Matt Damon
Damon at the Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, 7 December 2001
Birth name	Matthew Paige Damon
Born	September 8 1970 (1970--) (age 37) Cambridge, Massachusetts U.S.
Occupation	Actor, screenwriter, producer
Years active	1988 - present
Spouse(s)	Luciana Bozán Barroso (2005-present)
Awards Academy Awards Best Original Screenplay 1997 Good Will Hunting Golden Globe Awards Best Screenplay 1998 Good Will Hunting

Matthew Paige Damon (born October 8, 1970) is an American actor and screenwriter. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his screenwriting in Good Will Hunting and was nominated for his lead performance in the same film. Growing steadily in popularity from the 1997 film, he has since matched up with A-list actors in mainstream films, and today is rated amongst the top actors in Hollywood.

With his wife, Luciana Bozán Barroso, Damon has a daughter, and also a stepdaughter from Barroso's prior marriage. He has won multiple awards for his film performances and is one of the top twenty-five highest grossing actors of all time. Damon has been actively involved in several charitable organizations, including the ONE Campaign and H2O Africa Foundation. Damon currently has four upcoming films that will debut between 2007 and 2009. In his most recent roles, he portrayed Jason Bourne in The Bourne Ultimatum, and had an uncredited cameo in Youth Without Youth. His next upcoming role will be in Margaret, due in 2007.

Early life

Damon was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Kent Telfer Damon, a stockbroker, realtor, and tax preparer, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education professor at Lesley University.^[1] In an interview with Mail on Sunday, Damon responded that his grandfather is probably the most "impressive person he knows," stating, "He's Finnish, a very proud man, who would never take help from anybody. He came to America when he was a little boy, grew up during the Depression and sold shoes. He always used to tell us the story about getting a raise of three and a half cents, and how that was an incredible moment of success. He's extraordinary."^[2] Damon has a brother, Kyle, who is an accomplished sculptor and artist.^[3] Damon and his family lived in Newton for the first two years of his life, but after his parents divorced, Damon and his brother moved with his mother to Cambridge.^[4]

Damon grew up next door to actor Ben Affleck and historian and author Howard Zinn,^[4][5] whose biographical film You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train^[6] and audio version of A People's History of the United States Damon narrated.

Damon attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, the only public high school in Cambridge, and performed in several theater productions.^[7] He graduated from the school in 1988 and began attending Harvard University in the same year. Damon could have graduated with the class of 1992, but kept leaving classes to pursue acting projects, including the TNT original film Rising Son and ensemble prep-school drama School Ties. While at Harvard, he concentrated in English and lived in Lowell House. He did not take part in student theater generally, but did appear in A... My Name is Alice (in one of the three male roles usually performed by women).^[8] Damon dropped out of the university with twelve units left to graduate to pursue his acting career in Los Angeles after he expected (incorrectly) to be a big success.^[9]

Career

Early career

His first film role came in 1988 when he was 16, with a single line of dialogue in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza. Damon appeared in small roles before landing a big part in with Gene Hackman and Jason Patric. He next appeared as a heroin-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).^[10][11] 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.^[11] Damon took medication for several years afterwards to correct the stress inflicted on his adrenal gland, and has stated that it was worthwhile to properly portray his character and show the industry how committed he was to the role.^[11]

Breakthrough

Damon and actor Ben Affleck, close personal friends as well as co-stars in several films, developed a thriller about a young math genius, which they pitched around Hollywood. Receiving advice from writer/director/actor Rob Reiner, screenwriter William Goldman, and their friend writer/director Kevin Smith,^[9] the two changed the script around to focus on a young math genius trying to make his way in the world. This script eventually became Good Will Hunting, and received nine Academy Awards nominations, earning Damon and Affleck Oscars for Best Original Screenplay.^[12] Damon was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for the same film (which netted an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for co-star Robin Williams). Damon and Affleck were each paid salaries of $500,000, and the film grossed over $100 million at the box office.^[9] Damon parodied his role in the film in Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. After watching Good Will Hunting, director Steven Spielberg cast Damon in the World War II film Saving Private Ryan.^[9]

Damon founded Project Greenlight with Affleck and Chris Moore to find and fund worthwhile film projects from novice filmmakers.^[13] The televised documentary about the making of the film projects has been nominated for an Emmy three times.^[9]

Damon has been known to choose a wide variety of film roles, from his portrayal of bisexual murderer Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, to a fallen angel who discusses pop culture as intellectual subject matter in Dogma, in which he co-starred with Affleck (1999); from a conjoined twin in Stuck on You, to a film he co-wrote with friend Casey Affleck and Gus Van Sant with limited dialogue—the low budget experimental film Gerry. Damon has been part of two major film franchises. He played amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne in the successful action movies The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum and starred as the youthful, optimistic thief, Linus Caldwell, opposite George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts in Steven Soderbergh's remake of the Rat Pack's 1960 caper classic Ocean's Eleven. The successful crime dramedy spawned two sequels: Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen.

