GOTHAM: Because you're at that stage now where everyone is trying to decide how big you are? Your last show sold out?

ISCA: Sold out three days before it opened. So everyone says not to show again for a while. Maybe I'll go to Germany and check out the scene there. Any thoughts on Germany?

LEELEE: I don't like the language. It sounds too harsh.

[Soheil begins speaking German.]

SOHEIL: I learned German specifically for the opera The Magic Flute by Mozart. I grew up loving opera. More than you can imagine. I chose German in the seventh grade. But really I should have learned Italian.

GOTHAM: Soheil is of Persian decent, born in L.A., grew up there and in D.C. Last year he did four concerts in Carnegie Recital Hall and has four more there in the coming year, all without repeating a piece. [To Soheil] Neither of your parents forced you into becoming a musician?

SOHEIL: No. My parents loved classical music so I was exposed to it in utero. They were enthusiastic connoisseurs.

DAMON: I wish I knew how to play the piano. I tried. I played saxophone in sixth grade.

GOTHAM: Where did you grow up?

DAMON: Manhattan.

GOTHAM: Where?

	Left to Right: Johnson, Greenfield-Sanders, Turley, Nasseri, Sobieski.

DAMON: I had two lives. My uptown life was in Harlem. My downtown life was P.S. 6 on 81st and Park Avenue. Then I went to Dwight. So I got to see both sides. Taught me a lot.

GOTHAM: Three of you grew up in Manhattan.

LEELEE: My boyfriend's name is Manhattan [Perry]. He just graduated from Brown.

DAMON: Then I went to school in Connecticut. South Kent.

GOTHAM: Sounds fancy.

DAMON: Yeah, it was pretty fancy. An all-boys school. I did it for a year. My homeboys out there are still my friends. But I didn't go back. I was in the 11th grade, I couldn't do 12th. So I ended up getting my G.E.D.

SOHEIL: I did the same exact same thing. Left after 11th grade and got a G.E.D. [The fellows exchange high fives.] What kind of message are we sending the youth of America?

GOTHAM: "Leave school as soon as possible."

DAMON: When I got back from South Kent, I went to the worst high school in the city, called West Side High. I was practically teaching the class myself. Then they kicked me out. They thought I was too arrogant.

GOTHAM: So you went into the music business after that?

DAMON: I needed a business where I could have fun and make money.

GOTHAM: How old were you when you met Jay-Z?

DAMON: Twenty-one. I got my first record deal when I was 19. As a manager. Two deals. Both of the groups "caught a brick," which means they didn't sell. They went cardboard.

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.

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?

DAMON: Armandale.

LEELEE: Instead of "Pass the Courvoisier," it's gonna be "A shot of the Armandale?"

DAMON: Every time I get the chance. Everything's product placement.

GOTHAM: Where's it made?

DAMON: Armandale's a Scotland town.

GOTHAM: What do they make it out of?

DAMON: I don't know, I just got the business. I'll learn it. Come back to me in a year, I'll know everything. Every business we get into, I kind of hands-on have to learn the shit because I think someone's always trying to jerk me. [Damon's son, Damon Anthony Dash II, i.e., "Boogie," calls to complain about his nanny. Then the nanny calls to complain about Boogie. Damon patiently consoles both of them.]

GOTHAM: How many movies have you made?

DAMON: Five. I produced Backstage. Before that Street Smarts went straight to vid but it went platinum. I produced this movie Paid in Full with the Weinsteins. It opens in September. I directed and produced Paper Soldiers, a comedy, it might come out in January. State Property I produced for Lion's Gate. That was supposed to be a straight to vid, 600 grand, but we put it out in 50, 60 theaters and it averaged like 9,000 per screen. Made a lot of money on that one. I didn't use any actors. Just people from the office and artists.

GOTHAM: People give you scripts?

DAMON: I develop them. They're mostly personal experiences, things that I've witnessed, or knew about. Ghetto legends and shit.

LEELEE: So we might find this experience tonight in a film one day?

DAMON: Definitely. Every emotion.

LEELEE: I reserve the right to play me.

