Biography
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts the son of an investment banker and realtor, Kent T. Damon, and an early-childhood education professor, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, who are both American born but of British, Finnish and German ancestry. Although he spent his early years growing up in Newton, Massachusetts living with his mother, Nancy, and brother Kyle T. Damon, an accomplished mixed media artist, he remained very close to his father. His family eventually moved back to Cambridge, MA and he attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin, the only public High School in Cambridge, MA where he helped the school win many state drama festivals. Damon's first film job was one line in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza (1988). He went on to attend Harvard University, but dropped out a few credits shy of graduating to pursue his acting career, a move that brought him to Los Angeles.
Acting career
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, which almost proved a dangerous move that put Damon on doctor's orders.
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. This 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). Much of the credit for getting the film made goes to both executive producer Kevin Smith and Harvey Weinstein, Miramax Films chairman, to whom Smith gave the screenplay.
Damon also founded Project Greenlight with Affleck and Chris Moore to find and fund worthwhile film projects from novice filmmakers.
Damon has been known to stray from the mainstream in his choice of roles, such as his portrayal of the cold-blooded killer and money-obsessed homosexual Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley, a fallen angel who waxes pop culture as intellectual subject matter in Dogma, in which he costarred with Affleck (1999), and the low budget and experimental film "Gerry".
Damon 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 in 2007.
He will next be seen onscreen in Martin Scorsese's The Departed as an undercover mobster in the Boston State Police force and Robert DeNiro's The Good Shepherd as a career man in the C.I.A.. Both films are considered heavy awards contenders. He also has a cameo role in Kenneth Lonergan's film "Margaret", also due in late 2006.
Personal life
Damon married girlfriend Luciana Bozan Barroso in a private civil ceremony on December 9, 2005 in New York City hall with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his wife's daughter the only persons in attendance. Damon became a stepfather to Barroso's young daughter, Alexia, from a previous marriage.
The couple had been dating since April 2004. While Damon's publicist refused to comment on rumors the two were expecting their first child, it is now understood that they are expecting a child mid-2006. Soon after the wedding, George Clooney told Entertainment Tonight that when he heard the news of Luciana's pregnancy he wrote in a message to Damon (with the gift of a case of champagne) that he should "make an honest woman of her." The next day, he was blown away to hear of Damon's wedding, and remarked "I didn't mean straight away!"
Trivia
In the film Team America: World Police, Damon is portrayed as simple, capable of only saying his name. However, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone say they like Matt and are friendly with him, and that he was going to be portrayed differently until his puppet "came out wrong". Matt has laughed about the characterisation to journalists, including saying his name as per the movie and saying he would have been offended if they didn't include him in the movie.
Contrary to a popular and wide-spread rumor, Matt did not break up with former girlfriend Minnie Driver on the Oprah Winfrey show in early 1998. They had broken up agreeably a number of weeks before the show, but Driver claimed that she was unaware until she saw the show and then sought sympathy from the press as a 'wronged woman', making Damon out to be a cad. This is false, but was not publicly denied by Damon until years later when everybody believed the rumor to be true. Driver and her sister later admitted that the rumor was false, and that the break-up had occurred weeks before the show.
Damon and Affleck are not remaking "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", and never had any intention of remaking the classic film. This was a false rumor spread by a tabloid magazine.
Selected filmography
Mystic Pizza (1988) (One line)
School Ties (1992)
Courage Under Fire (1996)
Glory Daze (1996) (Cameo)
Chasing Amy (1997)
The Rainmaker (1997)
Good Will Hunting (1997) (also co-writer)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Rounders (1998)
Dogma (1999)
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
Titan A.E. (2000) (voice)
The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)
All the Pretty Horses (2000)
Finding Forrester (2000) (Cameo)
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) (Cameo)
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
The Majestic (2001) (voice only)
Gerry (2002) (also co-writer)
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) (voice)
The Bourne Identity (2002)
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) (Cameo)
Stuck On You (2003)
Eurotrip (2004) (Cameo)
Jersey Girl (2004) (Cameo)
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Syriana (2005)
The Departed (2006) (post-production)
Margaret (2006) (post-production)
The Good Shepherd (2006) (post-production)
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) (currently announced start of production)
