Matt Damon Put Teen Costar Colin Ford At Ease Right Away

Colin Ford, 14, reports that Matt Damon put him at ease right away after the juvenile actor was cast as Damon’s son in Cameron Crowe’s forthcoming “We Bought a Zoo.”


“He was really down to earth, one of the nicest, greatest actors I’ve ever met.  We got to do some general scenes together and got to know each other, before we did any scenes where we were arguing or really close or anything like that,” notes Ford, who also worked with Elle Fanning and Thomas Hayden Church in “We Bought a Zoo.”  The story of a father who moves his young family to the countryside to renovate and re-open a struggling zoo also stars Scarlett Johansson.

Ford’s voice is already quite recognizable to the Disney Channel’s preschool set.  He plays the title character in the daily animated adventure show, “Jake and the Never Land Pirates” — which is the highest-rated preschool show on the channel, ever.

However, the affable teen actor says, “I go to a normal school, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.  Sometimes I’ll get out of school 20, 30 minutes early to record.  There are friends of mine who don’t really even know I do the show.”  He has been caught, “when a little brother or sister kind of recognize my voice — ‘Hey, are you kind of like the main guy?’ They laugh.  I didn’t really keep it quiet, but some people know and some don’t.”