Shadowing Practice: Matt Damon & Tom Holland Debate the Best & Worst Things Ever | GOAT Talk - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Goat superhero.
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Oof.
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Why are you taking so long to answer this, Matt?
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I'd have to say Spider-Man.
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Excellent actor in that role.
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And then you took it.
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Hi everyone, I'm Matt Damon.
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And I'm Tom Holland.
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And we are here for Goat Talk with Conlex.
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All right.
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Right, take it away.
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I wonder if you'll still be one of my favorite people after this session.
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I'm worried, dude.
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I'm worried.
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Goat, Sir Christopher Nolan movie.
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Oh, it's The Odyssey.
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Oh, wow.
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Are we allowed to say that?
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Well, I feel like I'm like a supporting character, so I think I could say that.
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But I think everybody watching hasn't seen it yet.
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Okay.
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Very true, very true.
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So let's go through the filmography.
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It's a very tough question.
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I thought Oppenheimer was remarkable.
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I found Oppenheimer so fascinating.
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I found all the performances so amazing.
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And I thought I was going to go into that movie and be intimidated by the science.
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And he did such a good job of bringing you with Killian's character.
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And I just thought it was amazing.
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I saw it in IMAX and I loved every minute of it.
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That's a good one.
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I'm in it, so that's weird.
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In Interstellar, I'm in it.
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You're in that one too.
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And I love the prestige.
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I love Inception.
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I also love Inception.
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I love Inception.
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Yeah.
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I remember seeing that movie for the first time, like really vividly.
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Well, and then there's the Dark Knight.
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I mean, I would have to say that one just for my old pal.
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I like that.
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I will not argue with you on that one.
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Alright, this is going to be the least debated.
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Yeah, I know.
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Goat talk we've ever had.
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Go ahead.
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Goat movie you wish you were in.
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I mean, I love The Matrix.
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The Matrix just blew me away when I saw it, but I couldn't, it's kian- Yeah.
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You know what I mean?
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And it's just so iconic, which is one of the reasons the movie works, is it carries you through it, and so that's a really tough question.
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I love Inception, you know, is another one.
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Yeah, Inception's good.
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Everyone's so good in the movie.
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I've actually never seen The Matrix.
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Are you kidding me?
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Yeah.
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I don't know why I've never seen it.
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Are you fucking kidding me?
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I know that I would love it, I just have never- Are you kidding me?
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It's never been a movie I've put on.
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I'm so jealous you get to see that for the first time.
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Yeah, I've never seen it.
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I wonder if it'll feel as groundbreaking to you because so much was subsequently based on it.
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Right, right, right.
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That it might feel like, but it's extraordinary.
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It's a great movie.
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My movie that we have spoken about before is Primal Fear.
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I have always really been blown away by Edward Norton's performance in that film.
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I'd love to have had the opportunity to play that role.
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Yeah, it was a great, great, great role.
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I couldn't believe that it made its way down to the masses.
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It was actually a real impetus behind us writing Good Will Hunting
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because when Ben and I went out for that role and Edward beat out everybody and as he should have, he was phenomenal in the movie.
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Ben and I looked at each other and we were like, there's never gonna be a role that good
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that comes down into the category of unknown actor and we all can take a shot at it, but it's 10,000 people going for this one thing.
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So we really buckled down and wrote Good Will Hunting a little more desperately.
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That's pretty cool that you just feel like we'll go and do it ourselves.
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I mean out of necessity.
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They're just, it's very, very hard as you know to break in.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
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That the hardest jobs to get are the first ones you get.
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Yeah, tough racket.
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Oh God, this is embarrassing.
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Goat Matt Damon movie.
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The Odyssey.
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Nice.
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For me, in terms of my experience of watching it would be The Bourne Identity.
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I fucking love that movie.
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I absolutely love that movie.
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Goat Superhero.
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Why are you taking so long to answer this, Matt?
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Well, I mean...
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Are you thinking of Ben in that superman costume?
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Is that what you're thinking of?
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Yeah, he played George Reeves in a film called Hollywoodland.
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So the George Reeves was the man who played Superman first on TV in the old black and white Superman.
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It was a terrific performance.
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I'd have to say Spider-Man.
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I really would.
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That was the one as a kid that I used to dress up as Spider-Man all the time.
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You know, I just missed it.
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I was just, I think I was too old when the first one came around, when Toby did it.
