Matt Damon Says Boston Culture Can Be 'Abrasive' But to Him It's Like 'a Comfortable Pair of Socks' (Exclusive)
The “sarcasm and cynicism” typical of Boston, Massachusetts “can feel abrasive to people who aren’t from here,” Matt Damon tells PEOPLE
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Matt Damon at the New York premiere of 'The Instigators' July 31Matt Damon and Casey Affleck used their new movie as a chance to return to their roots.
The Instigators (now in theaters and on Apple TV+ Aug. 9), which stars Damon, 53, and Affleck, 48, as an unlikely pair attempting to pull a heist on a corrupt politician, takes place and was filmed in their beloved hometown of Boston, Mass.
Damon tells PEOPLE the Doug Liman-directed comedy marked his first time filming in Boston since 2006’s The Departed. “The sense of humor and the way that people just tend to look at the world back here,” he says, is “really fun when you come from it because you know what it is.”
Those visiting the Massachusetts capital, theGood Will HuntingOscar winner adds, can “get put off” by that “sarcasm and cynicism.”
“It can feel abrasive to people who aren't from here. But when you're from here, it feels like, you know, a comfortable pair of socks.”
Affleck, who co-wrote The Instigators with Chuck Maclean, recalls a complicated catharsis in making a movie with his childhood friend there. “Boston has changed a lot,” he points out. “It's really not the city that we grew up in… The whole country has changed. There's been so much change in the culture.”
He continues, “On the other hand, it's the place I still feel more at home than anywhere else. So that says something about what a place does to you when you're growing. I’ll forever be connected to this place no matter how much it changes.”
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Courtesy of Apple TV+
Matt Damon and Casey Affleck in 'The Instigators'The Instigators is “a heightened reality that we've built — it's not the real world,” adds Damon. What “made it fun” while filming with Affleck, he says, was that “it is grounded enough that it feels like a Boston movie.”
Costarring Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Alfred Molina and Ron Perlman, The Instigators is now in theaters and begins streaming on Apple TV+ Aug. 9.
Reporting by Jordan Fein
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