Best Known As: The star of the Bourne action films
Matt Damon and his high school pal Ben Affleck shared the best screenplay Oscar for writing the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting. The two chums also starred in the film, and Matt Damon was nominated for best actor, adding to the general sense of prodigies-on-the-loose surrounding the project. Over the next few years, Damon's earnest good looks and scoundrel's grin helped make him a bona fide star. He was featured in the title role in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998, with Tom Hanks), starred opposite Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, with Gwyneth Paltrow), appeared with Sean Connery in Finding Forrester (2001) and showed up in Steven Soderbergh's remake of Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its sequels Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). Matt Damon also got a big-budget trilogy of his own, starring as the amnesiac superagent Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity (2002, with Clive Owen), The Bourne Supremacy (2004, with Julia Stiles), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, with David Strathairn). In spite of big-time Hollywood success, Damon has not strayed from small independent projects and has appeared in several of Kevin Smith's movies, including Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999) and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001). Damon's other films include the cult poker film Rounders (1998, with Gretchen Mol), Martin Scorsese's Boston crime epic The Departed (2006, with Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg), Clint Eastwood's Invictus (2009, starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela), Soderbergh's The Informant! (2009) and the military action picture Green Zone (2010).
Matt Damon married Luciana Bozan in December 2005. They have three daughters: Isabella (born 2006), Gia (b. 2008), Stella (b. 2010). Bozan also has a daughter, Alexia (b. 1999), from a previous relationship... Damon was an extra in the 1989 Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams... All three Bourne movies were based on the book series by novelist Robert Ludlum.
"Success is not something I've wrapped my brain around. If people go to those movies, then yes, that's true, big-time success. If not, it's much ado about nothing. [On the prospects for his 1997 movies The Rainmaker and Good Will Hunting]"
One who graduated from obscure actor to Hollywood icon in just a few years, Matt Damon became an instant sensation when he co-wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting with longtime buddy and collaborator Ben Affleck.
A native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was born on October 8, 1970, Damon grew up in prosperous surroundings with his tax preparer father, college professor mother, and older brother. At the age of ten, he befriended Affleck, a boy two years his junior who lived down the street. Educated at Cambridge's Rindge and Latin School, Damon landed his first role in a Hollywood production before the age of 18, with a one-scene turn in Mystic Pizza (1988). Not long after, Damon gained acceptance to Harvard University, where he studied for three years before dropping out to pursue his acting career. During his time there, he had to write a screenplay for an English class, that served as the genesis of Good Will Hunting.
Arriving in Hollywood, Damon scored his first big break with a plum role in School Ties opposite Affleck. As the film was a relative flop, Damon's substantial role failed to win him notice, and he was back to laboring in obscurity. It was around this time, fed up with his Hollywood struggles, that Damon contacted Affleck, and the two finished writing the former's Harvard screenplay and began trying to get it made into a film. It was eventually picked up by Miramax, with Gus Van Sant slated to direct and Robin Williams secured in a major role, opposite Damon as the lead. Before Good Will Hunting was released in late 1997, Damon won some measure of recognition for his role as a drug-addicted soldier in Courage Under Fire; various industry observers praised his performance and his dedication to the part, for which he lost forty pounds and suffered resulting health problems. Any praise Damon may have received, however, was overshadowed the following year by the accolades he garnered for Good Will Hunting. His Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Best Screenplay win alongside Damon, and strong performance in the film virtually guaranteed industry adulation and steady employment, a development that became readily apparent the following year with lead roles in two major films. The first, John Dahl's Rounders, cast Damon as a card shark with a serious gambling addiction, who risks his own personal safety when he becomes entangled with a reckless loser buddy (Edward Norton).
Damon's second film in 1998, Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, brought him even greater recognition. As Ryan's title character, Damon headlined an all-star line-up and received part of the lavish praise heaped on the film and its strong ensemble cast. The following year, Damon signed for leads in two more highly anticipated films, Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley and Kevin Smith's Dogma. The former cast the actor against type as the title character, a psychotic bisexual murderer, with a supporting cast that included Cate Blanchett, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Dogma also allowed Damon to cut against the grain of his nice-guy persona by casting him as a fallen angel. One of the year's more controversial films, the religious comedy reunited him with Affleck, as well as Smith, who had cast Damon in a bit role in his 1997 film, Chasing Amy. Damon next delivered noteworthy performances in a pair of low-grossing, low-key dramas, The Legend of Bagger Vance and All the Pretty Horses (both 2000), before appearing in director Steven Soderbergh's blockbuster remake of the Rat Pack classic Ocean's Eleven the following year. 2002 found the actor vacillating between earnest indie projects and major Hollywood releases. Behind the camera, Damon joined forces with filmmaker Chris Smith for the Miramax-sponsored Project Greenlight, a screenplay sweepstakes that gave the winner the opportunity to make a feature film and have the process recorded for all to see on an HBO reality series of the same name.