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I'm a little older than Toby, and then I just, so there's been a parade of excellent actors in that role.
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And then you took it.
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And he went to shit.
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Again, I would have to agree.
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Amari's gonna be really mad at us because we are not arguing.
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We are not arguing at all.
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Instead of Spider-Man, what else would he do?
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For me, it would have to be Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man.
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I was just gonna say that.
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I think...
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Because he's funny and he looks like a guy you could hang out with.
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Yeah.
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And it's Downey.
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And there are only three people, I think, that have ever really done this.
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And it's you, Downey, and Hugh Jackman.
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No one wants to play Jason Bourne, no one wants to play Iron Man, and no one wants to play Wolverine.
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You know, I'm the third person to play Spider-Man, you know, there's been lots of Batmans, there's been lots of Supermans, all this sort of stuff.
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But there are only a few characters in our industry where it feels like, just leave them be.
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Oh wow, that's awesome, thank you very much.
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This is the only, this is like, this is more like a team catch show.
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The absolute opposite of what...
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Goat celeb to get lost at sea with.
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Ooh, I'm gonna say Chris Hemsworth.
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Ah, well, because you were lost at sea with him.
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I actually wasn't thinking that angle.
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I was more just thinking I'd feel pretty safe at sea with Chris Hemsworth.
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You don't know him well enough.
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I probably don't.
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I'd take his brother Luke over in a second.
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Oh, really?
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Oh, yeah.
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But I'd have to say Ben Affleck because, you know, he's my oldest friend.
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So if I was gonna be lost at sea, he'd be a good guy to bullshit with.
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I can't really argue with that.
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All right.
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Goat Zendaya role.
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I know what it is for me.
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Well, if my kids, if I don't say Euphoria, my kids are going to go crazy.
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But she's so wonderful in everything she does.
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I love her in Dune, I loved her in the drama.
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The drama is my favorite.
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I texted you after that and I just said, please tell her, like, that was just, she's so great.
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Both of them were just so great. So good.
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She just, she gets better and better and better, but that's a tough one.
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Yeah, for me it's the drama.
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I thought she was sensational in that film. So good.
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Easy.
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Goat action movie.
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Back to the Future.
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Ah.
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Is that an action movie?
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That's more, I think of that more as a comedy.
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Midnight Run.
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I also think of it as a comedy, but that is one of my favorite all time movies.
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It has high octane moments.
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It does, absolutely.
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I can agree with you on that, but I do encourage you once again to see The Matrix.
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Okay, The Matrix, The Matrix.
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Goat movie stunt of yours.
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I jumped off a bridge once in Berlin.
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You know, it was a night shoot, and it was in the Bourne movie where I jump off the bridge onto a boat in the second one.
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And there's no rehearsing it.
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You know, you have the harness, you trust the guys, and it's just like so...
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And they're like, yeah, grab the rail right there and just send it.
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There's no better feeling than pulling off a stunt, landing it, and just knowing that you don't have to do it again.
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It's such a good feeling.
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That turn to the camera, like, you got it, right?
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Did you get that?
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Yeah.
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I think my favorite stunt I've ever done is something that I was always advised not to do.
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It never made the cut of the film It was with a good friend of yours Doug Liman.
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Oh, yeah It's called a dead man, and I knew where the full harness Did you really do that
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that I think always that's one of the hardest stunts to
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do I always wanted to do it It was the sequence where I'm supposed to be charging at this alien
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And it was supposed to like kick me in the throat
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and throw me on the ground and they were gonna do it with CG
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But I wanted to really try and create this like strong snapback
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So essentially you wear the harness you tie yourself off to a fixed point
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And then you just run away from the point and
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when the line goes taut you just whack and The cameraman missed it
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because it happened
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so quickly I didn't anticipating it hurting as much as it did like it winded me beyond belief
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But I like it was something about it I love the commitment
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when you have to run through the point that you know You know, Gago, my stunt guy, he's done a bunch of movies with me.
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He was on this doing a bunch of the Troy warriors.
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He was one of the stuntmen George hired.
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And Gago had to do a couple dead man's in the Battle of Troy that were just...
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And I talked to him about it and he was just like, Yep, it's one of the hardest things we do.
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Yep.
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Goat actor.
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I'm going to take back to way before your time.
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Pacino.
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It's Marlon Brando.
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Oh, yeah.
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Pacino is Pacino and De Niro is De Niro and you know
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because Brando made that paved the way for that next generation
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which you know it's it's all of those incredible actors Duvall and Hackman and Merrill and all of those extraordinary
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icons but he he made that leap and
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if you can ever go back
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and look at some of his movies like Mutiny on the Bounty
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or like everyone else is doing something And then this guy comes on screen
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and is totally real and believable and you're like, what the fuck is that?
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Okay, I'm a little embarrassed to say similar to the matrix.
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I have not seen enough of his work So it sounds like I got some homework to do.
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That's a that'll be fun fun homework.
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Oh, I almost got it I'm trying to find the the back and forth, but we just keep agreeing.
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It's probably why we get along go relationship advice Oh, it's tough to give relationship advice because everyone's relationship is different.
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Mm-hmm.
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And you don't want to sound like a jackass.
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You also don't want to take your own relationship for granted.
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Yup.
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And kind of handing down advice from on high.
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I think you're asking for trouble down the road.
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Here's one that a friend of mine gave me that I've always thought was great.
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Under promise, over deliver.
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Nice.
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The other one, a guy said to me once, hey, on the way out the door, I said, give me something.
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You know, I was married for 10 years at that point.
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And he thought about it really seriously and he said,
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you know, I decided a long time ago I'd rather be happy than write That's really really really clever.
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Like that's a good point, you know, you know when you win an argument Yeah, you're not really that happy about it.
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You're not happy and yeah.
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For me, it's just to communicate Communication is key and if you can communicate you can get through anything.
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That's my big one.
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That's true Yeah, how quickly you can communicate is how quickly you can repair.
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Exactly And every problem I've ever run into is yeah that
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that exact thing that's a great very You said something today actually
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that I found really pretty cool You said something about like you can't control the way things happen, but you can control how you feel about it Yeah, that's a good life lesson.
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I like that a lot.
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That's an old stoic one.
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Yeah, I like that Goat football club
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See I'll say the New England Patriots
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But if we're talking soccer to me it would have to be Barcelona I think there's a mystique to Barcelona
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that no other football club has.
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And people actually think that I have an incredible knowledge about football.
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I really don't.
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But to me, it would have to be Barcelona.
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I have to agree with you.
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Particularly that run they went on and how they had developed all of their players, and they had all been playing together since childhood basically.
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Yeah.
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And they had advanced to every kind of level until they were, you know, they were just unstoppable.
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There's something about them.
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Yeah, there's a nostalgia to them that will never go away.
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Goat rule you would make as king.
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I would make people practice kindness.
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Similar to Zeus's law, right?
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Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
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Again, I don't know how I could disagree with that, but I would say that three-day weekends for the rest of time.
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Oh, that's excellent, that's excellent.
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That's what I would say.
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All right.
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We are not gonna disagree.
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Oh, worst, oh it's- Oh!
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Worst place to get stranded.
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Where you shot Hades would probably be, the underworld would be a pretty ropey place to get stranded?
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If it were actually the underworld, but it was actually Iceland, which wouldn't be a bad place to get stranded.
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I once shot in the world's second largest dump.
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Oh, wow. In Mexico.
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And that was, we had to, you literally had to throw your shoes out when you left.
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No way.
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Because it was so kind of toxic.
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What were you doing there?
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A movie called Elysium.
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Oh, right, of course, yeah.
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And we shot for a couple of weeks there, and it was just the smell was just so overwhelming.
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That's the worst place I've ever encountered.
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I mean, a dump, I think, in any place.
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Yeah, it's- It didn't have to be Mexico, it just happened to be for that.
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Oof.
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Worst British food.
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We're not known for having the best food, England.
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What they eat in sort of the East End, they eat the jellied eel.
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Oh, for fuck's sake.
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Yeah, horrendous, disgusting.
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Terrible.
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Horrendous.
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Okay, worst American food.
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Um, worst American food?
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I like American food though.
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I like like brisket and barbecue and- Oh, that's all great.
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All that kind of stuff.
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That's all great.
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Do you know what I don't love?
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Corn dogs.
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Because what the fuck is that?
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I can't say that I disagree with you.
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What is it?
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I never got the- even as a kid.
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Like at the beach, they would sell corn dogs and I didn't get it.
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I love a hot dog.
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Love a hot dog?
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Love a hot dog.
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I remember watching Drake and Josh as a kid.
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There's a Nickelodeon show and they're always nailing corndogs.