Among other high profile roles, Damon played a fictionalized version of Wilhelm Grimm in Terry Gilliam's fantasy adventure The Brothers Grimm and an energy analyst in Syriana. He was recently onscreen in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd as a career CIA agent, and played an undercover mobster working for the Massachusetts State Police in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning The Departed, a remake of the Hong Kong police thriller Infernal Affairs. He also has a supporting role in Kenneth Lonergan's film Margaret and an uncredited cameo in Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth, both due in 2007.

In 2007, rumors stated that producer J.J. Abrams was trying to get Damon to play James T. Kirk in the eleventh Star Trek feature film. Damon told IGN on July 20, 2007 that he would not be in the film, as the director was casting someone significantly younger, and speculation about his casting had been solely based on Internet rumors.^[14]

Box office performance

In motion pictures that feature him as a leading actor or supporting co-star, his films have grossed a total of $1.92^[15] to $2.28 billion^[16] (based on counting his roles as strictly lead or including supporting roles) at the North American box office, placing him in the top twenty-five grossing actors of all time. 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 $29 at the box office for every dollar he earned for his last three films.^[17]

Upcoming films

Damon's future projects include three films that will debut between 2007 and 2009. In 2007, he will portray Mr. Aaron in the drama Margaret. He also has signed on for The Informant, which currently does not have release date, but is scheduled to start filming on 15 April, 2008.^[18] The film will have Damon rejoin Steven Soderbergh and is based on the true story of Mark Whitacre, a corporate whistleblower who wore a wire for two and a half years for the FBI. Whitacre was a high-level executive at a Fortune 500 company, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), in one of the largest price-fixing cases in history.^[19] However, the script for the movie was written by Scott Z. Burns using Kurt Eichenwald’s book, The Informant. Kurt Eichenwald is the investigative reporter who recently lost his credibility and his career in journalism because of unethical payments, and possibly illegal, in a recent child pornography case.^[20][21] The debate continues whether the filming will continue because of the Eichenwald child pornography controversy and his lack of credibility.^[20][21] James Lieber, a lawyer who authored Rats in the Grain, painted a much different picture about Whitacre than Eichenwald, portraying Whitacre as an American hero who was overpowered by ADM’s vast political clout.^[22] Dean Paisley, formerly 25 years with the FBI and supervisor of the ADM case, has supported a Whitacre Pardon for several years which is more in line with Lieber's conclusion than Eichenwald's.^[23]

Personal life

Damon has had relationships with several actresses throughout his career. Damon had a three-year relationship with actress Winona Ryder.^[24] He also dated Odessa Whitmire, who has worked as a personal assistant for Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Affleck, from 2001 to 2003.^[25] His relationship with Good Will Hunting co-star Minnie Driver reportedly ended when Damon announced their break-up on The Oprah Winfrey Show, though both actors have repeatedly denied this. Damon later stated that he was "sick and tired" of hearing the story, saying it was false. Driver's sister allegedly told Cosmo that the couple had broken up before the show was taped.^[26] Although the media often claimed Damon dated actress Eva Mendes, both have denied any relationship, with Mendes saying "it wasn't true."^[27][28]

Damon met Argentine-born Luciana Bozan Barroso in Miami, where she was working as a bartender.^[29] They married in a private civil ceremony on December 9, 2005, in New York City Hall. 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.^[30]

Philanthropy

Damon, along with frequent co-stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt, supports ONE, a campaign fighting AIDS and poverty in Third World countries. He has appeared in their print and television advertising.

Damon is a board member of GreenDimes.com, an organization that attempts to halt the tons of junk mail delivered to American homes each day.^[31][32] 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 per cent 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."^[33]

Damon is one of the founders of , an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities such as in Darfur, along with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub.^[34] He is also the founder of H2O Africa Foundation, the charitable arm of the Running the Sahara expedition.^[9][35]

Interests and notable events

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel often says: "Our apologies to Matt Damon, we ran out of time" near the end of his ABC television show Jimmy Kimmel Live, 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. Damon told him "to go and fuck himself" and cursed Kimmel out during the credits. Kimmel later confirmed to USA Weekend that the skit was entirely planned and Damon willingly played along.^[36] Kimmel's girlfriend, comedian Sarah Silverman, also used this line at the end of the 2007 MTV movie awards. This gag was also used again when Guillermo interviewed Matt at the Ocean's 13 premiere, with Damon asking "Are you with Kimmel?"