GOTHAM: Damon, where do you live?

DAMON: I have a place in TriBeCa, a place in Jersey, and I do East Hampton on the weekend.

	Left to Right: Soheil, Leelee, Isca, and Damon.

GOTHAM: Who designs the Roc-A-Wear line?

DAMON: We have a team, but I approve every sample, every skew.

GOTHAM: What did you gross last year?

DAMON: Last year, we did 80. This year, we'll do a buck-60. The year after, we're gonna do about 300, because we added our juniors line, girls.

GOTHAM: Soheil, for your information, a "buck" is 100 million dollars.

SOHEIL: Wow!

DAMON: The thing about the clothing business is like you build equity but you still get profit. In the music business, you have to build equity and be consistent then you sell but there's not too much profit because it costs so much money marketing.

GOTHAM: Isn't it a terrible thing that the music industry discriminated against Michael Jackson because he's black?

DAMON: I don't know what that's all about. Like, he's not even black. He had another problem that people are addressing.

LEELEE: They didn't discriminate against him before. Now his new record comes out and it's discrimination?

DAMON: Mike's the best that ever did it, man, and I guess that sometimes it's hard to just give that shit up, going from being The King and getting all that attention, to just being normal. And he can't be normal. If he's not Number One, he probably doesn't know how to feel. He's been Number One since he was eight.

GOTHAM: Soheil, aren't you playing a concert at the U.N.?

SOHEIL: On September 11, a concert for peace sponsored by UNESCO and the Virtue Foundation.

DAMON: So do you get a lot of money for doing a concert?

SOHEIL: I'm not getting paid for the U.N. concert.

DAMON: A lot of money for other concerts?

SOHEIL: Not by your standards. I don't even know what a "buck" is.

ISCA: How often do you play, for money?

SOHEIL: Seven to ten concerts a month.

DAMON: So what would one make per concert if one were a pianist of your caliber?

SOHEIL: Four digits, in the middle part of that range, depending on how big your name is. Itzhak Perlman would make $50,000 per concert.

GOTHAM: Placido Domingo makes like 50 million a year.

DAMON: Fifty million a year? Doing shows? Ohmigod. [To Soheil] So you're gonna get "kicked out," make a lot of money; "kick" meaning money.

SOHEIL: I'm really not interested in money [raucous laughter]. I'd like more people to share the love I have for classical music.

ISCA: Do you compose as well?

SOHEIL: That's not my calling. If you don't start as a child...

LEELEE: They say the younger generation has a terrible permanent case of Attention Deficit Disorder. I don't really think that exists. I think everybody's attention span is so, so short. And I don't think they're used to being able to sit through a really, really long piece of music that's not jumping all over the place.

SOHEIL: That's right.

LEELEE: So I don't know what, being in the classical music field, you can do, but I feel that if there's a way to "MTV" it- and I know it sounds strange- but let's say you were to get a really artistic, inventive director to direct a video...

DAMON: Put some rap on it.

LEELEE: If you had kind of an artistic, crazy video that went with a powerful, showy piece that crescendoed, with a kaleidoscope of bizarre images, I think that could capture the attention.

SOHEIL: Chopin's "The Ocean" would be a good piece for that.

LEELEE: All right, concepts: Here we go, "The Ocean." What everybody thinks would be under the ocean when you're swimming- everyone's worst nightmare- the most frightening video clip. It becomes very showy and over the top.

DAMON: You've got a million-dollar video there.

GOTHAM: Leelee, what's the most fun movie you've done?

LEELEE: Sometimes you have the most fun doing like the worst films. I just did a film all in French called L'Idole and we shot in Paris. That was really nice.

DAMON: I bet. You spoke French in it?

LEELEE: Yes. My dad's French. It was all about a friendship between myself and an elderly Chinese gentleman of about 80 years old.

GOTHAM: That sounds kinky.

DAMON: Sexual?

LEELEE: Just a friendship. There were two loves scenes with another gentleman, a younger one.

ISCA: How was that?

LEELEE: Very strange, and not sexy at all. This talented young actor refused to wear anything...

