From director Gus Van Sant, the small town drama Promised Land tells the story of Steve Butler (Matt Damon), a corporate salesman who has been dispatched to the rural town of McKinley with his sales partner (Frances McDormand) to see if the two can get the citizens to sign over the drilling rights to their properties. But, when an environmental activist (John Krasinski) arrives in town, the residents start to question whatâs best for themselves and their community. For more on Promised Land, here are seven clips and the trailer.At the filmâs press day, actor Matt Damon talked about how quickly they shot the film, having a rough cut done four weeks ahead of schedule, how he came to collaborate on the script with Krasinski, their process for writing together, working with McDormand, what made Van Sant the right director when he decided he wouldnât be able to take that on himself, and why this was an important story for him to tell. He also talked about kissing Michael Douglas in Behind the Candelabra, an HBO movie about the relationship between Liberace and his younger live-in lover, and whether heâd ever consider returning to the role of Jason Bourne. Check out what he had to say after the jump.How did you guys get this film done so quickly?MATT DAMON: Itâs funny, weâre an $18 million movie, going out against The Hobbit. Weâre like, âYeah, weâre cool. Weâve got this! What else is coming out? Zero Dark Thirty? Thatâs not going to be a big deal!â We started shooting it in April, and (director) Gus [Van Sant] shaved six weeks off the post-production, just because he could. Heâs so experienced. I think Focus was originally leaning towards bringing it out next year, just because they wanted to give Gus time. But, he showed them a rough cut of the movie, four weeks ahead of schedule, just âcause he was done. He said, âListen, Iâd just like to get your notes now, so I can keep working,â so it was just really accelerated. We shot the whole thing in 30 days versus Good Will Hunting, which was exactly the same size budget, but we had 48 days. We were talking about it on the set and laughing about how much time they used to give us to make movies, and we felt really rushed. Now, itâs 30 days. This script is structured really similarly, in that there are a lot of five-page dialogue scenes. On Good Will Hunting, we went over budget on film because Robin [Williams] liked to do a lot of takes. We had the time, so we would just do a lot of takes. With this, Gus is 15 years down the road, in terms of his experience, and he doesnât shoot as much coverage. He goes, âIâm going to be here for this moment, so letâs do that.â So, you do a few takes, and then heâs like, âOkay, weâve got that.â It felt like we had 48 days. It was a luxurious, relaxed pace that we were moving at. Thatâs the kind of energy that Gus puts off, all the time, so it was really great. By the second day, we started pulling stuff up in the schedule because we were so far ahead. How did your collaboration with John Krasinski come about, and how did Dave Eggers fit into it?DAMON: Well, John had this idea and brought it to Dave, âcause they had done Away We Go together, and they started kicking around stuff. But, Dave is one of the most prolific writers and he had a book that he had to go write, so he left very early on, in the process. Iâm a big fan of Dave Eggers. So, John came to me with this idea. We had befriended each other when I worked with (his wife) Emily [Blunt] on The Adjustment Bureau, so we started to go out to dinner, just as couples. My wife and I just really hit it off with them, so we started seeing them a lot and John and I would talk. John reminded me of George Clooney, really early on, when I met him. Everyone knew George as the guy from E.R., and thatâs really the way people viewed him. But, when [Steven] Soderbergh worked with him on Out of Sight, he immediately formed a company with him. Everyone in L.A. was like, âWhy is Steven Soderbergh forming a company with the guy from E.R.?!â They couldnât understand it. But, anybody who really knew George knew that he wasnât just the guy from E.R. Heâs phenomenally talented and can do all these different things. And thatâs how I feel about John. Heâs a great writer and producer, and heâs directed a movie. The breadth and scope of his talent is pretty vast and impressive. I immediately started trying to find stuff that we could do together, and then he suggested this, so I said, âAll right, letâs take a crack at it.â He was doing the show (The Office) and I was doing We Bought A Zoo, and he just started showing up to my house on weekends. Heâd show up with breakfast and weâd eat and then start working. Weâd work all day Saturday, and then have dinner. Heâd help with the kids. I donât think he did diapers, but he definitely had kids crawling all over him. He was like, âIf you walked into the room and saw what was happening, youâd go, âThereâs no way a script is going to come out of this!