Matt Damon fans will never forget the actor’s hysterical cameo on the season finale of HBO’s hit series, Entourage, when he freaks out at Vince for failing to send a check he promised to the Oscar winner’s charity for children, OneXOne.
“It’s been a week!,” Damon says in a heated call to Vince (Adrien Grenier) from Haiti, one locale where OneXOne helps mothers and children. “I understand that your check has not come! Don’t push me! Send the check! You do what’s right, Vince!”
Growing angrier by the second, Damon bashes Vince’s acting skills, saying, “I can’t even believe you have money to give a foundation, but the fact is that you do and you gave me your word that you would, so give me the f—ing check, Vince! I can’t believe I have an Academy Award and I’m calling you back again and again and again! Send the check!”
Damon hangs up, bursts into tears and calls Vince back to apologize. “I was really out of line,” he says. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just a little tired, man, and I’m sorry.”
What makes the scene especially funny is that in real life, Damon is one of the most decent, giving, even-keeled guys around, who has raised money and spent countless hours traveling around the world to help improve the lives of impoverished mothers and children.
On Thursday night, the 39-year-old actor’s efforts were honored by Save the Children in Greenwich, Conn., with a prestigious Leadership Award for his charitable works. “In the polarized political climate in America right now, helping children is something that everyone can agree upon,” Damon told reporters before the awards ceremony.
The Bourne Identity star co-founded the international advocacy group Not On Our Watch with his Ocean’s 11 buddies Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Don Cheadle, David Pressman and Jerry Weintraub. He is also an Ambassador for OneXOne, which provides children with everything they need for their well-being — clean water, food, education, healthcare and even playtime and said he has seen firsthand how so many women and children around the world are living in “horrific circumstances. It’s hard to be OK with this, especially when you have children of your own.”
Indeed, the Good Will Hunting star and his wife of four years, Luciana, have two children together – Isabella, 3, and Gia, 21 months — and another on the way. He is also stepdad to Luciana’s daughter from a previous marriage, Alexia, 11.
Nearly 9 million children around the world die every year before they are five years old from preventable and treatable diseases such as diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia, according to Save the Children. “There are simple solutions to a lot of these problems that are also low in cost,” Damon said. “This is now about raising more awareness about this.”
The benefit, which was held at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich, raised more than $500,000, which will help Save the Children to provide kids here in the United States and all over the globe with medical care including vaccinations, better newborn care practices and antibiotics.
Damon said he was more than impressed with all the good that Save the Children is doing. “I have bumped into Save the Children staff members around the world and think they are some of the most incredible people I have ever met,” he said. “They are professional and passionate about protecting children in some of the most difficult and impoverished places.”
During a trip to Africa, Damon talked about how he met a group of children who had risked their lives crossing a crocodile-infested river as they were fleeing war-torn, disease-ridden Zimbabwe for a refugee camp in South Africa. When they finally reached the camp, they found that he government had shut it down and they had nowhere to go.
Save the Children stepped in and helped find homes for the 200 or so hungry, scared and homeless children. “It was so deeply affecting to see not only the incredible difference they were making in the lives of these kids, but the commitment of the staff, who, when all else failed, said, ‘Come stay in my office…’ It’s just stuff like that they do all over the world. They’re just a really special group.”
Today Show anchor Ann Curry, who endured a hair-raising bungee jump to raise money for Save the Children, hosted the event. Also on hand were her colleagues Meredith Vieira, Kathie Lee Gifford, Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager, President Bush’s daughter, who is a Today Show contributor.
Curry said she was more than happy to help Save the Children — even if it scared the living daylights out of her. “I was asked to jump off a bridge on TV and I said, ‘If it’s for a good cause, like Save the Children, I’ll do it,’” Curry told reporters. “So they said, ‘OK.”
She jumped. “That was the fastest $15,000 I ever raised,” she said. “I raised $15,000 in seconds. But it was deeply frightening. When you looked down, you saw exactly where you were going to hit.”
The work that Save the Children is doing is more critical than ever, she said. “I’ve been to the Congo, Darfur, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Liberia, South Africa and so many other places where I have seen so many children suffering from hunger, poverty, tsunamis and wars,” she said. “Save the Children is saving the lives of children every day. What they do is incredible.”
Asked what else he wants to do, Damon said, “I want to help more children.”
Photo by Miguel Angel Azua Garcia (Mod Mike) via Wikimedia Commons.