Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has opened up about one of her favorite college memories—with actor Matt Damon.
Brown Jackson and Damon attended Harvard at the same time in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and it turns out they once had a drama class together.
Brown Jackson told CBS' Norah O'Donnell about a time when the two were paired together to do a scene from the play Waiting for Godot—and it didn't go how anyone would expect.
@cbsmornings Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reminisces about being paired with Matt Damon as scene partners in "Waiting for Godot" for a Harvard drama class: "And at the end, the professor said, 'Ketanji, you were very good. Matt, we'll talk.'" #ketanjibrownjackson #mattdamon #SupremeCourt #Harvard #Scenepartner #CBSSundayMorning #news
Brown Jackson said that the two never properly performed together, but were assigned a scene from the play together in class.
She told O'Donnell:
“He’s not going to remember this, of course. The reason why I remember it is because he was already kind of well-known around campus and off campus, so it was kind of exciting to be his scene partner for a particular class.”
Damon had already appeared on TV and in small roles in films like Mystic Pizza and School Ties during his time at Harvard, so of course the budding star and future Oscar winner stole the show while the future legal mind just muddled through, right?
Think again. Brown Jackson says she received high accolades from the professor for her work in the scene. Damon on the other hand? Not so much.
She said:
“At the end, the professor said, ‘Ketanji, you were very good. Matt, we’ll talk.'"
"I was like, ‘Oh my God, I was better than Matt Damon in a scene.’”
On social media, people loved the anecdote about Brown Jackson and Damon's time as classmates.
Brown Jackson majored in government at Harvard while also dabbling in theater and an improv troupe called On Thin Ice.
Damon, of course, famously dropped out of Harvard to pursue his Hollywood dreams. And while he said in 2022 that he doesn't remember acting with Brown Jackson, he thinks the story is "so cool!" Perhaps they can reprise their scene at the next Harvard reunion.
