In 1996, Damon was just another struggling beefcake actor with a few good supporting roles to his credit. But his unknown status changed overnight when director Francis Ford Coppola handpicked Damon to headline his adaptation of John Grisham's best-selling legal potboiler The Rainmaker. The unprepossessing Damon soon found himself engulfed by a flood of A-list scripts, directors and stars. Steven Spielberg snapped him up to star alongside Tom Hanks in World War II  Saving Private Ryan, and Miramax pounced on a script for a film titled Good Will Hunting that Damon and his actor pal Ben Affleck had been shopping around; Damon was cast in the lead role, and the project was propelled onto the fast track when Miramax put critical darling Gus Van Sant in the director's chair and signed box-office heavyweight Robin Williams as Damon's co-star. Starring in both The Bourne Identity and its sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, as well as Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Twelve.




Damon dropped out of Harvard to pursue acting.
He founded Project Greenlight to help budding filmmakers produce movies.
He's a politically active supporter of the Democratic party.
He remains close friends with Ben Affleck.




"Scared money never wins."
— Film Force, Aug. 22, 2005


Wife: Luciana Barroso, married Dec. 9, 2005

Cheapest Airline

ANI Reporting July 1, 2007

Matt Damon is a bit in awe of the way Brad Pitt handles his life in the public eye, for he personally couldn't live the same way.

Pitt has always been a huge movie star, but his private life came under intense media scrutiny due to relationships with some of Hollywood's leading ladies such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Juliette Lewis.

The public interest in his life interested after his marriage to former 'Friends' star Jennifer Aniston, and his relationship to Angelina Jolie that led to the collapse of his marriage.

Damon admits that he often wonders how his Ocean's Thirteen co-star manages to cope will all the fame, and is glad that he can lead a relatively normal life compared to Pitt's."I honestly don't know how he does it. He can't walk down the street anywhere, literally anywhere," Contactmusic quoted him, as saying.

"They're in Prague right now because Angelina's working, and he can't walk down the street. I went to Prague and I didn't sign an autograph for six months, and it was great!" he added.

Jolie is currently in Prague shooting for new flick 'Wanted' in which she plays an assassin.