Matt Damon is making the rounds promoting his new film Jason Bourne. Yet despite the fact that it’s been 12 years since he was portrayed as basically an idiot in Team America: World Police people are still wanting to talk to him about it.
As we all know who have seen the film, that’s because it was one of the most hilarious cameos in cinematic history.
[protected-iframe id=”35cd6f6eb8aad5bb8f1de833b2b1cc96-97886205-92827192″ info=”//giphy.com/embed/tJE5tPJBLXcU8″ width=”480″ height=”223″ frameborder=”0″ class=”giphy-embed” allowfullscreen=””]
So naturally when Damon did a Reddit AMA on Tuesday someone HAD to bring it up and ask him what he thought of it.
I was always kind of bewildered by Team America, I think because it’s hard for us to understand what our images are in public, I think we’re not good judges of that, and when I saw myself on screen just only able to say my own name and not really that well, I kind of wondered “Wow, is that how people perceive me?” At that point I just kind of was like, I’m a screenwriter and an actor, and like really? I can barely say my own name? So I was always bewildered by that, and I never talked to Trey and Matt about that. And Incidentally, I believe those two are geniuses, and I don’t use that word lightly. I think they are absolute geniuses, and what they’ve done is awesome and I’m a big fan of theirs, but I never quite understood that one. But I will say this. Those of us who were parodied in that video were parodied because we were against the Iraq war, and we went on the record against that war, and so history is on my side not theirs.
Of course this isn’t the first time, not by a long shot, that Damon has been asked about Team America. In fact, when he did another Reddit AMA in 2014 guess what? It came up then too.
I thought it was brilliant! I mean, I never understood it, and then I heard an interview with them and they said the puppet came in looking kind of mentally deficient and they didn’t have time to change it, so they just made me someone who could really only say his own name. All the comedy they’re doing is really next-level stuff. Also, I liked being included as a person who was against the Iraq war.
Also, if you’d ever like him to sign a headshot of the Matt Damon puppet, he seems pretty cool with that too, according to a new interview with GQ.
The most common head shot that I’m asked to sign is pictures of that fucking puppet [from Team America: World Police]. And they always say, “Will you write ‘Maaaaaatt Daaaaamon’?” I’m like, “Okay. Matt, with, like, 16 a’s in it.” [Trey Parker and Matt Stone] are legitimate geniuses. But when that came out, I thought, Wow, is that what people think of me? That I’m really dumb? So I remember asking friends of mine, and they all told me that it didn’t really make sense that I was dumb. I was like, “Are you just saying that?” And then [my wife] Lucy heard an interview with [Matt and Trey] where they said the puppet showed up the day before they were supposed to shoot with it, and it looked like it had special needs, and they didn’t have time to change it with the budget. I don’t know if they made up subsequently.
So there you go. One of the greatest movie cameos of all time, finally explained.
Now Watch: Matt Damon Finally Made It On ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’