As usual, the early days of the year have seen much of the pop culture conversation deal with awards season, and with the Oscars yet to come, things won’t be slowing down just yet. 2026 movies star Matt Damon, who’s in The Rip right now (which you can watch with a Netflix subscription) and will lead The Odyssey this summer, knows a thing or two about being in the mix when it comes to the Academy Awards and other filmmaking prizes, and while he’s got a serious take on it, his use of the word “penetration” has me going in a different direction.
Matt Damon’s Serious Take On Awards Season
Obviously, Matt Damon was a pretty early success story, and managed to win an Oscar for writing (alongside his bestie Ben Affleck) Good Will Hunting way back in 1998, which catapulted the two into stardom despite their somewhat roastable acceptance speech. He’s now spent nearly 30 years at the top of the industry while giving us fantastic performances in films like The Martian, Saving Private Ryan, The Departed, Contagion, Behind the Candelabra, the Bourne franchise, and the Ocean’s movies (with he and other original stars are set to return for Ocean’s 14), meaning he’s had more than his share of award show experience at this point.
During a recent chat with Skip Intro, Damon was asked to divulge something that lands on his list of JOMO (that’s “joy of missing out”) activities, and answered with a smile, “Award season. One-hundred percent.” He explained:
What I don’t like is this idea of campaigning. It seems completely backwards to me. It’s just odd…. And maybe it’s good for movies, just having it all, and it gets the culture thinking and talking about movies. I hope that’s the case.
My goodness. I’ve heard a few other actors (like Jeffrey Wright after finishing the “grind” of his 2024 American Fiction campaign) pinpoint the oddity of award season and being expected to campaign so that the movies nominated will win, but it’s always good to hear someone dare to say it. I imagine that some won’t acknowledge it because, you know, most actors dream of having things like Oscar nominations and wins to their name, and I can totally understand the thought that voicing this opinion might automatically delete you from the potential nomination field, whether the nod is warranted or not.
He continued, and noted that awards, in general, aren’t a bad thing because they do seem to help films get noticed by the general public. But then the actor (who’s been getting people super pumped for his upcoming Christopher Nolan epic) used an incredibly strong word to describe that feature of award season, and said:
There’s certainly something to be said for kind of getting that kind of penetration into people’s, you know, consciousness, because there’s so much noise.
Ugh…penetration? I know exactly what he means, of course, but that just feels like such a strong word that it’s taken my brain in a very clinical and sort of weird, sci-fi direction. It’s like filmmakers’ award campaigns are close to surgically implanting the idea of who deserves to win in everyone’s brains and makes it impossible to root (or vote) for an underdog, even if you truly think they earned it.
Also, not for nothing, but the word “penetration” is just kinda funny. Either way, it paints a vivid picture of why he’d rather skip out on award season, even if it is nice to be nominated.
