revenge on the Lakers are below, and Defamer's take on one photo is here.



Of course, if the Lakers were to tie it at 3-3, they'd be on the precipice of history. No team has overcome a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals. That might explain why Celtics diehard Matt Damon isn't concerned.

"I'm not worried. Not even a little bit." says Damon, a Boston native, who's courtside with Mark Wahlberg. "We could've won [Tuesday's game], and it could've been all over by now. I just honestly think we're the better team this year. And I think we're the hungrier team too."

But when the buzzer sounds, and the Lakers emerge the victors, Celtics fans are still in good spirits. Matt Damon offers backslaps to courtside fans, and even stops to wish Jack Nicholson well.

He looks like a guy with something up his sleeve.

"We're petty enough to sit around and start dialing the Lakers' hotel rooms," Damon warns. "If I were them, and I wanted to get some sleep, I would unplug my phones."

A sighting from People Online:

Matt Damon, dutifully waiting in the car as his pregnant wife Luciana popped into the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Los Feliz, Calif., for some iced drinks. Wearing sunglasses and a hat, Luciana shared a little "baby talk" with a fellow patron before returning to the car, where Damon was waiting to make a speedy getaway.

Photos of Matt on the Van Nuys set of The Informant Monday are at JFX Online.

More comments from an ill-spirited Mark Wahlberg at Metro:

Q: What about your rumored bid for Matt Damon’s role in “Ocean’s Eleven”?

Wahlberg: That’s true. I didn’t get the role. The first one was good, but the second one isn’t good. You guys can tell George Clooney that it was great, but it wasn’t. I made two bad movies instead of it, but they were still more valuable in spirit.

Photos of Matt and Lucy leaving Dan Tana's restaurant on Friday are at X17Online and Buzz Foto, with video at Hollywood Bubble.

Photos of Matt sitting courtside next to Mark Wahlberg at the Celtics/Lakers Game 5 in Los Angeles are available at Yahoo, the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, Getty Images and NBA.com.

In an interview at People magazine, Mark Wahlberg again trash talks Matt, saying he could beat Matt and Ben in a fight with one hand behind his back. He also trashes the Ocean's movies again (for which he was originally cast, to be replaced by Matt when filming on Planet of the Apes ran long), as reported here. Wahlberg does say (as he has commented before) that Matt is "a nice guy".

Actor Mark Wahlberg is relieved he turned down the opportunity to star in George Clooney's Ocean's movie franchise, because the films all "sucked".

The Boogie Nights star was initially approached to play the part of Linus Caldwell - a role that eventually went to Matt Damon - in Ocean's Eleven, but he decided against joining Clooney and pal Brad Pitt for the casino heist movie.

And, even though two of his own projects turned out to be flops, he insists anything would have been better than having to pretend he enjoyed making Ocean's Eleven.

He says, "It was well worth it! The second one sucked! People tell George Clooney it's great, but we all know it sucked.

"I made two bad movies instead - Planet of the Apes and The Truth About Charlie - but doing that was better than sitting with Brad and George, telling the press how great everybody is: 'We were in Europe, George was funny, then we had some wine...' - that's not for me. I do love those guys, but I had to step out on my own."

Another story about the impact of Informant filming on local businesses in Decatur is here.

Matt may attend the 'Ante up for poker' event in Las Vegas on 2 July - a report at the Boston Globe. Australian cricketer Shane Warne also expects to attend.

A report on the OneXOne event in Calgary hosted by Ben Affleck is here, including:

Affleck's celebrity status helped raise more than a quarter of a million dollars during the live auction on Saturday night, including $150,000 donated by five couples - all with ties to the oil patch including Murray Edwards, Charlie Fischer, Drew MacIntyre, Kevin Neveu and Dale Shwed - to take in two upcoming movie premieres, Affleck's comedy He's Just Not That Into You and Damon's war drama Green Zone.