With topics ranging from the Oscar buzz to dildos, the Daily got an earful from Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio, two stars of Martin Scorsese's "The Departed". Set in Boston, the film focuses on the chaotic underworld of the Irish mafia and the Boston Police Department's law enforcing struggles. Deception runs rampant, weaving an almost impenetrable web of violence.
Packed with an all-star cast that also includes Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen, watching the film is sure to provide about as much pleasure as Damon and DiCaprio derived from working on it.
Q: You've both been in movies that have won and been nominated for Oscars. How do you feel about that?
MD: It always cracks me up when [people] talk about Oscar buzz. There's Oscar buzz over just about anything, and generally, that's the marketing machines behind all the movies all talking to each other. It's definitely...not something that we set out to do - ever.
If you're going for this kind of result-oriented approach, you're in deep crap. It's hard enough to just try to keep your career: to kind of keep the drive alive and keep your career on track.
Q: Both of you have taken roles that challenge the idea of identity and reality and fiction.... how do you approach roles like that, which blend that line so well?
LD: It presents a challenge as an actor. You're going through your own personal traumatic experiences as a character, but you've also got to not relay that information to the people around you in the movie, but you want to get the audience involved in the process.
Certainly for me in this movie, playing this police cadet from Boston that goes to try to expose this mob syndicate headed by Jack Nicholson, the challenge for me was exactly that. It was not having to reveal myself to these people that are around me that constantly want to shoot me in the head, but also trying to emote that tension to the audience and get them involved in that experience.
MD: Well, I think also, just in terms of the storytelling, it's a good way in. You're always going to have to come up with a character experiencing some type of conflict that either learns or doesn't learn something about themselves.
In this case, it's kind of a consistent theme throughout. You're dealing with all of these characters who are not telling each other who they really are and who are dealing with certain levels of deception. Ultimately, when you're our age and you're making movies about people our age, identity issues are really what people are struggling with.
Q: I was just wondering what kind of preparation both of you did for your roles, because I had done some reading about the Massachusetts State Police being involved.
MD: Leo was at a distinct disadvantage from me and Mark, because we're from there. And so a lot of the general stuff, kind of just an understanding of how things are in Boston, the accent, which is, I think, the hardest accent to do in any city in the country.
I said it to Leo early on, I said, "Look, great, great actors have come here and not gotten it." And so in terms of preparation, Leo had just this whole mountain of work to do that Mark and I got to skip, because we were from there. And Leo did a great job with it. And he's on a very short list of actors who have actually pulled it off.
LD: Thank you, sir.
MD: Yes, any time. But for me, it was a chance to look at the subculture of the state police. Besides being pulled over on the Mass Pike a few times, this was about the extent of my interaction with the troopers.
We had this technical advisor named Tom Duffy, who is a retired major, he had just retired from the state police. So he took us in, and I did, I think, a lot more on the cop side, because Leo spent all his time on the mob side.
Q: This movie has been hailed as Jack Nicholson's return to playing a villain, his return to drama after about a decade of comedy. I was wondering...if he pulled any funny pranks on the set.
MD: The first day I worked with him, Marty called me...on a Sunday night, and goes, "Hello Matt, it's Marty, your director. Listen. A little thing about tomorrow; Jack is going to do the movie theater scene, and Jack had an idea and I think it's good. And it's his process, and I think we should indulge it. Jack is going to show up with a giant dildo; he's going to show up with a giant dildo, and that's what we're going to do. So, okay?"
So, I go to work and there was Nicholson in this trench coat and hat, with this giant dildo and he just looked at me and he's like, "I just thought the whole thing would be better if I had the dildo on."
At that point I was kind of like, "Alright, well, I guess I'm along for this great ride." And the guy really did kind of infuse this character with this level of obscenity that wasn't in the script. He was ruthless and brutal in the script, but there was this kind of extra level, this layer of obscenity that Jack put on it.
