Matt Damon on "Contagion" :: 'Read this, then wash your hands'

Steven Soderbergh's ensemble movies attract starry casts, any of whom could helm their own movie. His latest - the epidemic outbreak thriller "Contagion," has such a cast: Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard and Gwyneth Paltrow who each play major characters in the sweeping story.

But at the emotional core of the film is Matt Damon, who stars as a suburban dad (named Mitch Emhoff) whose wife (Paltrow) and son die in the first ten minutes of the film from a frightening and undiagnosed viral agent.

"Working with Steven is very different from working with anybody else," Damon said.

"To give you an example of a day, we'd go and shoot, we'd talk about what we were going to do, we'd figure it out, we'd kind-of execute the plan and then we'd go back to the hotel and go to the bar. In the back room of the bar, they deliver the footage."

Working with Soderbergh

In the room would be Soderbergh, screenwriter Scott Z. Burns, producers Greg Jacobs, Stacy Sher and Michael Shamberg, an AD and Damon.

"We'd just sit there and talk while Steven would put on headphones and open up his laptop and sit in the corner for 45 minutes or an hour. At the end, he'd take his headphones off, turn the computer around and show us what we shot that day. Cut.

"So when you're working that way, it's kind of like making a movie in your backyard with your friends. The body is kind of out on the operating table and kind of wide open. You just talk about 'all right, what else do we need?' It's very different from going off on my own and doing three months of research and showing up. It feels more like the hocus pocus is taken out of the experience."

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Watch the trailer to "Contagion":

Really horrifying

It is Damon's fifth film with Soderbegh after three "Oceans" films and "The Informant!" "Actually, we were getting ready to do something else, another project that we're still going to do and Steven called and said, 'I've got this other thing. We've really got to make it now because it's really timely.'" Damon said. "So he sent it over to me with a note that said, 'Read this and then wash your hands.'

"I read it and I had the same reaction that Jennifer and Laurence did. I just feel like I really want to be in this movie. It's a terrific, riveting, really fast read and really exciting and really horrifying, but managed to be kind-of touching too. I thought a lot was easy to relate to. It was just on the page."

One powerful scene early in the film has Damon learning that his wife has died. His character is in denial and the doctor has to keep repeating the grim reality to him.

"One of my favorite scenes that we did was the scene where I find out my wife is dead very early on in the movie. I went to Steven and I said, 'Look, I don't know what to do. How do you do this scene? It's five minutes into the movie. We're not invested in me or her. You can't have this big scene. Do I do...?' And Steven goes... 'Shit, I don't know, what do we do. We've got to find some shorthand. You can't dwell on this thing. We're five minutes into the movie.'"

For a solution they went to a doctor who must do this every day and discovered a very real phenomenon that transpires in hospitals. "We asked for certain trends, like what happens? He said, 'Yeah, sometimes people fall apart; but there is this other reaction that we get just as much. It depends on what kind of death it is. Is it the kind of death where you're not expecting someone to be dead?' We said, 'Right, exactly.' He goes, 'Oh, well, what you get a lot is it's just too much.'"

From this research, screenwriter Burns was able to rewrite the scene to reflect the mix of confusion and anger that Mitch expresses at this traumatic moment. But for Damon, there was a moment of panic just as he was to shoot the scene.

"I get up in the morning and I'm freaking out about how the hell I'm going to do this scene," Damon recalled. "Then I end up going to work and getting a scene that's really interesting. I've never seen it (the conversation with the doctor) done this way. The doctors who really do this said, 'Yeah, that's actually how it goes down a lot of the time.'"

A helicopter parent

"Contagion" follows every aspect of an outbreak, from the medical and government management to the CDC science and conspiratorial media coverage. Though the story is very serious, Damon maintained a sense of humor during the shoot.

"I also was very aware that in the second act, that would be about where the zombies would come," Damon joked.

Damon had some laughs at the CDC subplots too. Laurence Fishburne has to handle some words even bigger than he did on "CSI." Fishburne got them right, but it amused Damon. "Well, would you believe it if he was like, 'Pass me the thingie.' 'I'll take that doohickey.' 'We've got an outbreak of [mumbles].' I don't know, Fishburne kind of lost me with that one."

Once towns are quarantined and supplies are scarce, people have to hole up and protect their own family. Mitch, who turns out to be immune from the virus, tries to escape their Minneapolis home with his teenager daughter, but must return home for the long ordeal as the CDC slowly rolls out a vaccine. In these sequences Damon plays the over-protective dad to the hilt, not allowing his daughter to see her boyfriend. In real life, that's sort of a Damon family joke too.

"I think with kids, I'm probably more protective than I've ever been now that I have children. My wife's nickname for me is Red Alert. Sometimes I just check to see if the kids are breathing. But no, I think I have a tendency to be a little overprotective without trying to be a helicopter parent."

If the events of "Contagion" were to become reality, the real Damon household is sorely lacking in supplies. At least the looters will know not to bother searching his house. "After the Northridge quake, I put the flashlight by my bed for like two weeks. Then I forgot about it."

This is a stark contrast to Damon's most famous character. Jason Bourne is always prepared, and can use any mundane object as a weapon. Damon has no preference between action and drama. "If the director's good and the script is good, it all comes pretty naturally. If those things aren't in place then it's impossible no matter what the role it."

Damon is looking more like the tough guy for his next movie, "Elysium" (from Neil Blomkamp who directed "District 9"). He has his head shaved down to the raw stubble. It's not his first time either.

"I did shave my head once. When I did 'The Brothers Grimm' I had a wig just because it was easier to get the wig on. Rather than lacquering my hair down I just shaved my head so I walked around in my regular life like this. And I love it. It's great in the summer time, real easy getting out of the shower."

"Contagion" opens Friday.

Watch this interview with Matt Damon on "Contagion":