“I called Tina [Fey], I was like, ‘What the f—k?,’” the actor recalled.

Matt Damon was ‘bewildered’ by a fruit basket from Amy Poehler — then he realized it was a George Clooney prank

“I called Tina [Fey], I was like, ‘What the f--k?,’” the actor recalled.

By Shania Russell

Shania Russell

Shania Russell is a news writer at *, *with five years of experience. Her work has previously appeared in SlashFilm and Paste Magazine.

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July 14, 2026 8:00 p.m. ET

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Matt Damon, George Clooney and Amy Poehler. Credit:

Pierre Suu/WireImage; Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty; Amy Sussman/Getty

- Matt Damon had no idea that George Clooney used his name for a prank until it was too late.

- In 2014, Clooney pretended to be Damon and sent a letter to Amy Poehler and Tina Fey saying he was offended by a joke they told.

- When they sent Damon a fruit basket, he called Fey to ask, ‘”What the f--k?’”

Matt Damon and Amy Poehler have at least three things in common: their Boston pride, their hatred of pranks, and a begrudging respect for George Clooney.

The Massachusetts-born actors learned as much during a recent sit-down on Poehler’s *Good Hang* podcast, which saw them reminisce about Clooney stealing Damon’s identity to pull one over on Poehler and Tina Fey.

“I’ve said this to his face, I’m not talking behind his back: I don’t like pranks,” Poehler said of the* Jay Kelly* star. “I don’t f--k with pranks. I don’t like it, it makes me stressed.”

Damon couldn’t agree more. “I’m not a prank guy either,” he shared, adding, “He loves them enough for all of us.”

Matt Damon and George Clooney.

Kevin Winter/Getty

Unfortunately, their disdain for practical jokes has not stopped Clooney from roping them into his antics. Back in 2014, Poehler and Fey became targets after hosting that year’s Golden Globes ceremony and cracking a joke at Clooney’s expense in their opening monologue. While poking fun at several performers, Fey described Clooney’s film *Gravity * as “the story of how George Clooney would rather float away into space and die than spend one more minute with a woman his own age.”

But instead of directly paying them back, Clooney decided to use the fact that they also made fun of Damon.

“We made a joke that now that you were on TV, you’re basically a ‘garbage person’ because you were just there for TV and you weren’t in the movie section anymore,” Poehler recounted to Damon. “And you, of course, laughed and played along with it.”

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Days later, Poehler and Fey both got a “strongly worded letter” from stationary branded with Damon’s name saying that they had “really hurt” his feelings. But despite the signature, the letter actually came from Clooney.

“Now, did he tell you he was gonna do it?” Poehler asked.

“No,” Damon said swiftly. “The way I found out —  and by the way, the *only* reason I found out — was because you guys sent me some, like, fruit baskets or something.  And I was like, I was so bewildered.”

Indeed, the comedians sent over two huge fruit baskets, each accompanied by a letter. Poehler said that while the two women strongly suspected the note had come from Clooney, they still wanted to send a sincere apology just in case Damon was truly offended.

“We were like, we think this is a prank but we were covering our bases,” she said.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler host the Golden Globes in 2015.

Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal via Getty

But pretty soon, their theory was confirmed. “I called Tina, I was like, ‘What the f--k?,’” Damon recalled. “She lived right down the street from me at that time. And then we, you know, we put it together pretty quickly.”

Afterwards, Damon made sure to air the drama out on multiple talk shows and even brought Fey and Poehler’s letter to the set of David Letterman’s *Late Show *where he read it aloud.

He told the late-night host that while the first letter had offered a sincere apology for the Golden Globes joke, the second letter wasn’t as polite.

“If your note is part of some George Clooney prank, as I very strongly suspect it is, you A-list amateurs are going to have to step it the f--k up,” the letter began. “We are not some easily confused starlets you’re dealing with here. We are grown-ass, professional comedians. Please accept this fruit as a token of our sincerity. Best wishes, Elizabeth Tina Fey, Amy ‘Boston’ Poehler.”

Damon said he “immediately knew” that Clooney had made stationary with his name on it to pull off the elaborate scheme and lamented, “I  have no idea how many letters are out there, to how many people.”

As for the contents of Clooney’s note, the *Oceans 11 *star later revealed it during a SiriusXM Town Hall event, explaining, “I sent her a letter saying, Dear Tina, listen, it’s from Matt, and it just says, ‘Look, it sounds hypocritical because I laughed at the jokes about George and Leo, but you know, that’s sort of what people think about them. But when you called me a garbage man, it just seemed like low hanging fruit, it just seemed like an easy joke. And you know, I don’t want an apology, I don’t want anything else, I just want you to know that my kid now calls me the garbage man.’”

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Clooney’s reign of terror didn’t end there. The actor has continued pulling pranks on various friends and costars, which have involved everything from putting a photo of Damon in a speedo on a billboard ad to leaving Richard Kind an alarming surprise in his cat’s litter box.

Watch Poehler and Damon recount their own experience with Clooney’s pranks above.

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