Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow star in "The Talented Mr. Ripley"

December 22, 1999
Web posted at: 3:53 p.m. EST (2053 GMT)

From Sherri Sylvester
CNN Entertainment News Correspondent

(CNN) -- Imagine dining with an Academy Award winner -- or two, or three. Stars of "The Talented Mr. Ripley" -- Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon -- joined director Anthony Minghella, who brought his Oscar-winning production team from "The English Patient" with him.

Add critical darlings Cate Blanchett, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Jude Law, all of whom are featured in "Ripley," and the weight of the cast and crew's collective talent is enough to collapse even a chi-chi restaurant's best table.

Just in case you're still catching up: Paltrow won an Oscar in 1999 for "Shakespeare in Love." Damon won in 1997, with Ben Affleck, for writing his "Good Will Hunting" screenplay. Blanchett, still looking for that elusive statuette, was nonetheless nominated for her queenly title-role work in 1998's "Elizabeth." And Minghella won in 1996 for directing "The English Patient."

"We would all go out and walk around and have great dinners," says Paltrow, no stranger to the rarefied air of celebrity. She's the daughter of director-father Bruce Paltrow and Tony Award-winning actress Blythe Danner. "I felt so incredibly fortunate to be working with such an incredible group of actors."

Jude Law

Even Minghella basked in the glow of the players available to him. "Everyday, as a director, I thought, 'Oh, Cate Blanchett is coming today, that's incredible, (and) Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I don't know how I got them all together. I'd love to say it was judgment, but it was entirely to do with luck."

The film, set at the time of "La Dolce Vita," casts Paltrow and Law as two young, rich Americans who, while traveling in 1950s Italy, find themselves studied and manipulated by an imposter (Damon).

Damon's character, Tom Ripley -- known for that haunting catch-line in the trailer, "I always thought it would be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody" -- immerses himself in jazz music as an inroad to the club scene, and the recognition and place in high society that he covets.

"It's no mistake that jazz is kind of a recurring theme in the movie," Damon says, "because I think that's what Ripley's doing -- he's riffing, depending on who his partner is."

Minghella agrees. "It's very much about making themselves up in the moment, and jazz is the great treasure trove of improvisation."

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Italians flocked to the film's sets -- in Naples, Positano, Rome, Palermo and Venice -- but not, necessarily, to see the "Ripley" headliners. Instead, Rosario Fiorello, Italian singer-turned-actor, drew crowds to the shoots.

"I've never seen somebody that famous, ever," says Damon. "More than Robin Williams walking down the street in Boston, this guy would walk down the street in Italy and grandmothers would be hanging out of their windows yelling, 'Fiorello, Fiorello.'"

Paltrow did dodge some paparazzi. Even while stateside, she was pretending to be a dominatrix for Talk magazine.

"My father wasn't appreciating it very much," she says. "But other than that, I'm an artist and I express myself in lots of ways."

Drawn to the Talk project by "the idea of sort of mimicking an old movie still and stuff like that," she says, "I didn't think it was that big a deal but apparently, I was in the minority."

Meanwhile, Damon says his life is a whirlwind, while he hops from one film to another. Since the success of "Good Will Hunting," he has starred in "Rounders" (1998), "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) and this year's "Dogma" with Affleck, in addition to his leading "Ripley" role.

Cate Blanchett

Ripley, both in Minghella's film adaptation and in Patricia Highsmith's 1950s novel on which the picture is based, is a gay character. The self-transformations he deploys are based perhaps as much on his sexuality as on his social ambitions.

Many observers are watching for reactions to the film, which carries public-relations risks for both its star and director in this regard. Damon says he's undisturbed by any controversy around his taking a gay role. And Minghella has said he hopes no critics will draw connections between Ripley's character's sexual orientation and his unsavory actions as he clamors upward.

Meanwhile, Damon says he's to make four films next year.

"I'm at a point," he says, "where it takes me 30 seconds to get out of a hotel room. I have the same clothes and the same two duffel bags I've had for four years."

Hopefully he has a tuxedo stashed in those trusty bags: His Golden Globe nomination, which was announced on Monday, is one of five for the film.