DAMON: He was buck naked?

LEELEE: Yes. We had a love scene on a wooden floor.

ISCA: Wide bonds?

GOTHAM: Splinters?

LEELEE: I wore a nightgown and he wouldn't wear anything. It was machismo. And he wouldn't wear deodorant.

EVERYONE: How very French!!

LEELEE: But he's fantastic in the film. I did a film recently where I had a very small part but then I got to play John Cusack's mistress. That was fun. I'd never been the mistress before.

DAMON: You're moving up.

GOTHAM: Who did you work with that you really loved? Any legends?

LEELEE: Stanley Kubrick, a lot. He was a master.

GOTHAM: I liked Eyes Wide Shut. It induced a dream state in me.

LEELEE: His films are so varied. He goes into a lot of different directions. Whatever anybody's last work is, that's what you expect.

DAMON: [To Leelee] Do you party a lot? Hang out?

GOTHAM: Love that segue.

LEELEE: I like dancing. I like walking around New York and lying down on the sidewalk. It's very interesting to watch people step over you and be confused. When I laugh very hard, I have to lie down on the sidewalk.

GOTHAM: Remember in Eyes Wide Shut when Leelee was this nubile thing in the little white underwear?

LEELEE: Blue underwear. I tried on 40 pairs. I was 14. I didn't have any breasts at that point. I wore those fake silicone things called "Moniques."

SOHEIL: I loved you in that movie. I fantasized about you after that.

LEELEE: Pedophile. [To Damon] Where do you hang out?

DAMON: When I'm not working, I hang out every night, everywhere. I like to dance.

LEELEE: I like doing hip-hop more than anything else- but I think I dance like a stripper.

GOTHAM: We can clear some of these glasses out of the way. Do you need a pole?

LEELEE: I dance hip-hop in L.A. The first time I saw someone "raise the roof" I thought they were pretending they were playing basketball.

DAMON: You think I'm not going to put this in a movie?

GOTHAM: Leelee, what about all these romances that seem to erupt on movie sets? Are they real?

LEELEE: People work really hard and you're cut off from your regular life with your friends and suddenly this becomes your family. So you get into a silly phase and everyone gets close. And especially when you're playing romantically involved with someone on screen, you have a tendency to try to manifest those emotions. Whether you decide to fall in love with someone's eyes, or the way they speak, or a joke they told you- you try to convince yourself you're in love because you have to be in love onscreen.

GOTHAM: Has that happened to you?

LEELEE: I've definitely liked people who I've worked with and have had crushes. But I've always said that if anything was going to happen between the two of us, I wanted it to happen at the end of the film, because during the filming it's all false emotions and people get hurt, because they fell in love with the character.

DAMON: How do you know so much about false emotions at age 19?

LEELEE: I've been working since I was 11.

DAMON: I've gotta go back to work. It was great meeting you. Give me all your information. I want to see all of you again.

GOTHAM: Thanks for coming, Damon.

[He leaves.]

LEELEE: Damon seems like a nice guy. Who was he married to before?

GOTHAM: I don't know that he's ever been married.

LEELEE: Does he have a very serious girlfriend?

GOTHAM: He was the boyfriend of Aaliyah when she was killed.

LEELEE: That's what I thought. I met her twice. Once we were in the press line for the Teen Choice Awards or something and they were shouting "Leelee! Leelee!" and she turned around and got really confused. She looked over at me and said, "Lee Lee is my nickname. My family calls me Lee Lee." And after the show there was a hip-hop dancing party. My girlfriend Ozzie from Ethiopia, who looks just like her, and I danced with her and her brother. And a few months later, I met her again at the Golden Globes after-party. We had a conversation for 15 minutes and I thought she was so lovely. And we exchanged phone numbers and agreed we'd get together for lunch the next time we were in the same city. I thought she was the sweetest girl, and then that was that.

GOTHAM: It's only been a year since the crash. I'm sure Damon hasn't processed it yet, but he has the energy to go on.

LEELEE: This is such a lovely dinner. I'm so happy to be here.