Matt Damon has finally opened up about being locked down in Ireland during the Covid-19 crisis. After a campaign on their morning show Fully Charged with Graham and Nathan, Dublin station Spin 103.8 secured a worldwide exclusive with Damon which was broadcast this morning.
Damon had heard the show when driving around Dalkey, where he's staying in Eddie Irvine's house, and said he was going to call in but claims to have forgotten the number.
It's been reported over the last few weeks that Damon has settled in beautifully in the Dalkey area and is making the most of his lockdown in the country. Here to shoot a movie with his wife, three of his kids, and teachers for the children, Damon says he was just settled in when things shut down.
"It was before the lockdown. I'm in the middle of a movie. We shot the first half in France and we were moving to Ireland,and right when we arrived in Ireland, the movie was shut down. So that would have been early March, I guess. Like, two months ago, I think."
Since he's arrived we've been hearing stories about the people of Dalkey being quite protective of their star visitor and Damon says he's really loving the area.
Oh it's incredible. This is one of the most beautiful places we've ever been.
Look, obviously what's going on in the world is horrible, but for my family, it timed out right as, you know, I'm with my whole family, I've got my kids, and we've got teachers with us because we were planning on missing school for about eight weeks. So we've got what nobody else has which is actual live human beings teaching our kids. The schools are all shut down back home, and all the kids are doing remote learning, so we feel guilty. We've got this kind of incredible set up in this place which is absolutely gorgeous.
Even in the lockdown, you've got to stay within two kilometres of your house. I mean two kilometres of here, there's trees and forest and woods and ocean, and I can't think of any place you'd rather want to be in a two kilometre radius of.
Also, it's changed just in a the last couple of... now it's blooming. I thought it was incredible two months ago, but now, it's ridiculous. It feels a little like a fairytale here. It's gorgeous.
I see why all these people... you know when we came in, they were like, 'Bono lives over there and Enya lives over there.'
His interactions with the locals has obviously been limited with social distancing but Damon still claims to have had good experiences.
The first couple of days were were here, we went into a bookstore, but everything kind of shut down. There's a lovely coffee place that stayed open. And actually, I was talking to the barista who works there the other day. You know, you stand two metres apart and only one person goes at a time into the shop and orders a coffee. And she said, which I thought was really interesting because I used to work at a counter as one of my first jobs, and she said, 'normally this place is really buzzing, and I've actually gotten to know all of my customers because they each come in for three to five minutes and we chat.' She said, 'Normally I see them all, these are all faces I know, but now I actually know all these people, I know all their families, and what's going on with them.' She said, 'It's actually been beneficial to me.' I thought that was kind of a cool story.
Damon also confirmed the famous Super Valu bag of mystery was full of nothing more interesting than beach towels, that he'll still have to spend a couple of months here when his movie resumes, and frighteningly, that his oldest daughter, who's in college in New York contracted Covid early in the process but has thankfully made a full recovery.
You can watch the full interview with Graham and Nathan here:
