Matt Damon: Why I Skipped Obama's Inauguration

"[My wife] Luciana and I decided we wanted to go," he tells the Miami Herald. "But when I called my contacts from the campaign, they just started laughing: 'We worked on the campaign for 2 1/2 years, and we're not going. Forget it.'

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"But then they called me back the next day and said, 'Hey, we've got two tickets for you, in the bleachers, and you'll actually be able to see Obama take the oath. Just $25,000 apiece.'"

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It was then that Damon (who lives with his wife and three daughters in Miami Beach) knew, "I'm going to watch. From my couch."

Damon -- whose latest Untitled Jason Bourne Project is now in production for a 2010 release -- also spoke out about how his famous assassin character is nothing like James Bond.

"They could never make a James Bond movie like any of the Bourne films," Damon said. "Because Bond is an imperialist, misogynist sociopath who goes around bedding women and swilling martinis and killing people. He's repulsive.

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"Steve [Soderbergh, who produced Damon's 2005 spy movie, Syriana] told me that years ago he was offered a Bond movie," the actor went on. "He told them he'd do it if they gave him creative control.

"'Absolutely not,' they said. They have a formula, they stick to it, and it makes them a lot of money. They know what they're doing, and they're going to keep doing it."

When he does a Bourne film, Damon later added, he never feels like he's "slumming."

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