Toward the end of 2001, Damon scored a box office triumph with director Doug Liman's jet-setting espionage thriller The Bourne Identity. With this effort, Damon proved once again that he could open a film with just as much star power as his best friend and colleague. Better yet, Bourne reinforced Damon's standings with the critics, who found his performance understated and believable. The press responded less favorably, however, to Damon's reunion project with Van Sant, the experimental arthouse drama Gerry (2003). Also in 2003, Damon starred opposite Greg Kinnear in the Farrelly Brothers' broad comedy Stuck On You, as the shy half of a set of conjoined twins.
In 2004, Damon reprised the role of Jason Bourne in The Bourne Supremacy. As the actor's biggest leading-man success to date, it reinforced Damon's continued clout with audiences. Staying on the high-powered sequel bandwagon, he reunited with Brad Pitt and George Clooney for the big-budget neo-rat pack sequel Ocean's Twelve later that year. 2005 was somewhat lower-key for the actor, as he toplined Terry Gilliam's disappointing The Brothers Grimm and joined the sprawling ensemble of Syriana. After working seemingly non-stop for a few years, Damon claimed only a call from Martin Scorsese would get him to give up his resolve to take some time off. Sure enough, that call came. The Departed, an American remake of the Hong Kong mob-mole thriller Infernal Affairs, co-starred Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio. Playing the squirmy, opportunistic cop to DiCaprio's moral, tormented mobster, Damon underplayed his part to perfection while holding his own opposite his two co-stars. Damon then took the lead role in the Robert De Niro-directed CIA drama The Good Shepherd. In 2007, the actor once again returned to box office franchises for the sequels Ocean's Thirteen and The Bourne Ultimatum, the latter of which netted him -- by far -- the largest opening-weekend take of his career to that point. 2009 was another great year for the hard-working star. His turn as the unstable federal informant in Steven Soderbergh's wicked comedy The Informant! earned him rave reviews, and his supporting work in Clint Eastwood's Invicus, as the leader of the South African rugby team, earned Damon nominations from the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy. In 2010 he reteamed with Eastwood for the supernatural drama Hereafter, and continued working with the best filmmakers of his time by landing a supporting role in the Coen brothers remake of True Grit.
Meanwhile, Damon tried his hand at small screen work with a memorable recurring role as
Carol, an airline pilot and sometime boyfriend of Liz Lemon, on the NBC situation comedy 30 Rock. Additional big screen projects in 2011 included a reunion with Steven Soderbergh for the ensemble thriller Contagion, a lead as a congressman opposite Emily Blunt in director George Nelfi's romantic sci-fi thriller The Adjustment Bureau, and a starring role as a widower who purchases a zoo to bring his family back together in Cameron Crowe's comedy-drama We Bought a Zoo. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
Damon has since starred in commercially successful films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), the Ocean's trilogy, and the Bourne series, while also gaining critical acclaim for his performances in dramas such as Syriana (2005), The Good Shepherd (2006), and The Departed (2006). He garnered a Golden Globe nomination for portraying the title character in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and was nominated for an Academy Award as a supporting actor in Invictus (2009). He is one of the top forty highest grossing actors of all time. In 2007, Damon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine.
