Matt Damon on The Monuments Men and How it Felt Like Its an Oceans Movie

In September 2009, American writer and businessman Robert Edsel released “The Monuments Men,” a compelling account of a group of middle aged museum directors, curators and art historians tasked with going into Germany in the closing stages of World War II to try and rescue artworks requisitioned by the Nazis.

“The Monuments Men,” produced, directed and starred in by George Clooney along with a very impressive cast including Matt Damon, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Leonidas Dmitri, Hugh Bonneville and Cate Blanchett is set amidst a war that cost the lives of 65 million people when mankind’s cultural and artistic fingerprint is at risk of being destroyed. Their small group of middle aged museum curators and artists and architects, called The Monuments Men, the most unlikely of spies, who volunteer to go into military service and try and save these things and ultimately recover them.

Matt Damon was one of the many to get the direct approach. Damon further discusses in the following q&a of his involvement in the film and working with a great cast.

Q: How did you first get involved with Monuments Men?

A: “I was on my way to pick up my kids from school and I got an email from George [Clooney] that said, “Are you busy in the spring?” So when I got home, I called him and he told me a little bit about what he was up to and then he sent me the script. I read it and instantly just loved it. That was maybe four or five months before we started shooting. But I literally had no notes on the script at all. Grant and George had done all of the heavy lifting already so it was a very easy movie to just kind of slide right into.

Q: Were you aware at all of the original Monuments Men story and their wartime activities?

A: No, I actually didn't know anything about it. I’m surprised that such a great story had eluded me in every history class I had ever taken about World War II. And this idea of these guys who were, you know, a little past their prime soldiering years, kind of dropping everything and going through basic training and going to the front, risking their lives to save artwork was just an incredibly compelling story.

Q: You’re friends with Clooney. Does that make the working process easier or trickier in any way?

A: It makes it much easier because, you know, there's just a shorthand. He doesn't have to spend any time worrying about my feelings. There’s an implicit trust there that goes both ways. If I'm screwing up a scene, he can say that to me!

Q: What kind of a director is Clooney?

A: He's both very in control and very relaxed, which is really the mark of a great director. He never raised his voice. There was never any tension on set. Even though this was a very big film, in terms of cost and production value, it went along like we were doing a tiny little kitchen sink drama. It was right on schedule and I think they even came in under budget.



Q: Would you say Monuments Men was similar to other ensemble films that you've been in, like the Ocean's movies?

A: Yeah, it's similar to the Ocean's movies, I think. Partly, hopefully, in tone. It should feel fun and entertaining, the way those movies did. And I think in terms of process, it was extremely similar as well: thea ctors had a blast. But these movies are always the hardest for the director and the producers. So for George, directing and producing and starring in it and having written it, and then Grant – who wrote it with George and then produced it – those guys were very focused and had a lot on their plate. I mean, we were all focused too; we just had less on our plate.

Q: Clooney is notorious for on-set pranks. Were you the victim of any on this film?

A: Well, he never copped to this to me, but he did give an interview saying that he was taking in my wardrobe by like, a 16th of an inch every few days. Which, I had attributed to my poor eating habits while I was making the movie. But it makes a lot of sense when I heard that! [Laughs] Honestly though, he was so busy on this one. He'd always have a big dinner on Saturday night with the cast and the crew. But that was like a two- or three-hour thing and the only free time that he really allowed himself. He and Grant had their heads down on this one.



The greatest heist story in history is about to be told when “The Monuments Men” opens February 12 in cinemas nationwide from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

2014's Best Actress Frontrunner Cate Blanchett in The Monuments Men

Cate Blanchett, this year’s Best Actress winner at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Critics’ Choice Movie Awards (for her role in “Blue Jasmine”) and nominated at the 86th Academy Awards (Oscars) stars in a sweeping true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history where she is the only woman among “The Monuments Men.”

Based on the real history chronicled in the non-fiction book “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History” by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter, “The Monuments Men” is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. The Monuments Men found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind’s greatest achievements.

The film is directed, co-written, co-produced and starred in by George Clooney with a phenomenal ensemble cast including Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett.

Cate Blanchett rounds out the cast as Claire Simone, a Frenchwoman in a unique position in Occupied France. “This story opens up the Second World War in a way that gives you a different perspective on it,” says Cate Blanchett, who plays a key role as Claire Simone, a woman who holds the key to the secret location of thousands of priceless pieces of stolen art.

“These men were spurred on by a higher ideal. So many of the works that we take for granted in the great museums of the world were returned by this band of men – it was a near impossible task. Absurd, in a way: non military men going to the front lines and asking generals to stop bombing a certain church or area to save a window, or a sculpture or mural – you wonder how they were able to save anything at all. It’s an extraordinary, selfless thing that they did, done to preserve history.”

“Claire Simone is a curator at the Jeu de Paume – once an art museum but became a kind of depot for art looted by the Nazis,” Blanchett explains. “But her real work goes on at night, when she records the provenance of the works and where they were being taken in an obsessively detailed way. She’s the catalyst for the third act of the movie – the Monuments Men know the works are disappearing but they don’t know where they are going, and they need her information.”

Blanchett says that there was truly something different about the ways the Nazis went about looting art. “In every war, there’s looting. What was shocking to me was the mathematical, calculated and systematic way the Nazis went about their looting, and the fact that their acquisition of works began as early as 1938.”

The other element that made the Nazi looting different was the so-called Nero Decree. “When Hitler realized he was going to lose the war, he ordered that everything the Nazis had amassed was going to be destroyed. He was going to leave nothing in the hands of the victors,” Blanchett explains. “In relation to the art, what the Nero Decree meant was that everything that they had stolen was to be destroyed.”

“Matt’s character, Granger, must win her trust,” Blanchett continues. “There was an understandable fear on the part of the French that, if the works were recovered by the Allies from the Nazis, they’d simply go to collections or collectors in Russia and the United States. From that standpoint, did it really matter whether it was stolen by the Germans, the Russians or the Americans?”

Ultimately, Granger and Simone forge an unusual bond, Blanchett says. “I think the love story that exists between them is a mutual love of art, of culture.” Blanchett says. “They are both gripped – passionately gripped – by the importance of saving this work for all time. They believe that no single person can ever truly own a masterpiece. It’s for everyone. So, I think they’re united in the nobility of the cause.”

Blanchett’s character is inspired by Rose Valland, a French woman who bravely and secretly kept track of the Nazis’ systematic tracking, risking her life in the process. “Rose Valland was, at first, a volunteer and then overseer at the Jeu de Paume, which adjoins the Louvre. During the war, it was a depot for looted Jewish art collections and other objects. Hermann Göring basically used the Jeu de Paume as a shopping mall – the Nazis set it up like an exhibition space for the pilfered art,” Blanchett explains. “Her work singlehandedly saved crate-loads, castle-loads full of works of art that otherwise could have easily been destroyed. The fact that she was working alone was an act of extraordinary bravery. I think she was able to achieve what she did because she didn’t stand out – she was the woman least likely.”

“The Monuments Men” opens February 12 in cinemas nationwide from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.