Matt Damon’s not afraid to get gross for a good cause! The Oscar winner, 43, accepted the viral ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from Jimmy Kimmel and longtime pal Ben Affleck on Monday, Aug. 25, but included his own twist in order to spread awareness of his organization Water.org.
“It posed kind of a problem for me, not only because there is a drought here in California, but because I co-founded Water.org, and we envision a day when everybody has access to a clean drink of water,” Damon said. “There are about 800 million people in the world who don’t, so dumping a clean bucket of water on my head seemed a little crazy.”
So instead, the Interstellar star proposed an alternative, collecting water from toilet bowls around his house for the challenge.
“For those of you, like my wife, who think this is really disgusting, keep in mind that the water in toilets in the West is actually cleaner than the water that most people in the developing world have access to,” the husband of Luciana Barroso and father of four explained. “So as disgusting as this may seem, hopefully it will highlight the fact that this is a big problem and together we can do something about it.”
Damon then poured the toilet water on his head as the sound of a child’s laughter could be heard in the background. He challenged his Monuments Men costar George Clooney, U2 singer Bono, and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
He is not the first star to take advantage of the challenge to spread awareness of their own causes. Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio recently posted a video from Lake Athabasca, where the noted environmentalist was learning about the “Canadian tar sands.”
Watch Matt’s video now!
