Matt Damon on rugby, race and espionage

Matt Damon in The Informant. Photo / Supplied

As he approaches the milestone age of 40 next year, Matt Damon is grateful. He is grateful that his career is going from strength to strength and he is probably grateful that he was not born a woman. Though the always-well-mannered gent doesn't quite put it that way.

"It's very unfair, this thing about the movie business, where as a man you move into another gear when you get to 35, whereas for women the roles start to evaporate," he says. "All these terrific roles keep coming. Already I've had a great career."

Interestingly, many of the films Damon has made lately are set in male-dominated worlds. Melanie Lynskey, his co-star and on-screen wife in his latest film, The Informant!, has nothing more than a handbag role. Nor can one imagine a woman making much of an impact in his upcoming Oscar contender, Clint Eastwood's Invictus, given the film is set in the blokey world of South African rugby and politics.

As usual, Eastwood is keeping Invictus from prying critical eyes until the last moment, as he did with Million Dollar Baby and Changeling, which both featured strongly at the Oscars.

It's likely, then, that Damon - who plays Springboks captain Francois Pienaar - may well figure in the Oscars next year. Pienaar banded together with Nelson Mandela during the 1995 Rugby World Cup in an attempt to unite the South African people after the fall of apartheid.

Of course most New Zealanders will remember that particular World Cup for the All Blacks steaming into the final, with Jonah Lomu (played in the movie by former Samoan international Zak Feaunati) at his peak, only to be beaten by the Boks 15-12 (although allegations of deliberate food poisoning in the All Blacks' camp surfaced following the final).

Though the game was bad news for New Zealand, it helped unify South Africa.

Damon, an actor who uses his celebrity to further humanitarian causes, took his wife Luciana and their three daughters to meet Mandela during the filming. "Our kids were captivated by him," he says. "They understood immediately what an important man he is."

Still, Damon did not make the film out of any political consciousness or in a bid to meet Mandela. Like many actors in Hollywood, he wanted to work with Eastwood. It's no surprise, given Damon's affability and star status, that they are planning a second movie, the supernatural thriller Hereafter, based on a screenplay by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon). "Talking to Clint last week, he now says he learns something new on every movie he makes. At 78 that's incredible. He never stops learning."

Damon admits that is something he also aspires to, and the reason he associates himself with the best.