Matt Damon has surprised listeners on a Dublin radio show after agreeing to do an online interview from lockdown. You can listen to the interview below.

For weeks, the presenter of the Dublin breakfast programme, Nathan O’Reilly, had sent interview requests to Damon’s agent after learning that the Hollywood actor was staying in the city.

Damon had flown into Dublin with his family to film The Last Duel – a film by Ridley Scott. However, almost immediately after arriving, production on the film was shut down and travel restrictions imposed following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Damon has remained in Dublin since.

O’Reilly together with his co-host Graham O’Toole were left stunned when Damon agreed to be on the show. Speaking to BBC’s Good Morning Ulster, O’Reilly said: “I knew Matt Damon was in Dalkey, but I never expected we would get him on the show.”

The two initially thought it was a prank but when Damon called in, they realised it was indeed true. On seeing Damon, O’Reilly said: “I feel like I’m about to throw up.”

He later told Good Morning Ulster, “I was just flinging words at Matt” when he described how nervous he was interviewing him.

When he spoke to the presenters, Damon revealed that he’d heard the appeal when listening to the station and decided to call in.

Damon said: “I was in the car with my kids and I heard you talking about all this stuff, and you guys gave the number to call in.

“And I was trying to memorise the number, and then I walked into the house and my wife started talking about something and I totally forgot your number.” Since then, every time the Bourne Identity star had been listening to the station in the car he had listened out for the number.

Damon also revealed that U2 frontman Bono, who lives nearby, also told him about the appeal. “He said to me last week: ‘You know there’s a radio station that’s looking for you’,” Damon laughed.

Speaking about his lockdown experience in Ireland, Damon said: “Yes, you have to stay within two kilometres of your house, but in two kilometres of here, there’s trees and woods, there’s ocean…I can’t think of any place you’d rather be in a two kilometres radius. I thought it was incredible two months ago, but now it’s blooming…it’s ridiculous.”

“I have at least a few months more here,” he continued. “Who knows what the world is going to look like [then].”

Recently, Damon appeared in a health information video about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic with his fellow Contagion co-stars Kate Winslet, Marion Cottilard, Jennifer Ehle and Laurence Fishburne.

The 2011 film, which sees a new virus rapidly spread around the world, has become one of the most streamed films during lockdown as its plot is seen to echo the current coronavirus situation.

The videos, made in conjunction with scientists from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, were filmed in the actors’ homes and directed by Steven Soderbergh and produced by screenwriter Scott Z Burns.