Matt Damon: Failing is a good thing
Matt Damon doesn’t worry about failing.
The ‘Martian’ star has urged students graduating from the Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts to not worry about being knocked down a peg or two once in a while as it shapes who you are.
Giving the commencement address at the ceremony, he said: "You’re going to fail sometimes, and that’s a good thing.
"For all the amazing successes I’ve been lucky to share in, few things have shaped me more than the auditions that Ben [Affleck] and I used to do as young actors – where we would get on a bus, show up in New York, wait for our turn, cry our hearts out for a scene, and then be told, ‘OK, thanks.’ Meaning: game over. We used to call it ‘being OK thanksed’. Those experiences became our armour."
And the 45-year-old actor also admitted he has had his own "share of bad ideas" over the years.
He added: "You know the real danger for MIT graduates? It’s not getting ‘OK thanksed.’ The real danger is all that smoke that’s been blown up your … graduation gowns about how freaking smart you are. Well, you are that freaking smart! But don’t believe the hype that’s thrown at you. You don’t have all the answers. And you shouldn’t. And that’s fine.
"You’re going to have your share of bad ideas. For me, one was playing a character named ‘Edgar Pudwhacker’.
I wish I could tell you I’m making that up. But as the great philosopher, Benjamin Affleck, once said, ‘Judge me by how good my good ideas are, not by how bad my bad ideas are.’ You’ve got to suit up in your armour and get ready to sound like a total fool."
