Matt Damon may be throwing in the towel on politics.
The Academy Award winning actor campaigned for President Barack Obama in 2008 and stars in the recently released anti-fracking film Promised Land. But in a frank interview with Playboy Magazine an obviously disillusioned Damon said, “The game is rigged and no matter how hard you work to change things, it just doesn’t matter.”
This is not the first time the Good Will Hunting star has expressed frustration with the current administration. He told Elle Magazine in 2011, “You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.”
Although he was ridiculed by the President himself for these harsh words, Damon still shows no remorse for his controversial comment.
“I don’t think I said anything a lot of people weren’t thinking,” he told Playboy Magazine.
Despite Damon’s disappointment with the Obama administration, he said still voted for the incumbent President in November.
“I assume there will be some Supreme Court appointments in this next term,” Damon explained to Playboy Magazine, “That alone was reason to vote for him.”
Although Damon singled out Obama, he accused all politicians of caring only about winning their next election.
“We’re at a point where politicians don’t really get any benefit from engaging with long-term issues,” he explained. “Instead, it’s all about the next election cycle. Those guys in the House don’t do anything now but run for office. So unless they can find some little thing that zips them up a couple of points in the polls, they’re not interested.”
Damon also weighed in on his former co-star Clint Eastwood’s stand-up routine at the Republican National Convention. “I heard the backlash, but I never saw the whole thing because I just didn’t want to see my friend … you know.”
But Damon did give Eastwood kudos for completing a 12 minute dynamite performance on the fly – something he admitted he wouldn’t have been able to do.
“Look, his knowledge of filmmaking is so vast and deep that he can wing it beautifully on the set,” Damon said. “What he did at the RNC was an unrehearsed bit he decided to do at the last minute. You can’t go onstage and do 12 minutes of stand-up completely unrehearsed. But I agree with what Bill Maher said — Clint killed it at the convention for 12 minutes, and the audience loved him. I wouldn’t do that unless I spent a month rehearsing.”
Well, now that Damon seems to have finally washed his hands of politics altogether, maybe he will have that extra month to rehearse. Because, after all, acting is his actual job.
