After landing himself in hot water for his controversial remarks about gay actors in Hollywood, Matt Damon attempted to clarify his comments on Monday’s The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
In case you missed it, in an interview with The Guardian, Matt essentially suggested that gay actors remain in the closet to avoid hindrances to their careers in Hollywood (he even used his friend Rupert Everett, an openly gay actor, to support his argument).
He later added that the less is known about an actor’s private life the better.
“I think it must be really hard for actors to be out publicly. But in terms of actors, I think you’re a better actor the less people know about you, period. And sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether you’re straight or gay, people shouldn’t know anything about your sexuality because that’s one of the mysteries that you should be able to play.”
As expected, Matt stated that his remarks had been misconstrued.
“I was talking about actors are more effective when you know less about their personal lives. And was talking about it in the context of when Ben and I first started and people wrote all these articles, when ‘Good Will Hunting’ came out, that we were gay because it was two guys who wrote the script. And feeling like oh, well we can’t even like then you have to address it and then it’s like well I’m not gonna throw my friends under the bus, who are gay, and act like it’s some kind of a disease. How do you even address it? So you’re always in these kind of weird things. But in this day and age I said this thing to The Guardian and it got turned into… and I was just trying to say actors are more effective when they’re a mystery. Right? And somebody picked it up and said I said gay actors should get back in the closet. Which is like I mean it’s stupid, but it is painful when things get said that you don’t believe. And then it gets represented that that’s what you believe. Because in the blogosphere there’s no real penalty for just taking the ball and running with it. Ya know what I mean? You’re just trying to click on your thing.”
Watch the video below.
If “sexuality is a huge part” of our private lives, then one of the issues with Matt’s remarks is that he’s shown up to countless red carpets over the years with his wife in tow, so one can’t help but feel that his remarks were solely geared towards gay actors.
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