In September 2009, American writer and businessman Robert Edsel released “The Monuments Men,” a compelling account of a group of middle aged museum directors, curators and art historians tasked with going into Germany in the closing stages of World War II to try and rescue artworks requisitioned by the Nazis.

“The Monuments Men,” produced, directed and starred in by George Clooney along with a very impressive cast including Matt Damon, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Leonidas Dmitri, Hugh Bonneville and Cate Blanchett is set amidst a war that cost the lives of 65 million people when mankind’s cultural and artistic fingerprint is at risk of being destroyed. Their small group of middle aged museum curators and artists and architects, called The Monuments Men, the most unlikely of spies, who volunteer to go into military service and try and save these things and ultimately recover them.

Matt Damon was one of the many to get the direct approach. Damon further discusses in the following q&a of his involvement in the film and working with a great cast.

Q: How did you first get involved with Monuments Men?

A: “I was on my way to pick up my kids from school and I got an email from George [Clooney] that said, “Are you busy in the spring?” So when I got home, I called him and he told me a little bit about what he was up to and then he sent me the script. I read it and instantly just loved it. That was maybe four or five months before we started shooting. But I literally had no notes on the script at all. Grant and George had done all of the heavy lifting already so it was a very easy movie to just kind of slide right into.

Q: Were you aware at all of the original Monuments Men story and their wartime activities?

A: No, I actually didn't know anything about it. I’m surprised that such a great story had eluded me in every history class I had ever taken about World War II. And this idea of these guys who were, you know, a little past their prime soldiering years, kind of dropping everything and going through basic training and going to the front, risking their lives to save artwork was just an incredibly compelling story.

Q: You’re friends with Clooney. Does that make the working process easier or trickier in any way?

A: It makes it much easier because, you know, there's just a shorthand. He doesn't have to spend any time worrying about my feelings. There’s an implicit trust there that goes both ways. If I'm screwing up a scene, he can say that to me!

Q: What kind of a director is Clooney?

A: He's both very in control and very relaxed, which is really the mark of a great director. He never raised his voice. There was never any tension on set. Even though this was a very big film, in terms of cost and production value, it went along like we were doing a tiny little kitchen sink drama. It was right on schedule and I think they even came in under budget.

Q: Would you say Monuments Men was similar to other ensemble films that you've been in, like the Ocean's movies?

A: Yeah, it's similar to the Ocean's movies, I think. Partly, hopefully, in tone. It should feel fun and entertaining, the way those movies did. And I think in terms of process, it was extremely similar as well: thea ctors had a blast. But these movies are always the hardest for the director and the producers. So for George, directing and producing and starring in it and having written it, and then Grant – who wrote it with George and then produced it – those guys were very focused and had a lot on their plate. I mean, we were all focused too; we just had less on our plate.

Q: Clooney is notorious for on-set pranks. Were you the victim of any on this film?

A: Well, he never copped to this to me, but he did give an interview saying that he was taking in my wardrobe by like, a 16th of an inch every few days. Which, I had attributed to my poor eating habits while I was making the movie. But it makes a lot of sense when I heard that! [Laughs] Honestly though, he was so busy on this one. He'd always have a big dinner on Saturday night with the cast and the crew. But that was like a two- or three-hour thing and the only free time that he really allowed himself. He and Grant had their heads down on this one.

The greatest heist story in history is about to be told when “The Monuments Men” opens February 12 in cinemas nationwide from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

“The story of the Monuments Men is one that really very few people know,” says George Clooney, who returns to the director’s chair for the story of a small group of artists, art historians, architects, and museum curators who would lead the rescue of 1000 years of civilization during World War II in his new film, The Monuments Men. “Artists, art dealers, architects – these were men that were far beyond the age that they were going to be drafted into a war or volunteer. But they took on this adventure, because they had this belief that culture can be destroyed. If they’d failed, it could have meant the loss of six million pieces of art. They weren’t going to let that happen – and the truth of the matter is, they pulled it off.”

Part of the drama of the film is that all of the Monuments Men are so unsuited to serving as soldiers in wartime. “Wars are fought by 18-year-olds,” says Clooney. “Once you get to the John Goodmans and the Bob Balabans and the George Clooneys, you know – these guys are not getting drafted.” Producing and writing partner Grant Heslov adds: “They did it because it was clear that they were the only people who could do it.”

The answer was the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives group, which would go to the front lines and, for the first time, try to save the treasures that could be saved. “Culture was at risk,” says Clooney. “You see it time and time again. You saw it in Iraq – the museums weren’t protected, and you saw how much of their culture was lost because of that.”

“Even today, people are still trying to get back the art that was looted from their families by the Nazis,”Heslov says, noting that just recently, a treasure trove of looted art was discovered in a Munich apartment – 1,500 works worth $1.5 billion, paintings by Matisse, Picasso, Dix, and other artists that had been thought to be lost.

