SOHEIL. They probably sold 10 times as many as any classical album.

DAMON: I was kind of upset about the way we were being carried. And I had to learn the business, I had to learn how to market. When I got with Jay, we just decided to do it ourselves. I couldn't take people telling me what to do and when to do it. This movie is all performance. No effects. All the talent is doing it on the cuff.

GOTHAM: Give us some names, bold-faced names.

DAMON: Lorraine Bracco, Sale Johnson, Master P., Camron.

GOTHAM: According to Forbes, Master P. is one of the richest people in America. He worked for free?

DAMON: Yeah, he came because he happened to be shooting a video with Camron up the block from where I was shooting. The reason I'm tired is that you have to wake up at seven in the morning every day to make a movie.

ISCA: It's painful to get up sometimes.

DAMON: I was on trial for five weeks before that. Custody for my son.

GOTHAM: What? And you didn't phone that into Page Six?

DAMON: It was pretty ugly. Then there was a court gag order, so no information.

ISCA: How old is your son?

DAMON: Ten. There's been a battle for the last year. The court gave me custody even though I have to be running, and the nature of, my business. So we had an official trial and the mother talked bad about me on the stand. Everyone in her family talked bad about me. Things that didn't happen. My witnesses were experts. I would never say anything bad to the kid about his mother. That's unacceptable.

THE LIVELY ARTIST Soheil and Isca, born a month apart in 1978..

ISCA: You can't play mind games with children.

DAMON: She plays mind games with everyone. She's a genius. But now she has to have supervised visitation.

ISCA: So you picked a winner in her.

DAMON: I picked someone who taught me a lot. I was 19 or 20 when I had the child. But it's cool. I like being a daddy.

GOTHAM: That's the only child you have?

DAMON: Two. A daughter, she's two. Her name's Ava. The cutest thing I've ever seen. She can spell her name.

SOHEIL: Going to court sucks. But I have a law firm that represents me pro bono, Weil, Gotshal, & Manges. I want to get sued just to see these guys in action.

GOTHAM: Why are they doing that pro bono?

SOHEIL: Music lovers. They saw me at a concert I gave at the Goethe Institute for the Iranian-American Forum.

LEELEE: My godmother is Iranian. My middle name is Roudabeh-Jeune. I think it means "thousands of little running stars" and "jeune" means "darling."

GOTHAM: It seems to me that after Jay-Z had his huge overnight success, he was a bit tempestuous and did some silly stupid things for a while, and now he's really grown up a lot in the last year or so, right?

DAMON: You know, we've been doing this for like seven years, so if you can't get it right by now... not to say that he was doing anything wrong. You've got to understand, all this stuff is new to us. Like being famous, and rich, things like that- so half of the struggle is how it may be perceived. Like a lot of what they say he does, he's not really doing. But it seems like it because he takes it so powerful. If he walks in a room and he's with five people, he's held accountable for everything those five people did.

GOTHAM: The biggest star always gets the blame.

DAMON: The blame, the charge, the suit. There was a period of time the police were riding around with a little black book, and people who were in hip-hop- they'd just pull us over and fuck with us. It was almost like being a crime family, because there is so much prejudice and misconception. Why would we jeopardize what we have now- we're not that stupid. I came from Harlem, you know what I mean? I didn't have a million dollars. We had to make it. If we're smart enough to get here, we should be smart enough to stay here. So I'd rather be sitting in the back of the Star Room than eating in Rikers Island.

GOTHAM: But you never really got yourself in any sort of scary situation- yet.

DAMON: Not the Kid. Not me. And I'm supposed to be wild.

LEELEE: Well, I think you're much cuter than Jay-Z.

DAMON: Ah. Thank you... Jay's cool. So now it's time to do other things, like the movies. And we bought a vodka company.

LEELEE: Which vodka? ......