Damon took to role-playing as a child partly because his mother raised him "by the book,"[7] which made him feel as though "you couldn’t define yourself, because you already had been defined by her."[7] He attended Cambridge Alternative School (now Graham & Parks) and then Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he was a disciplined student[10] but had a "terrifying" first two years due to his short height at the time.[11] As a lonely adolescent, Damon has described feeling "such pain in wanting to belong somewhere and not belonging."[7] Damon performed as an actor in several high school theater productions;[2] he has credited his drama teacher at Rindge and Latin, Gerry Speca, as an important artistic influence, even though Damon recalls that, "Mr. Speca always seemed to trust Ben [Affleck] with the biggest roles and longest speeches."[10]
Damon attended Harvard University from 1988 to 1992 but did not graduate.[12] While at Harvard, he studied English and lived in Lowell House. He took part in student theater,[13] appearing in plays such as Burn This in Winthrop House and A... My Name is Alice (in one of the three male roles usually performed by women).[14] Damon dropped out of the university to pursue his acting career in Los Angeles because he mistakenly expected Geronimo: An American Legend to become a big success.[15] "By the time I figured out I had made the wrong decision, it was too late. I was living out here with a bunch of actors, and we were all scrambling to make ends meet," Damon has said.[16]
Acting career
Early years
Damon's first film role came in 1988 when he was eighteen, with a single line of dialogue in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza.[17] As a student at Harvard University, he continued to pursue acting and performed small roles in projects such as the TNT original film Rising Son and the ensemble prep-school drama School Ties.[18] In 1992, he landed a big part in Geronimo: An American Legend with Gene Hackman and Jason Patric.[18] Four years later, he auditioned for a small role in Cutthroat Island, but was turned away.[19] Damon next appeared as an opiate-addicted soldier in 1996's Courage Under Fire. He was required to lose 40 pounds (18 kg) in 100 days (for only two days of filming).[20][21] After following a self-prescribed diet and fitness regimen to lose the weight, Damon was told after filming that he was fortunate his heart did not shrink. He took medication for several years afterwards to correct the stress inflicted on his adrenal gland. Courage Under Fire gained him some critical notice, as The Washington Post labeled his performance "impressive;"[22] Damon has stated that it was worthwhile to risk his health in order to properly portray his character and show the industry how committed he was to his work as an actor.[17][21]
Also in 1997, Damon was the lead in the critically acclaimed drama The Rainmaker, where he was recognized by the Los Angeles Times as "a talented young actor on the brink of stardom."[27] After meeting Damon on the set of Good Will Hunting, director Steven Spielberg cast Damon as the titular character in the 1998 World War II film Saving Private Ryan.[15]
Damon has become known for choosing a wide variety of film roles,[28] from his portrayal of Patricia Highsmith's anti-hero Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)[17] to a fallen angel who discusses pop culture as intellectual subject matter with Affleck in Dogma (1999); from a conjoined twin in Stuck on You (2003), which got a mixed critical reception,[29] to the low budget experimental film Gerry (2002), which he co-wrote with Casey Affleck and Gus Van Sant. Damon garnered generally positive critical reaction for his Golden Globe-nominated[30] portrayal of Ripley, with Variety stating, "Damon outstandingly conveys his character's slide from innocent enthusiasm into cold calculation."[31]
Damon's attempts at essaying leading characters in romantic dramas such as 2000's All the Pretty Horses and The Legend of Bagger Vance were commercially and critically unsuccessful.[25]Variety said of his work in All the Pretty Horses: "[Damon] just doesn't quite seem like a young man who's spent his life amidst the dust and dung of a Texas cattle ranch. Nor does he strike any sparks with [Penelope] Cruz."[32] He was similarly deemed "uncomfortable being the center" of Robert Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance.[33]
From 2001 to 2007, Damon gained wider international recognition as part of two major film franchises. He co-starred as thief Linus Caldwell, alongside George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts, in Steven Soderbergh's 2001 remake of the Rat Pack's 1960 caper film Ocean's 11; the successful crime dramedy spawned two sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).[17] He played amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne in the hit action thrillers The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).[17]Entertainment Weekly placed Damon as an "action star" on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "When he first signed on as the ass-kicking amnesiac Jason Bourne in 2002, no one would've predicted that Damon would become the decade's best mixer of brawn and brains. Shows what we know."[34] In August 2007, financial magazine Forbes created a list of actors who generated the best box office performance related to their salaries; the list placed Damon as the most bankable star of the actors reviewed, revealing that Damon had averaged USD29 at the box office for every dollar he earned for his last three films.[35][36]