Clooney and Heslov note that while the film is based on the true story of the Monuments Men, they did take some liberties with the characters for dramatic purposes. Though many of the characters are inspired by real Monuments Men, Clooney and Heslov have invented characters for the film. More importantly, even if the characters are invented, their story is real. “We invented a few mundane scenes, just to help the story along, but the things in the movie that you’d think are so ridiculous and strange, ‘well, there’s no way that those actually happened’ – those are the things that actually happened,” says Clooney.

Meet “The Monuments Men,” for the film, Clooney and Heslov were able to attract a top tier of actors, including Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett.

George Clooney heads the cast in the role of Frank Stokes, a leading art historian. The inspiration for Clooney’s character was art historian George Stout.“In real life, he was a very scrappy guy. He could do anything – like fix cars and radios.” The head of the conservation department at the Fogg, and later the director of the Worcester Art Museum and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Stout was on the front lines during the war, helping to rescue cultural treasures in Caen, Maastricht, and Aachen, as well as Nazi art repositories in Siegen, Heilbronn, Cologne, Merkers, and Altaussee.

Matt Damon takes on the role of James Granger and marks his sixth collaboration with George Clooney. The James Granger character is inspired by James Rorimer, who later became director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Granger’s relationship with Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett) was inspired by Rorimer’s interaction with Rose Valland, an employee of the Jeu de Paume gallery in Paris.

Bill Murray was excited to join The Monuments Men from the minute George Clooney first told him about the project. Murray’s role, Richard Campbell, is an architect. Murray’s character is inspired by several real Monuments Men, including architect Robert Posey. While embedded with Patton’s Third Army during the war, Posey discovered the salt mine at Altaussee, where the Nazis had stashed the Ghent Altarpiece, the Bruges Madonna, Vermeer’s The Astronomer, and thousands of other works of art. For his contributions, Posey was awarded the Legion of Honor from France and the Order of Leopold from Belgium.

John Goodman says that his character, Walter Garfield, represents the people, men and women, who were stuck on the home front but eager to help the war effort in any way they could. Goodman’s character is inspired by the real-life Monuments Man Walker Hancock, a renowned sculptor. Hancock was a native of St. Louis, as is Goodman. “Oddly enough, when my mother and I would take the bus to downtown St. Louis to go shopping, we’d pass one of his sculptures, the Soldiers’ Memorial,” Goodman says. “It just put me in touch with the character. It’s a small connection, but a happy coincidence.”

Goodman’s character, Walter Garfield, is paired with Jean Claude Clermont, portrayed by Oscar®-winning actor Jean Dujardin, a re-teaming of Goodman and Dujardin from “The Artist.” “Jean’s role as Claude Clermont is a French Jew who is an art dealer in Marseilles,” Dujardin explains. “He escapes and takes refuge in London with his family. He is recruited by the American army for his artistic knowledge. He’s not a soldier, but it’s really important for him to take part in the war. He’s really proud to be a member of the Monuments Men.”

“Downton Abbey’s”Hugh Bonneville plays Donald Jeffries, a flawed man seeking a second chance. “When the characters are introduced, you see them in their natural habitats, so to speak,” Bonneville explains. “Donald’s happens to be a pub. We come to learn that he has made mistakes in life, has been unreliable and George’s character gives him a second chance to re-embrace his first love, which is art.”

Bob Balaban takes on the role of Preston Savitz. “Savitz is an intellectual, an art historian and a theatrical impresario,” Balaban says. Preston Savitz is inspired by Monuments Man Lincoln Kirstein, an American impresario, art connoisseur, author, and a major cultural figure in New York who co-founded the New York City Ballet.

The final Monuments Man in the film is Sam Epstein, played by Dimitri Leonidas. Not yet 19, Epstein is the only real soldier in the group, recruited for his ability to drive and to speak German. “My character grew up in Germany – but Germany rejected him, because he’s Jewish,” Leonidas says. The inspiration for Leonidas’s character is Harry Ettlinger. “I was born in Germany under the Jewish faith,” says Ettlinger. “Hitler was on his way to get rid of all Jews in all the world. My father lost his business, and my parents realized that economic life for a Jew was no longer possible in Germany.”

Cate Blanchett rounds out the cast as Claire Simone, a Frenchwoman in a unique position in Occupied France. “Claire Simone is a curator at the Jeu de Paume – once an art museum but became a kind of depot for art looted by the Nazis,” Blanchett explains. “But her real work goes on at night, when she records the provenance of the works and where they were being taken in an obsessively detailed way. She’s the catalyst for the third act of the movie – the Monuments Men know the works are disappearing but they don’t know where they are going, and they need her information.” Blanchett’s character is inspired by Rose Valland, a French woman who bravely and secretly kept track of the Nazis’ systematic tracking, risking her life in the process.