ââ How did you actually get a script done, with all those distractions?DAMON: Iâve gotten much better at multi-tasking. Itâs hard, though. But, writing a script is not totally focused. Youâre taking little breaks, all the time. If a kid runs in, you give âem a horsey ride, and then youâre like, âOkay, what weâll say is this . . .â Itâs a pretty fluid process. So, during those weekends weâd write, and then weâd go back to our day jobs and revise, mark up the margins and make notes, so that weâd be ready, five days later, to get back together and start putting that stuff in. It took shape really quickly and it was clear, pretty early on, that we were really going to do it. Did one of you actually sit at the computer?DAMON: For a little bit, we had the same Word document, and then we were like, âThis is a total disaster because Iâm putting changes in on mine and youâre putting changes in on yours. This is too confusing!â So, John was like, âIâll just keep it.â I would hand write my notes, and then weâd get together on Saturday morning and heâd open his laptop, and weâd do it that way. What was it like to work with Frances McDormand on this?DAMON: She played my mom in a TNT movie in 1994, called The Good Old Boys, that Tommy Lee Jones directed. Thatâs where I met her, and that was 18 years ago. Iâve kept in touch with her, over the years, and she was who we were writing that part for. She saw one of the first drafts. She was actually one of the first people who saw the script. I showed Ben Affleck and a few friends an early draft, and John showed a few friends, including Aaron Sorkin, and they were really positive about it. So, we said, âLetâs give it to Fran and see what she says.â She lives right near me in New York, so I called her and said, âI have a script Iâd like to email to you.â And she said, âDonât email it. Iâm old school. I want a hard copy.â So, I printed one out and walked it over and dropped it at her apartment building, like the old days, and then waited. She read it really quickly and emailed us and was like, âIâm in! I love it! I love the character, I love the writing, and Iâm in.â At that time, I was going to direct it, and that was part of the deal. It was a real wonderful thing, just to talk to her about it. John and I were both like, âOkay, weâre on the right track here.â When did you decide that Gus Van Sant would be the right director to take your place?DAMON: Well, Gus is, without question, a better director than me. I decided that I wasnât going to direct it on December 15th of last year. That was my last day of work. The Neill Blomkamp movie (Elysium) that I was on went over. I had been away from my kids, and then I got back and had to do a really intense week or two of press for We Bought A Zoo. On December 15th, my last thing was The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and I finished it and got home and my year was over. I looked at the calendar and realized that, to get the movie out this year, I had to go into pre-production on January 2nd. I just couldnât leave the kids again. So, I had to call John, which was horrible. We produced it together, and he was like, âWell, couldnât you have told me this a month ago? Itâs December 15th. We canât even get our agent on the phone right now, let alone a director.â The other thing was that Warner Bros. had given us the money. They were backing the movie because of me, because I have a deal there. This obviously isnât a Warner Bros. movie. Itâs a much smaller movie, but they were just doing it out of support, which was really great of them. But, I knew the second I told them that I wasnât going to direct it, they were going to bail, which they did. They very politely said, âYouâre really the reason we were backing it. This isnât really what we do.â And so, I lost us a director and our money, but it was the right decision and I said that to John. I said, âI donât know whatâs going to happen, but I know this is the right decision. Our script is good, and thereâs going to be a great director. I know there will be someone who wants to do it. Look at the script. You know itâs good.â And he was like, âWhatever, man!â And then, the next morning, I was leaving to go to Florida with my family and I was sitting on the plane, feeling horrible. I emailed Gus [Van Sant] and told him everything that had happened, and he emailed me back, right before we had to switch our phones off. He said, âI love your writing. Iâd love to read it.