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13th May 2020

Matt Damon calls Leo Varadkar “a badass” in first interview about life in Ireland

Rudi Kinsella

Matt Damon Ireland

Matt Damon seems to be loving life on lockdown in Ireland.

Matt Damon has been living in Ireland since the Covid-19 pandemic began, and he has given an exclusive interview to Spin 1038 on how’s been finding things here for the last couple of months.

The Hollywood megastar chatted to Graham and Nathan from Fully Charged about all things Ireland, as well as how he feels things are going back home Stateside during the pandemic.

Damon contacted the station himself having heard on the radio that Fully Charged were looking to track him down and having been convinced to do so via Facetime by none other than Bono.

Damon spoke extremely highly of the area of Dalkey, where he has been staying, saying: “This place is just absolutely gorgeous. Even in the lockdown when you’ve got to stay within two kilometre of your house, there’s trees and forests and woods and oceans. I can’t think of any place you’d rather be in a two kilometre radius of.”

According to Spin 1038, in a moment not captured in the video below, he also spoke highly of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, saying: “You’ve got a president who just goes to the hospital and starts working.

“I mean what a badass, it’s just on another level.”

We assume he’s referring to Varadkar there and not Michael D…

Referencing the picture that went viral of him holding a SuperValu bag, Damon explained that, alas, it contained towels and not cans, as Graham and Nathan had been hoping.

Damon is currently unsure when he’ll manage to get back to the United States, but that he expects to reunite in Los Angeles soon with his daughter Alexia, who, Damon revealed, had contracted Covid-19 in New York City and has since made a full recovery.

Damon will return to Ireland at some point, however, to finish shooting The Last Duel, the reason he is here in the first place.

Towards the end of the call, Damon surprised a superfan of his, a French nurse living in Dublin named Annaice, who he thanked for all the “awesome” work that frontline staff have been doing.

“We owe you guys,” he said.

You can watch the full interview here:

Clip via SPIN 1038

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