“You're dating me, man. You're aging both of us,” The Hill star Colin Ford said during our chat with a laugh.

I had just brought up the fact that Ford starred in We Bought a Zoo over a decade ago. Ford was just 15 when the film came out — his co-star Elle Fanning was just 13 — but still remembers the experience of shooting a movie with Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson fondly.

“Actually, I carry a lot of memories very fondly from that time. I think that it was a very pivotal part of my life,” Ford said of his We Bought a Zoo experience. “There [are] some thing that Matt Damon shared with me. He's someone that I looked up to, I still look up to, [and] would love to work together again on something.”

That advice? Remember your roots. Damon likely saw a blossoming star in front of his eyes, so he decided to share some wisdom with Ford.

“Something that he told me, he kinda looked at me and he's like, ‘Hey man, better always [to] stay humble and just remember where you came [from],' like your roots,” Ford recalled. “And it's really important. And it's so true.”

Ford joined the Hollywood system at a young age — he began acting at five and was modeling before that. “It's so important and it's so easy to get blindsided by like glitz and glam and like fun [in] Hollywood, blah, blah, blah, but I find that it's really important to stay rooted to where I came from, to remember my values, who my family is, and all those types of things,” Ford said.

“And I'm just really thankful that I had someone like him [Damon], who I looked up to, tell me that at a young age,” he concluded.

Colin Ford now plays Rickey Hill in The Hill. The film tells the inspirational story of Hill who had a degenerative spinal disease. Despite this, he overcame the odds and plays baseball. Dennis Quaid, Joelle Carter, and Randy Houser also star in the film.

Note: This interview was conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike.

The Hill will be released on August 25.