Matt has been impressed with Italian entertainment journalist Elisabetta Canalis ever since he and wife Luciana vacationed with the new couple over the summer.

“She is a really, really wonderful woman,” Matt Damon told PEOPLE at the New York premiere of his new film The Informant on Tuesday.

“It’s nice to see my friend so happy,” Matt added.

The 38-year-old Oscar winner used the Toronto Film Festival press conference to slam the journalists who reported that he died in a fatal fall off a cliff while hiking in California last week. Matt believes reporters purposely circulated the online rumor after failing to read the bogus press release thoroughly.

“My publicist got all of these phone calls from very reputable sources. I got forwarded the story, which, if you read it, it just gets sillier and sillier, and, by the end, the guy who’s said to be my agent is quoting the lyrics to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” Matt fumed. “And yet CNN called and The Boston Globe called, all of these reputable news sources are checking if it’’s true.”

“My publicist’’s like, ‘Did you even read the story?’ Misinformation is quicker because you motherfuckers are lazy! That’’s how these things spread like wildfire.”

Michael will play the flamboyant piano-playing music legend, and Matt will take on the role of his 24-year-old live-in lover, Scott Thorson. In 1982, Thorson famosly sued Liberace for $113 million in palimony, despite the entertainer’s vehement denial that he was gay.

“Matt’s going to be my young lover,” Michael, 64, recently told Canada’s Sun Media. “Why not? God bless Matt. Hey, it’s easy for me – he’s in his prime. I said to him, ‘Matt, I love you, man. Boy, that ‘Bourne’ (series) must really be going strong.’ But good for him. He’s right taking chances. All those young guys – (George) Clooney – they’re taking risks… It’s smart trying to mix it up a bit and maintain those franchises and still get to do a picture that turns you on.”

Matt — who recently worked with Soderbergh on the new thriller The Informant — is excited about the challenging role and the opportunity to work with Douglas, a fellow Oscar winner.

“I’m doing this Liberace movie. Michael Douglas is playing Liberace and I play his lover. Steven is directing it,” Matt told the paper this week at the Toronto Film Festival. “I saw Michael last night. He comes up and says, ‘Get your Chapstick ready.’ It’s going to be a great movie. My role is a great role. But Michael’s role? It’s spectacular.”

Once the highest-paid entertainer in the world, Liberace died of complications from AIDS in 1987. He was 67.

You bet!

Damon also responds to a recent online rumors claiming he had been killed in an interview on the Late Show With David Letterman on Thursday.

The 38-year-old Oscar winner had to bulk up an additional 30 pounds to play bipolar whistleblower Mark Whitacre in the upcoming film The Informant. He also dons a handlebar moustache, a wig, and thick ’80s glasses to add to his unflattering look to make his look complete.

Matt gorged on McDonald’s and Doritos to help him gain weight.

“It was very, very easy to gain weight. It was very, very fun, probably the best time I had working because I didn’t have to go to the gym after work and I just ate everything I could see.”

INF Events

According to Variety, the 38-year-old star will be presented with the American Cinematheque Award at a ceremony to be broadcast on AMC next March.

Damon launched his career with the 1997 hit Good Will Hunting, which he co-wrote with pal Ben Affleck. The pair won a Best Screenplay Oscar for their work.

Previous recipients of the award include Julia Roberts, Al Pacino, George Clooney and Samuel L. Jackson.

The big screen’s “Jason Bourne” had to pack on 30 pounds for the role.

“I started eating like crazy and drinking dark beer. Between meals on set, I’d eat a No. 1 Value Meal at McDonald’s and then Doritos on top of it. It was absolute heaven,” Matt tells Entertainment Weekly.

On Tuesday, the actor-humanitarian, who is already co-founder of H2O Africa, announced that he and pal Gary White have co-created Water.org — a non-profit organization that aims to help bring access to safe water to nearly 890 million people and help more than 2.5 billion people without safe sanitation.

Matt’s new venture will see him team up with the charity WaterPartners in a bid to alleviate the plight of millions denied access to clean water.

For more information, visit Water.org.

NBA star Lebron James and actor Matt Damon recently wrapped shooting on a top-secret cameo for the sixth season finale of the hit HBO series Entourage.

“LeBron and Matt have a scene together and they just kill it!” Entourage executive producer Doug Ellin recently told TV Guide Magazine.

“Matt came on the phone with me and wanted to do something that focused on his charity, One By One, which helps kids all over the world.”

“It wasn’t hard to get him,” Doug added.

The Entourage season finale airs Oct. 4.

When it comes to honoring films, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has it all wrong, Oscar-winning actor Matt Damon said in an interview with Parade on Thursday.

“I think that the best way to judge movies is, like, 10 years after they’re released. I think they should actually do the awards that way. I think they should have done the Academy Awards this year for movies from 1998.”

So instead of Slumdog Millionaire, filmgoers should be raving about Good Will Hunting?

Matt went on to say, ”I think it’s better to look at a movie and then step back and look at it again. I don’t think that the awards necessarily get it right. I think they get it wrong more often than they get it right.”