Damon had an uncredited cameo in Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth (2007) and another cameo in the 2008 Che Guevara biopic Che. He lent his voice to the English version of the animated film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, which was released in the United States in August 2009.[40] He also made a guest appearance in 2009 on the sixth season finale of Entourage as himself, where he tries to pressure Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) into donating to his charity OneXOne—a real foundation for which Damon is an ambassador—and gets increasingly irritated when Chase does not seem to comply.[41][42]
Damon next appeared in Steven Soderbergh's dark comedy, The Informant! (2009),[43] in which his Golden Globe-nominated work was described by Entertainment Weekly as such: "The star – who has quietly and steadily turned into a great Everyman actor – is in nimble control as he reveals his character's deep crazies."[44] Also in 2009, Damon portrayed South Africa national rugby union team captain François Pienaar in the Clint Eastwood-directed Nelson Mandela film Invictus, which is based on the 2008 John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation and features Morgan Freeman as Mandela.[45]Invictus earned Damon an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The New Republic observed, "It is not a demanding role, but the ever-more-actorly Damon brings it off with low-key charm and integrity."[46]
In 2010, Damon re-teamed with director Paul Greengrass, who directed him in the Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum, for the action thriller Green Zone, which flopped commercially[47] and received ambivalent reception from critics.[48]
In motion pictures that feature him either as a leading actor or as a supporting co-star, his films have grossed a total of U.S.$1.94[49] to U.S.$2.42 billion[50] (based on counting his roles as strictly lead or including supporting roles, respectively) at the North American box office, placing him in the top forty grossing actors of all time.
He has appeared as a guest star in an episode of Arthur, titled The Making of Arthur, as himself.[51] During Season 5 of 30 Rock, he appeared as guest star in the role of Liz Lemon's boyfriend in the episodes "I Do I Do," "The Fabian Strategy," "Live Show," and "Double Edged Sword."
Damon will next work with frequent collaborator Steven Soderbergh on a project as the longtime Liberace love interest, Scott Thorsen, opposite Michael Douglas in an upcoming film centered on the pianist's life.[53] He will also star in Elysium. He will shoot Promised Land, directed by Gus Van Sant, in April 2012.[54]
Producing career
Along with Affleck and producers Chris Moore and Sean Bailey, Damon founded the production company LivePlanet, through which the four created the documentary series Project Greenlight to find and fund worthwhile film projects from novice filmmakers.[55] The company produced and founded the short-lived mystery-hybrid series Push, Nevada, among other projects. Project Greenlight was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Reality Program in 2002, 2004, and 2005.[15]
In March 2010, Damon and Affleck teamed up again to sign a first-look production deal with Warner Bros.[56]
Damon was the founder of H2O Africa Foundation, the charitable arm of the Running the Sahara expedition,[15][57] which merged with WaterPartners to create Water.org in July 2009.[58] He, along with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub, is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities such as in Darfur.[59] Damon supports the ONE Campaign, which is aimed at fighting AIDS and poverty in Third World countries. He has appeared in their print and television advertising. Damon is also an ambassador for OneXOne, a non-profit foundation committed to supporting, preserving and improving the lives of children at home in Canada, the United States, and around the world.[60] Damon is also a spokesperson for Feeding America, the largest USA-focused hunger-relief organization, and a member of their Entertainment Council, participating in their Ad Council PSAs.
Damon is a board member of Tonic Mailstopper (formerly GreenDimes), a company that attempts to halt junk mail delivered to American homes each day.[61] Appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show on April 20, 2007, Damon promoted the organization's efforts to prevent the trees used for junk mail letters and envelopes from being chopped down. Damon stated: "For an estimated dime a day they can stop 70 percent of the junk mail that comes to your house. It's very simple, easy to do, great gift to give, I've actually signed up my entire family. It was a gift given to me this past holiday season and I was so impressed that I'm now on the board of the company."[62]
In 2011, the documentary which he narrated, American Teacher, opened in New York prior to national screening.[63]
In the media
Kimmel and Damon
Comedian Jimmy Kimmel at some point started stating near the end of his ABC television show Jimmy Kimmel Live!, "My apologies to Matt Damon; we ran out of time." The line is a gag lampooning instances where shows cannot feature their last guest due to time constraints. On September 12, 2006, after a segment highlighting the running gag and a lengthy introduction by Kimmel, Damon finally appeared on the show, only for Kimmel to apologetically cut his interview and head to credits, as Damon cursed him. This encounter was entirely planned by Kimmel and Damon.[64]
Kimmel's girlfriend at the time, comedian Sarah Silverman appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on January 31, 2008 and aired a clip where she is singing a song entitled "I'm Fucking Matt Damon." Damon appeared in the song with Silverman.[65] Kimmel responded by airing his own music video in which he announced, through song, that he is "fucking Ben Affleck." The video aired on February 24, 2008, and featured Affleck along with a host of celebrities, including Don Cheadle, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, and Robin Williams.
