John Jefferson
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson acted with Matt Damon in a Harvard drama class, the justice said in an interview with CBS News earlier this week.
Jackson made history when she became the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court following her nomination by President Joe Biden.
During their studies at Harvard, Damon and Jackson acted in a scene from Waiting for Godot together. Damon, who later dropped out, was a year ahead of Jackson.
“We were never in an actual performance, but we were in a drama class together and we were paired as scene partners … he’s not going to remember this, of course,” she said.
She added: “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.”
“As I recall, we had to do the scene, we had to memorize a part of it, and we did it together, and it’s a two-person play, a two-person scene,” Jackson said. “And 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,’” the justice recalled.
Jackson studied government at Harvard but was also involved in drama, musical theater, and an improv group called On Thin Ice. Damon told the AP in 2022 that he doesn’t remember acting with Jackson, but said: “That’s so cool!”
Speaking during an event at The Kennedy Center in Washington DC on Wednesday night, Jackson said: “I love the theater. So, I had done speech and debate really, really vigorously in high school, and I decided in college, I wanted to do something different,” according to The Hill.
She added: “And part of my speech categories — I had different activities that I participated in — was a dramatic and humorous interpretation category … and I thought, well, maybe I’ll just go into theater.”
Jackson has made several press appearances over the last week as she promotes her new memoir Lovely One.
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