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And I just was like, what on earth are they eating?
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Corndog's a horrible idea.
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Yeah, and I've never had one.
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Like from the idea of it to the execution.
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The presentation of it?
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The presentation.
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It's on a stick.
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It's on a stick and it's not sweet or icy or it's disgusting.
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Sorry.
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All right.
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Last one.
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What career move you almost made?
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I almost took a movie early on in my career.
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I think it would have precluded me from doing, like, The Rainmaker.
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Oh, wow.
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Which then got you into...
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Good Will Hunting got greenlit, which was the reason I got Saving Private Ryan.
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Whoa, whoa, whoa.
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That would have been like a canon event.
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Yeah.
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Whoa.
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Isn't that crazy that, like, that decision you made that day changed your life?
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Yeah, it's really, like, I don't even want to think about it.
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The moments where I found myself not happy at work, I feel like I learned a lot from those experiences, so I don't know if I would necessarily say that they are like the worst career moves.
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Yeah, you don't learn from your successes.
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Exactly.
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And I'm not trying.
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They've all brought you here.
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Yeah, exactly.
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And I'm not, I don't mean that in like a cocky way.
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No, no, I understand.
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I take your meaning.
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I hope everybody at home does too.
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They won't.
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They'll clip it on and they'll be like, it's gonna be a whole thing.
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Thank you guys.
337
That is not at all what you were looking for.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Matt Damon & Tom Holland Debate the Best & Worst Things Ever”. This video has 337 sentences and 2923 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:09. The speaker talks fast, about 193 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| matrix noun | /ˈmeɪ.tɹɪks/ | The cavity or mold in which anything is formed. |
| stunt noun | /stʌnt/ | A daring or dangerous feat, often involving the display of gymnastic skills. |
| whoa | /woʊ/ | Stop (especially when commanding a horse or imitative thereof); calm down; slow down. |
| harness verb | /ˈhɑɹ.nəs/ | To place a harness on something; to tie up or restrain. |
| strand noun | /ˈstɹænd/ | Each of the strings which, twisted together, make up a yarn, rope or cord. |
| superman noun | /ˈsupɚmæn/ | An imagined superior type of human being representing a new stage of human development; an übermensch; (loosely), a man of extraordinary powers. |
| disagree verb | /dɪsəˈɡɹi/ | To fail to agree; to have a different opinion or belief. |
| horrendous adjective | /həˈɹɛndəs/ | Extremely bad; awful; terrible. |
| underworld noun | /ˈʌndɚˌwɚld/ | The world of the dead, located underneath the world of the living; the afterlife. |
| superhero noun | /ˈs(j)upɚhɪɹoʊ/ | Any fictional crime-fighting character, often with supernatural powers or equipment, in popular children's and fantasy literature; a fictional hero who does… |
| dump verb | /dʌmp/ | To release, especially in large quantities and chaotic manner. |
| homework noun | /ˈhoʊmˌwɝk/ | Exercises assigned by a teacher to a student which review concepts studied in class. |
| corn noun | /ˈkɔːn/ | Any cereal plant (or its grain) that is the main crop or staple of a country or region. |
| believable adjective | /bɪˈliːvəbl̩/ | Capable of being believed; credible. |
| brisket noun | /ˈbɹɪskɪt/ | The chest of an animal. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| jump off verb | To move from an elevated place by one jump. | |
| beat out verb | To sound a rhythm on a percussion instrument such as a drum. | |
| blow away verb | To cause to go away by blowing, or by wind. | |
| come around verb | /kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/ | To change one's mind, especially to begin to agree or appreciate what one was reluctant to accept at first. |
| dress up verb | To put on special or fancy clothes. | |
| get along verb | To interact or coexist well, without argument or trouble. | |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Are we allowed to say that?
- You know what I mean?
- Is that what you're thinking of?
- What were you doing there?
- Do you know what I don't love?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | hasn't seen · we've ever had · I've actually never seen |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be intimidated · been blown · were lost |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | iconic, which is · man who played · greenlit, which was |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 89 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- Long words — get the stress right: superhero /ˈs(j)upɚhɪɹoʊ/, cameraman /ˈkæm(ə)ɹəˌmæn/, intimidate /ɪnˈtɪmɪdeɪt/, unstoppable /ʌnˈstɔ.pə.bəl/, sensational /sɛnˈseɪʃənəl/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like matrix, stunt, whoa.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.