Damon appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews in December 2006 and discussed the ongoing war in Iraq. Responding to Chris Matthews, Damon 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, I don't think that that is fair and if you're gonna send people to war ... then that needs to be shared by everybody."^[37]

In the United Kingdom, Damon recently has been a subject of a British radio show stunt, which a member of the public have to scream out Damon's name in a public area in the same manner of that of the movie, .^[38]

Awards and honors

• Damon won multiple awards for Good Will Hunting, a film he co-wrote with Ben Affleck. He was nominated for the Academy Award "Best Actor in a Leading Role" and won "Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen".^[39]
• On July 25, 2007, Damon became the 2,343rd person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[40] Damon reacted to the award, 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."^[41]
• Damon has been nominated for four Screen Actors Guild awards and seven MTV Movie Awards for various films. Additionally, he has three Emmy nominations for his work on the first three seasons of Project Greenlight.^[39]

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1988	Mystic Pizza	Steamer	One line
1992	School Ties	Charlie Dillon
1993		2nd Lt. Britton Davis
1996	Glory Daze	Edgar Pudwhacker	Cameo
	Courage Under Fire	Specialist Ilario
1997	Good Will Hunting	Will Hunting	Also co-writer; Salary of $500,000[9]
	The Rainmaker	Rudy Baylor
	Chasing Amy	Shawn Oran	Cameo
1998	Rounders	Mike McDermott	Salary of $600,000[42]
	Saving Private Ryan	Private James Francis Ryan
1999	The Talented Mr. Ripley	Tom Ripley	Salary of $5,000,000[1]
	Dogma	Loki
2000	Finding Forrester	Steven Sanderson	Cameo
	All the Pretty Horses	John Grady Cole	Salary of $5,500,000[2]
	The Legend of Bagger Vance	Rannulph Junuh	Salary of $7,000,000[3]
	Titan A.E.	Cale Tucker	Voice only
2001	The Majestic	Luke Trimble	Voice only
	Ocean's Eleven	Linus Caldwell	Salary of $5,000,000[4]
	Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back	Himself	Cameo
2002	Confessions of a Dangerous Mind	Matt, bachelor #2	Cameo
	The Bourne Identity	Jason Bourne	Salary of $10,000,000[9]
		Spirit	Voice
	Gerry	Gerry	Also co-writer
2003	Stuck on You	Bob
2004		Narrator	Voice
	Ocean's Twelve	Linus Caldwell
	The Bourne Supremacy	Jason Bourne	Salary of $26,000,000[17]
	Jersey Girl	PR Exec #2	Cameo
	Eurotrip	Donny	Cameo
2005	Syriana	Bryan Woodman
	The Brothers Grimm	Will (Wilhelm) Grimm	Salary of $10,000,000[5]
2006	The Good Shepherd	Edward Wilson
	The Departed	Colin Sullivan
2007	The Bourne Ultimatum	Jason Bourne
	Ocean's Thirteen	Linus Caldwell
	Running the Sahara	Narrator, Executive Producer	Post-production
	Margaret	Mr. Aaron	Completed
2009	The Informant	Mark Whitacre	Pre-production
	Imperial Life in the Emerald City		Pre-production

References

Further reading

• Altman, Sheryl and Berk, Sheryl. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck: On and Off Screen. HarperCollins Publishers, 1998. ISBN 0061071455.
• Bego, Mark. Matt Damon: Chasing a Dream. Andrews Mcmeel Pub, 1998. ISBN 0836271319.
• Diamond, Maxine and Hemmings, Harriet. Matt Damon a Biography. Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 1998. ISBN 0671026496.
• Nickson, Chris. Matt Damon: An Unauthorized Biography. Renaissance Books, 1999. ISBN 1580630723.

External links

• Matt Damon at the Internet Movie Database
• Matt Damon at Yahoo! Movies
• Matt Damon at TV.com
• Matt Damon at the Notable Names Database
• Matt Damon at People.com
• Matt Damon on Moviefone
• Matt Damon News Column
• GreenDimes Matt Damon, board member
• Not On Our Watch: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Jerry Weintraub
• Matt Damon Interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos