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Matt Damon

Born 1970-10-08 in Cambridge, MA
An Actor
A Writer

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In Brief:

Matthew Paige Damon (born October 8, 1970) is an Academy Award-winning American screenwriter and actor.

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Bio:

Damon was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Kent Telfer Damon, an investment banker and Realtor, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early-childhood education professor. Damon has distant Scottish, Finnish and English ancestry; his maternal great-grandmother, Impi Nieminen, was Finnish. His brother Kyle is an accomplished artist and sculptor. He graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin in 1988, the only public high school in Cambridge, MA. Damon's first film job was one line in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza (1988).

He commenced studies at Harvard University as an English major in the fall of 1988 and should have graduated with the class of 1992, but kept leaving classes to pursue acting projects, including the TNT original movie Rising Son and ensemble prep-school drama School Ties. Although Damon needed only about twelve credits to graduate (about two semesters), he dropped out of university to pursue his acting career in Los Angeles after Geronimo: An American Legend was expected (incorrectly) to be a big success.

Damon appeared in small roles in a few movies before landing a big part in Geronimo: An American Legend with Gene Hackman and Jason Patric. He next appeared as a heroin-addicted soldier in 1996's Courage Under Fire. The war film was an opportunity for Damon to show his dedication by undergoing an extensive weight loss to help portray his character, as he was required to lose 40 pounds in 100 days (for only two days of shooting). After following a self-prescribed diet and fitness regimen to lose the weight, Damon was advised after the filming that he was fortunate his heart did not shrink. Damon was required to be on medication for several years to correct the stress inflicted on his adrenal gland, but maintains it was worthwhile to properly reflect his character's anguish and to show the industry how committed he was to the role.

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 and screenwriter William Goldman, the two changed the script around to focus on a young math genius trying to make his way in the world. Goldman's only advice was to agree with Reiner in that the script should lose its early thriller focus. This script eventually became Good Will Hunting, which earned both Damon and Affleck Oscars for Best Original Screenplay. 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 parodied this as a fictional version of himself in Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

Damon also founded Project Greenlight with Affleck and Chris Moore to find and fund worthwhile film projects from novice filmmakers. The televised documentary about the making of the film projects has twice been nominated for an Emmy.

Damon has been known to stray from the mainstream in his choice of roles, such as his portrayal of bisexual murderer Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor. He has also played a fallen angel who waxes pop culture as intellectual subject matter in Dogma, in which he costarred with Affleck (1999), a conjoined twin in Stuck on You, and he co-wrote with friend Casey Affleck and Gus Van Sant the minimalist dialogue for the low budget and experimental film Gerry. He also played amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne in the successful action movies The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy, with another Bourne sequel, The Bourne Ultimatum, expected on August 3, 2007.

Among other high profile roles, Damon played an oil industry analyst in Syriana. He is currently onscreen as an undercover mobster working for the Massachusetts State Police in Martin Scorsese's The Departed , a remake of the Hong Kong police thriller Infernal Affairs, and will be seen next in Robert DeNiro's The Good Shepherd as a career C.I.A. agent. 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.

It has recently been rumored that producer J.J. Abrams is trying to get Damon to play James T. Kirk in the eleventh Star Trek feature film, which has been rumored to be either a prequel to, or a reboot of, the original Star Trek series. Damon told journalists at a press conference on 15 September 2006 that he has not been approached about the film. Previously rumored for the part was Damon's long-time friend Ben Affleck.

In the satire film Team America: World Police, Matt Damon is portrayed as one of the members of F.A.G. (Field Actor's Guild) and is capable of only saying his own name.

While filming Stuck on You in 2003, Damon met Argentine-born Luciana Bozán Barroso at Crobar in Miami Beach, where she was working as a bartender. 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, in Miami.

Prior to meeting Barroso, Damon had dated actresses Claire Danes and Winona Ryder, as well as model Bridget Hall and Ben Affleck's former personal assistant, Odessa Whitmire. He wrote the female lead character of Skylar in 1997's Good Will Hunting based on his real-life former girlfriend, Skylar Satenstein, whom he dated while attending Harvard University. The part was played by Minnie Driver, whom Damon dated after filming the movie.

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Awards:

• 1997 - Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay - Good Will Hunting

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Filmography:

• The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
• Ocean's Thirteen (2007)
• The Good Shepherd (2006)
• Margaret (2006)
• The Departed (2006)
• Syriana (2005)
• The Brothers Grimm (2005)
• Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004)
• Ocean's Twelve (2004)
• The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
• Jersey Girl (2004)
• Eurotrip (2004)
• Stuck On You (2003)
• Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
• The Bourne Identity (2002)
• Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
• Gerry (2002)
• The Majestic (2001)
• Ocean's Eleven (2001)
• Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)
• Finding Forrester (2000)
• All the Pretty Horses (2000)
• The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)
• Titan A.E. (2000)
• The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
• Dogma (1999)
• Rounders (1998)
• Saving Private Ryan (1998)
• Good Will Hunting (1997)
• The Rainmaker (1997)
• Chasing Amy (1997)
• Glory Daze (1996)
• Courage Under Fire (1996)
• School Ties (1992)
• Mystic Pizza (1988)

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