Later on, Kimmel's sidekick, Guillermo, appeared in a spoof of The Bourne Ultimatum, which starred Damon. He was then chased down by Damon as he cursed about Kimmel being behind all this.
The most recent encounter was titled "The Handsome Men's Club" which featured Kimmel, along with other "Handsome Men" including Matthew McConaughey, Rob Lowe and Lenny Kravitz. At the end of the skit Kimmel has a door slammed in his face by Damon stating that they had run out of time and then Damon continues with a sinister laugh.[66]
Political views
Damon appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews in December 2006 and, while discussing the ongoing war in Iraq, he stated: "I don't think that it's fair, as I said before, that it seems like we have a fighting class in our country that's comprised of people who have to go for either financial reasons, or ... if you're gonna send people to war, then that needs to be shared by everybody."[67]
On September 10, 2008, a video was released on YouTube by the Associated Press in which Damon criticized the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom he found unready to lead the country in case John McCain were to not make it through his first term. Damon referred to Palin as a "...bad Disney movie... 'I'm just a hockey mom from Alaska here to take on the White House,'" and added, "It's absurd ... I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. Because she’s gonna have the nuclear codes."[68]
Damon with wife Luciana Bozán Barroso at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival
Damon dated his Good Will Hunting co-star Minnie Driver.[70] He later had a two-year relationship with actress Winona Ryder.[17] From 2001 to 2003, he dated Odessa Whitmire, a former personal assistant of Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Affleck.[17] While filming Stuck on You in 2003,[71] Damon met Argentine-born Luciana Bozán Barroso (born 1976) in Miami, where she was working as a bartender.[72] They married in a private civil ceremony on December 9, 2005, at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau near New York City Hall.[72] Damon became stepfather to Barroso's young daughter, Alexia, from her previous marriage. The couple's first child together, daughter Isabella, was born on June 11, 2006.[73] On August 20, 2008, Barroso gave birth to the couple's second child, Gia Zavala Damon, both girls born in Miami, Florida.[74] On October 20, 2010, Barroso gave birth to their third daughter, Stella Zavala Damon, in New York.[75] As of 2011, Damon and his family reside in Manhattan.[56]
Damon enjoys playing poker and has competed in several World Series of Poker (WSOP) events[78][79] including the 2010 World Series of Poker main event.[80] He dropped $25,000 at the WSOP while researching his role as a professional poker player in Rounders (1998)[81] and after filming the movie Damon was busted out of the 1998 WSOP by poker professional Doyle Brunson.[82]
Damon won multiple awards for Good Will Hunting, a film he co-wrote with Ben Affleck. He was nominated for the Academy Award as "Best Actor in a Leading Role" and won for "Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen".[23][24]
On July 25, 2007, Damon became the 2,343rd person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[83] He reacted to the award by stating: "A few times in my life I've had these experiences that are just kind of too big to process and this looks like it's going to be one of those times."[84]
On March 27, 2010, Damon received the 24th Annual American Cinematheque Award, which was presented to him by Ben Affleck at a ceremony comprising roasts from Damon's colleagues and friends in the entertainment industry.[88]
Nominated — Central Ohio Film Critics Association for Actor of the Year (Also for True Grit and Hereafter)
Nominated — Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor
^Geier, Thom; Jeff Jensen, Tina Jordan, Margaret Lyons, Adam Markovitz, Chris Nashawaty, Whitney Pastorek, Lynette Rice, Josh Rottenberg, Missy Schwartz, Michael Slezak, Dan Snierson, Tim Stack, Kate Stroup, Ken Tucker, Adam B. Vary, Simon Vozick-Levinson, Kate Ward (2009-12-11). "The 100 Greatest Movies, TV Shows, Albums, Books, Characters, Scenes, Episodes, Songs, Dresses, Music Videos, And Trends That Entertained Us Over The Past 10 Years". Entertainment Weekly: (1079/1080):74–84.
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