Matt Damon Gets Candid About Cancel Culture in Hollywood

In Hollywood, a single clip can define a career for years. Matt Damon is pushing back on the idea of permanent exile, arguing that public backlash often has no finish line and raising a tougher question: when is someone allowed to move on?

Matt Damon is no stranger to the way a single moment can spiral into something much bigger online — and now he’s offering a blunt perspective on why being “canceled” in Hollywood can feel like a punishment with no end date.

Damon and Ben Affleck have been making the rounds to promote Netflix’s “The Rip,” and one of their latest stops put Damon in a wide-ranging conversation about public backlash, accountability, and whether the entertainment industry has created a system where condemnation never really expires.

A Press Tour Stop Turns Into a Bigger Conversation

During an interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Damon and podcast host Joe Rogan drifted into a discussion about what “cancel culture” means in practice — and how it can follow a person indefinitely. Rogan described it as a situation where someone says or does one thing and gets cast out permanently.

Damon agreed with that framing and emphasized how lasting the fallout can be, responding to Rogan’s description with a concise assessment: “In perpetuity.”

From there, Damon expanded on what he sees as a key difference between formal punishment and internet outrage: the first can have a defined end point, while the second often does not. In Damon’s view, some people who have faced public condemnation might even prefer a fixed sentence over permanent social exile.

"Because I bet some of those people would have preferred to go to jail for 18 months or whatever, and then come out and say, ‘I paid my debt. Like, we’re done. Like, can we be done?’ The thing about that getting kind of excoriated, publicly like that, it just never ends. And it’s the first thing that… you know, it just will follow you to the grave," he explained further.

The point Damon appeared to be making wasn’t about excusing wrongdoing. Instead, he seemed focused on how the modern outrage cycle can become permanent, with no clear path toward closure — even after someone has apologized, changed, or attempted to move forward.

Damon’s Own History With Internet Backlash

Damon’s comments are shaped, in part, by experience. He has dealt with online outrage himself, including a highly publicized backlash in 2021 tied to an interview he gave to The Sunday Times.

That interview drew criticism after Damon said he had stopped using the F-slur only “months ago,” explaining that his daughter wrote him a “treatise” about “how that word is dangerous.”

The response online was swift, with many people interpreting the remarks as evidence that he had used the slur casually in recent times.

Soon after, Damon issued a statement to Variety addressing the controversy. He clarified that he never used that word in his “personal life” and said he does not “use slurs of any kind.” He also acknowledged why the situation escalated, affirming that he understood why the interview “led many to assume the worst.”

In the years since, Damon’s career has remained active. Apart from his latest Netflix movie "The Rip," he previously appeared in major films including “Air” and “Oppenheimer.” He is expected back in theaters in July 2026 in the lead role of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.”

Why “The Odyssey” Feels Like a Milestone

Even with multiple projects ahead, Damon has suggested that “The Odyssey” could represent something uniquely significant — not just as another high-profile role, but as a symbol of an era of filmmaking that may be fading.

According to Damon, Nolan’s “The Odyssey” might be the “last big movie on film” he ever gets to do. While Damon didn’t frame it as a dramatic goodbye to acting, the remark carries weight given the ongoing shift toward digital filmmaking and evolving studio priorities.

For longtime moviegoers, the idea of a “last big movie on film” taps into a broader cultural conversation — not only about what gets made, but how it’s made, how it looks, and what kind of experience audiences are losing as technology changes. Damon’s comment lands as both a personal observation and a subtle nod to a changing industry.