HOLLYWOOD ACTOR MATT Damon has said the “one good thing” he hopes will be taken from Covid-19 pandemic is a greater appreciation of healthcare workers. 

The Oscar-winner has been staying in Dalkey in Co. Dublin for the duration of the pandemic after filming he was doing here stopped due to the lockdown. 

Damon’s presence in Dublin has been a bit of a curiosity during the Covid-19 outbreak and the New York Times reported that ‘A Seaside Irish Village Adopts Matt Damon’.

Damon was even pictured going to a local swimming spot with a Super Valu bag. 

Speaking this morning on Fully Charged with Graham and Nathan on Spin 1038, Damon said that he has been here since early March and that it’s “one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever been”. 

The actor says he feels very lucky because he is here with his whole family and they even have teachers for their children. 

“Obviously what’s going on in the world is horrible but for my family, I’ve got my kids and and we had teachers with us because we were planning on missing school for about eight weeks,” he told the programme. 

So we’ve got what nobody else has, which is actual live human beings teaching our kids. All their friends, the schools are all shut down back home and all the kids are doing remote learning. So we feel guilty we’ve got this kind of incredible setup in this place which is, I mean, it’s just absolutely gorgeous. Even in the lockdown, you’ve got to stay within two kilometres of your house, I mean two kilometres of here there’s trees and forests and woods and ocean and I mean it’s just I can’t think of any place you’d rather want to be in a two kilometre radius of. 

Damon told Graham and Nathan that he’d heard on the radio that they were looking to have him on the show and that he’d even tried to memorise the phone number to call .

He said was speaking to Bono who also told him the show was looking to get in touch. 

No one’s allowed to hang out, but I FaceTimed with him In fact, you guys would love this. He said to me last week, ‘you know there’s a local radio station looking for you’. That was like the final impetus for me. I finally just thought I really got to call into that show. It’s gone on too long. 

During the interview, Damon spoke to a French nurse living in Dublin called Annaice who also contacted the programme because she’s a fan of the actor. 

The nurse, who said that she ‘couldn’t breathe’ when Damon came on the line, said her work has slowed today “so finally we can rest a bit”. 

The actor thanked her for the work she’s been doing. 

“Thank you so much for what you’re doing Annaice, I can’t even tell you. This has been so horrible for everybody but if there’s any silver lining it’s that hopefully people are finally understanding how awesome you frontline workers are and what you guys do,” he said.

“And the debt we owe you guys, I feel like that is the one thing to come out of this like we will never ever ever look at you guys the same and that’s a good thing. It’s really nice to meet you.”