For once, Jimmy Kimmel found the time to talk to Matt Damon.
The Martian actor finally got to appear as a guest after more than 10 years of being bumped from Jimmy Kimmel Live!'s schedule. Damon first appeared on Monday's episode when he interrupted the late-night host's monologue. "I hesitate to mention this, but Matt Damon has a new movie opening on Friday. It's called The Martian. Matt plays an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars. Poor Mars! They have one person on the whole planet and it's Matt Damon. I don't know how the movie producers managed this, but NASA announced an enormous discovery today regarding Mars. They found water—liquid water—on Mars. We can't even find that in California," Kimmel said. "This is an amazing thing. Scientists have suspected that Mars had water for a long time. Let me show you a photograph that they took from the rover, I think. You can see right here. I mean, it was right there the whole time. It was a whole bottle of Arrowhead. They don't know if the water is drinkable or not. It should be. It could be very salty." As he pointed to the screen, the actor appeared and held a sign that read: "Next on Kimmel – Matt Damon."
When Damon reappeared, he was dressed as the night's other guest, Dr. Phil. He did his best impression of the daytime talk show host, too, saying, "I'll tell you what, Jimmy. A squirrel in a top hat is like a donkey in a dress. You can take it to the prom, but if you try to make it wear lipstick, you gonna get kicked. Go on, take a seat. If it walks like a turkey and talks like a turkey, you can put sunglasses on it. Put it right on a horned frog and call it a unicorn, but that don't mean you're gonna get bingo. Am I right?" Kimmel wasn't pleased. "Seriously, what are you doing here?" he asked.
Damon explained that Kimmel had agreed to let him appear on the show earlier that day, "when we were in therapy." That wasn't how Kimmel remembered it, though, and thankfully, he had taped their couples counseling session to prove his point. Before releasing the footage, the comedian told the studio audience, "I do want to show this because I just want to give you an idea what kind of guy this is."
In the sketch, Kimmel told psychologist Dr. Kim Canter Burger he was "anxious" but "hopeful" about possibly making amends with the Oscar winner. Damon said he has a room that he waits in "every night" in the hopes of finally appearing on the show—and he's been waiting there for over a decade. "I try to get him on the show. I mean, we have a one-hour show every night, OK?" Kimmel said. "We have other guests, which he doesn't care about, obviously. I have a monologue to do. We have a band. Sometimes we have important commercials to run. Listen, I understand his point of view, but he has to understand my point of view...He thinks the world revolves around him. He thinks he's the only celebrity in California."
"Now things are getting totally turned around," a dramatic Damon explained to the psychologist. "This is what he does, and this is what he does so well. He talks the talk. And now he makes me think I'm crazy!"
Asked how to put himself in Damon's shoes, Kimmel said, "I imagine it sucks to be him. Look at him! And he's trying to be a movie star. Just look at his face and his body. It's not a movie star face and a movie star body." Damon found his words hurtful, saying, "He is verbally abusive to me and couches it as truth."
Kimmel described Damon as "spoiled" and said, "He thinks it's his show."
"It was that one time," Damon said, referring to when he "kidnapped" Kimmel and co-opted the show in 2013. "I took that s--t over and f--king busted the ratings wide open...What did it feel like to be sitting there wishing you were on the Jimmy Kimmel show and not being able to? What did that feel like?"
In order to put their differences aside, the frenemies were asked to name something nice about each other. Kimmel would only say that he liked Damon's famous friends, including BFF Ben Affleck. Damon said he liked Kimmel's show. "I wouldn't have waited 12 years to get on if I didn't like the show," he said.
To end the session on a positive note, the psychologist recommended they give each other a hug. Damon and Kimmel's truce didn't last long, though! To find out what happened, watch the video now.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35.