Matt Damon: Not all men in Hollywood are predators

Despite backlash surrounding his comments on sexual misconduct in Hollywood, Matt Damon continues to speak out on the nature of harassment in the business.

“We’re in this watershed moment, and it’s great, but I think one thing that’s not being talked about is there are a whole s—tload of guys — the preponderance of men I’ve worked with — who don’t do this kind of thing and whose lives aren’t going to be affected,” Damon, 47, told Business Insider on Monday.

“If I have to sign a sexual harassment thing, I don’t care, I’ll sign it,” the Oscar winner, who previously said he’d lawyer up if he were ever accused of sexual misconduct, added. “I would have signed it before. I don’t do that, and most of the people I know don’t do that.”

The “Downsizing” star previously told ABC’s “Popcorn with Peter Travers” that he believes there is a “spectrum” of misconduct and that the respective allegations against Al Franken, Louis C.K., and Harvey Weinstein shouldn’t necessarily be treated equally.

“I do believe that there is a spectrum of behavior … there’s a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation,” Damon said. “Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated, without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated.

“When you see Al Franken taking a picture putting his hands on that woman’s flak jacket and mugging for the camera … that is just like a terrible joke, and it’s not funny. It’s wrong, and he shouldn’t have done that,” Damon noted. “But when you talk about Harvey and what he’s accused of, there are no pictures of that. He knew he was up to no good. There’s no witnesses, there’s no pictures, there’s no braggadocio — that stuff happened secretly, because it was criminal and he knew it. So they don’t belong in the same category.”

As for whether he’d work with someone accused of sexual misconduct, Damon still declined to paint alleged predators with a broad brush.

“That always went into my thinking — I mean, I wouldn’t want to work with somebody who [was guilty of misconduct] — life’s too short for that. But the question of if somebody had allegations against them, you know, it would be a case-by-case basis,” he said. “You go, ‘What’s the story here?'”