Matt Damon is notoriously private, so an interview with Playboy (of all publications) comes as something of a surprise and pleasure. The extensive conversation covers all the facets of his career and many of his life. He's also renowned for being a 'nice guy', and this interview just reinforces that. Matt Damon is a nice guy.

Asked whether being a husband and father has made him vulnerable, he admitted  "Lucy and the girls can definitely bring me to my knees. They just know." Adding that it's because they're girls, "With boys, I could relate more and it would probably be easier. Growing up, girls are so mysterious to us. Even as a grown man, they remain mysterious."

His feelings of vulnerability aren't limited to his family, his fear of snakes reared it's ugly head when he was shooting with Scarlett Johansson for 'We Bought a Zoo', and also when he and wife, Lucy, headed to the 60th floor of a stunning hotel in Dubai, for him to be crippled by fear before being able to properly take in the view. All of this adds to his self confessed "vanilla" image. During a Larry King interview in 2006, Angelina Jolie was described as sexy and dangerous, Robert De Niro was 'intense' and Matt? He was 'nice'. "That's been great for me" he said, "because... [I can] have an actual private life and be a husband and dad." 

Damon's filmography is not only extensive but very impressive. Next year will see him star in sci-fi movie Elysium, but before then an HBO movie will be released in which he costars with Michael Douglas, as the young lover of Liberace. " I just did a lot of [nude scenes] playing the long-term partner of Liberace, Scott Thorson, in Behind the Candelabra" he said. "The script is beautiful and relatable. Their conversations when they're dressing or undressing or having a spat or getting ready for bed? That's every marriage. It feels like you're witnessing something really intimate you would normally see with a man and a woman, but instead it's two men, which was thrilling."

He admitted that kissing Michael Douglas was a bit of a challenge, but added "We both have a lot of gay friends, and we were not going to screw this up or bullshit it... I never denied [rumors of being gay] because I was offended and didn't want to offend my friends who were gay-as if being gay were some kind of fucking disease... If Liberace were alive today, everybody would love his music and nobody would care what he did in his private life."