Matt Damon names the greatest comedy actor of all time: “That guy was absolutely brilliant”
He’s not a comedian by trade, and he’s only made a handful of movies that were designed exclusively to have audiences rolling in the aisles with laughter, some of which didn’t accomplish those goals, but that doesn’t mean that Matt Damon doesn’t have impressive comedic chops.
Early outings in Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy and Dogma showed that he knew his way around a light-hearted romp and a one-liner, and while co-starring with Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins in the Farrelly brothers’ Stuck on You is the sort of premise that wouldn’t fly today, it was fine for what it was as an early-2000s caper.
Since then, the Academy Award winner has largely stayed away from out-and-out comedy as a genre, but continued to display a knack for mastering its timing in the likes of Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy and The Informant!, Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm, his cameos in Taika Waititi’s Thor films, and, of course, Eurotrip.
That’s not to say that Damon couldn’t headline a laugh-a-minute riot if he wanted to, but it remains one of the few glaring omissions from a filmography that’s covered more bases than most of his A-list contemporaries. If he really wanted to, he’d have probably done it by now, so maybe the prospect of taking top billing in a comedy flick isn’t something he’s interested in.
Obviously, he appreciates a great comic when he sees one, which predates working with the inimitable Robin Williams on Good Will Hunting. The star’s improvisations helped turn an award-winning script into a great movie, making it fitting that Damon was also a huge admirer of a tour-de-force performer that Williams held in the highest esteem.
He was far from the only one, though, with Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Steve Martin, and Will Ferrell all in the exact same boat. The most obvious difference is that those names are associated with comedy first and foremost, which didn’t preclude Damon from celebrating the majesty of Peter Sellers.
“Sellers, I mean, he’s so brilliant in that movie,” he told Rotten Tomatoes, referencing Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, one of his favourite films. “And I was sitting there wondering, ‘Should I go for Being There? Should I go for another Sellers movie? I just wanted Sellers on this list, because he’s so great.”
As difficult as he was, even the co-stars and filmmakers who had to deal with Sellers’ worst impulses could still concede that he was one of a kind. The volume of top-tier comedians he’s inspired speaks for itself, and even if Damon isn’t one of them, he still can’t see past him as the best ever at what he did.
“That guy was just absolutely brilliant and terribly funny,” the Bourne figurehead concluded, a sentiment shared by many. Is Sellers the greatest comedy actor of all time? If he isn’t, then he’s right up there, since so many masters of the medium have labelled him as such.