â At that point, it was what they officially call the Alec Baldwin moment. The flight attendant was like, âTurn that fucking thing off, or Iâm going to come and take it from you!â So, I forwarded it to Gus from my Blackberry, as fast as I could, and then switched it off. Why was it so important for you to tell this particular story?DAMON: We had been talking about American identity and this moment, with where we are in America, right now. We wanted to take a snapshot of that. This was a perfect issue to use as a backdrop because the stakes are so high, because itâs so polarizing and because people do have to engage in this issue. Itâs real and itâs here. It was the perfect way to show the human cost of something like this. Ultimately, itâs a pro-community, pro-democracy story. If thereâs a message, thatâs it. And we wanted to end it with some hope. Itâs going to sound weird, but when I heard Bruce Springsteenâs album, Wrecking Ball, itâs basically the arc of this movie. It really is the same idea. That was one of the ideas we really wanted to use his song somewhere, so we got âDancing in the Dark,â which is one of his funner songs. Thatâs the right kind of guy to be using. Heâs spent his career singing about these kinds of towns and these kinds of people. Thereâs also a book that Jeff Sachs wrote, called The Price of Civilization, that weâd read. That was the academic expression of this idea, Bruce Springsteenâs was the musical expression of this idea, and Promised Land is the movie version.Where do you think this is all going to go now?DAMON: Itâs such a great thing to use as a backdrop for this idea of these decisions that we make, and short-term versus long-term thinking. We donât know where itâs going to end. What is the rate of the methane leakage? They donât know. Thatâs the gamble. You have people on one side saying, âWe need this. This is going to be a boon for everybody. This is great!â And then, people on the other side go, âI know this is a lifeline to some people and some people are getting rich and hanging onto their farms, but do you take your daughters to the whore house when times are tough?â So, the question is the science. Iâm waiting to see what the science says because the jury is still out. But, if you talk to some of the families who have been affected, and the politicians and land men, there are people who claim that itâs absolutely ruined their lives and then there are people who say that theyâre millionaires and are really happy. Wasnât this movie originally about a different issue, before you settled on the subject of fracking?DAMON: Yeah, at the outset. Very early on, when we were talking about it, we had heard about a subsidy play that was going on around wind turbines and that there were these fly-by-night companies that were erecting wind turbines because, by the letter of the law, they didnât have to work. Each one would net a profit of a quarter of a million bucks, and it was just a straight state and federal subsidy play. We heard about that and thought it was a really interesting place to set this idea of a guy going to a town and the town being savvy enough. Weâd heard that these farmers knew that this was all a hoax, but they were essentially agreeing to erect towers of junk on their lawns and in their fields, in order to hang onto their farms. The Faustian bargain was that they basically had an eyesore on their farms. The problem was that, when we got up there, we found out that wasnât true, at all. These wind farms were working really, really well. We met a bunch of the guys who were employed and working on the things, and it had saved the town. It was lucky for us, it turned out, because it led us to natural gas. We had set out to make this movie about this moment in America, and it was a human story, which is what we were interested in. We didnât want to do an issue movie. With natural gas, the stakes are so unbelievably high and it was so much better for the story that we wanted to tell. What can you say about your experience on the Liberace movie, Behind the Candelabra?DAMON: Itâs coming out in May on HBO. Iâm really excited! It was great. Iâm very, very proud of it. How was it to kiss Michael Douglas?DAMON: You know, thereâs only a few of us who know. Catherine [Zeta-Jones] and I donât kiss and tell. Any chance of you returning to Jason Bourne?DAMON: If someone wrote a good script, I would consider revisiting it. Iâm just tied to Paul Greengrass, so if they could ever figure out a story, Iâd consider it. Thatâs why we didnât do it the last time. They hadnât cracked one for my character, so they did one with Jeremy [Renner]. Promised Land is now playing in limited release and expanding this weekend. For more on the film, here are our video interviews with Matt Damon, John Krasinski and Rosemarie DeWitt