Matt Damon has revealed his daughter contracted coronavirus in the early weeks of the pandemic. Speaking in an interview with Dublin based radio show Graham & Nathan, Damon disclosed that Alexia had caught the disease along with her roommates, but reassured listeners that she had since recovered.
She had COVID really early on, along with her roommates. We’re going to go back to Los Angeles and she’s [Alexia] going to come out, so we’ll all be together and figure out what the heck we’re going to do. It’s such an odd limbo that we’re all in.
Everybody’s OK, but obviously for Luci’s mom and my mom, you know, it’s scary for that generation, so everyone’s kind of — I think we’ve all got the message now. Everybody’s doing the isolation and social distancing and hand-washing and kind of everything we can to mitigate this. But it’s frightening, certainly for our parents.
As Damon alludes to, the virus appears to have very little threat to the young, or to anyone under the age of 65 without an underlying health condition, whilst representing a serious problem for the elderly. That said, it will no doubt have been disconcerting to deal with – particularly as they were so isolated from each other when it happened. Alexia is currently in New York studying, while Damon has been residing in Ireland, filming Ridley Scott’s upcoming historical drama The Last Duel (hence the Irish talk show).
With production on the movie postponed indefinitely and Ireland – along with most of Europe – issuing stay-at-home orders, Damon has found himself having to stay put. He suggests in the interview that he’ll be making his way back to LA in the near future. Nothing to gainsay on that, as it can’t have been ideal staying in Ireland when the film you were working on is on hold.
It’s become a tired cliché, but coronavirus doesn’t discriminate when it comes to infection. Tom Hanks, Idris Elba, Riz Ahmed, these are just some of the actors to speak up about the impact it’s had on their lives. Hanks similarly had to contend with a sojourn abroad, falling ill while filming Elvis in Australia. Safe to say, it’s not been an easy time for anyone. Still, this isn’t a downbeat peroration (a contradiction in terms if there ever was). Matt Damon’s daughter is OK and hopefully the actor will be back filming The Last Duel soon (I was really looking forward to it). Health does come first, though.
