Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who made history by becoming the first Black woman to sit on the high court, revealed in a recent interview that her claim to fame could have actually come much earlier.
While studying at Harvard University, Jackson was paired up with actor Matt Damon in her drama class. The actor, made famous by his role as the title character in the “Bourne” movies, was a year ahead of the justice.
The two performed a scene from “Waiting for Godot,” Jackson told CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell earlier this week.
“We were never in an actual performance, but we were in a drama class together and we were paired as scene partners for… and he’s not going to remember this, of course,” she told the host of CBS Sunday Morning.
“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,” she added later.
O’Donnell pressed the justice on what happened during the 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,” she responded. “And at the end, the professor said, ‘Ketanji, you were very good. Matt, we’ll talk.'”
Jackson added, “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I was better than Matt Damon in a scene.’”
The Associated Press reported in 2022 that Damon did not recall the scene, but his representative told the news wire that the Hollywood star thought it was “so cool.”
The justice recalled the scene again during an event Wednesday evening at The Kennedy Center in Washington.
“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,” she said. “And part of my speech categories — I had different activities that I participated in — was a dramatic and humorous interpretation category that entered — and I thought, well, maybe I’ll just go into theater.”
Her comments come as the justice has been making the rounds in the media in recent weeks to tout her newly released memoir “Lovely One.”
Jackson was sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice in June 2022, filling the seat vacated by retired Justice Stephen Breyer.
Zach Schonfeld contributed.