“The Monuments Men” opens February 12 in cinemas from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

Cate Blanchett, this year’s Best Actress winner at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Critics’ Choice Movie Awards (for her role in “Blue Jasmine”) and nominated at the 86^th Academy Awards (Oscars) stars in a sweeping true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history where she is the only woman among “The Monuments Men.”

Based on the real history chronicled in the non-fiction book “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History” by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter, “The Monuments Men” is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. The Monuments Men found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind’s greatest achievements.

The film is directed, co-written, co-produced and starred in by George Clooney with a phenomenal ensemble cast including Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett.

Cate Blanchett rounds out the cast as Claire Simone, a Frenchwoman in a unique position in Occupied France. “This story opens up the Second World War in a way that gives you a different perspective on it,” says Cate Blanchett, who plays a key role as Claire Simone, a woman who holds the key to the secret location of thousands of priceless pieces of stolen art.

“These men were spurred on by a higher ideal. So many of the works that we take for granted in the great museums of the world were returned by this band of men – it was a near impossible task. Absurd, in a way: non military men going to the front lines and asking generals to stop bombing a certain church or area to save a window, or a sculpture or mural – you wonder how they were able to save anything at all. It’s an extraordinary, selfless thing that they did, done to preserve history.”

“Claire Simone is a curator at the Jeu de Paume – once an art museum but became a kind of depot for art looted by the Nazis,” Blanchett explains. “But her real work goes on at night, when she records the provenance of the works and where they were being taken in an obsessively detailed way. She’s the catalyst for the third act of the movie – the Monuments Men know the works are disappearing but they don’t know where they are going, and they need her information.”

Blanchett says that there was truly something different about the ways the Nazis went about looting art. “In every war, there’s looting. What was shocking to me was the mathematical, calculated and systematic way the Nazis went about their looting, and the fact that their acquisition of works began as early as 1938.”

The other element that made the Nazi looting different was the so-called Nero Decree. “When Hitler realized he was going to lose the war, he ordered that everything the Nazis had amassed was going to be destroyed. He was going to leave nothing in the hands of the victors,” Blanchett explains. “In relation to the art, what the Nero Decree meant was that everything that they had stolen was to be destroyed.”

“Matt’s character, Granger, must win her trust,” Blanchett continues. “There was an understandable fear on the part of the French that, if the works were recovered by the Allies from the Nazis, they’d simply go to collections or collectors in Russia and the United States. From that standpoint, did it really matter whether it was stolen by the Germans, the Russians or the Americans?”

Ultimately, Granger and Simone forge an unusual bond, Blanchett says. “I think the love story that exists between them is a mutual love of art, of culture.” Blanchett says. “They are both gripped – passionately gripped – by the importance of saving this work for all time. They believe that no single person can ever truly own a masterpiece. It’s for everyone. So, I think they’re united in the nobility of the cause.”

Blanchett’s character is inspired by Rose Valland, a French woman who bravely and secretly kept track of the Nazis’ systematic tracking, risking her life in the process. “Rose Valland was, at first, a volunteer and then overseer at the Jeu de Paume, which adjoins the Louvre. During the war, it was a depot for looted Jewish art collections and other objects. Hermann Göring basically used the Jeu de Paume as a shopping mall – the Nazis set it up like an exhibition space for the pilfered art,” Blanchett explains. “Her work singlehandedly saved crate-loads, castle-loads full of works of art that otherwise could have easily been destroyed. The fact that she was working alone was an act of extraordinary bravery. I think she was able to achieve what she did because she didn’t stand out – she was the woman least likely.”

“The Monuments Men” opens February 12 in cinemas nationwide from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

A whole lot of art loot is at stake in the action-thriller “The Monuments Men” produced, directed and starred by George Clooney along with an all-star, high-caliber cast including Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman and Jean Dujardin.

Based on the non-fiction tome by Robert Edsel, “The Monuments Men” takes us back to World War II when Western Allies protect heritage sites at risk during the war and recover art treasures from the Nazis.

Clooney who also produced the Oscar-winner “Argo” collaborates with writer/producer Grant Heslov in “The Monuments Men” to film an untold chapter during WWII when a group of men and women from different countries recovered thousands of stolen artworks perpetrated during the war. The task began with a small group of determined art professionals drafted for war – architects, designers and museum staff who will identify and protect museums, churches and other significant “monuments” from damage. As the Allies pressed farther into occupied territory, the team had to determine what had been stolen and where it was hidden.

An impossible mission with an unlikely set of platoon trapped within enemy lines, “The Monuments Men” found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture and risk their lives to protect and defend mankind’s greatest achievements.

“The Monuments Men” will soon screen in local cinemas (January 2014) from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.