Born in the Cambridge area of Boston, Matt Damon’s parents separated when he was two years old and he and his brother moved to close by Cambridge. A dazzling youngster, Matt was a ‘straight A’ student with a love of baseball. When Matt was only ten, he befriended a local boy by the name of Ben Affleck and the pair became life-long acquaintances. Both young boys developed an attraction to acting and Damon would often be found trying out as an extra in any movies shot in his local area.

At the tender young age of sixteen, and much to their parent’s displeasure, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck relocated to New York in search of their fame and fortune. Things got off to a excellent start for Damon when he was cast beside Julia Roberts in ‘Mystic Pizza’ (1988) starring Julia Roberts, about three young teen girls who come of age while working at a pizza parlor in Mystic Connecticut. However, this hopeful start wasn’t to continue, and before long Matt Damon decided to take up drama classes at Harvard with an eye to moving onto the Yale School Of Drama after graduation. Always the clear student, Damon received one of the first varsity letters in dramatics, before leaving Harvard with only 12 credits still needed for graduation.

Still seeking that illusive big break, Matt did the rounds of auditions, losing out on some nice roles and turning down others that went on to become hits for other young hopefuls such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Joaquin Phoenix. Damon next turned his attentions to working on a screenplay that he and Ben Affleck had written while studying at Harvard. The play, ‘Good Will Hunting’, originally picked up interest from a top movie studio, although worries were cast as to whether Damon or Affleck were right for the lead roles. While searching for the right deal for the screenplay, Damon's profile was mounting steadily thanks to parts in such films as Francis Ford Coppola's ‘The Rainmaker’ with Claire Danes, based on the John Grisham book.

Soon after this, Miramax decided to pay Damon and Affleck half a million dollars for ‘Good Will Hunting’ and Robin Williams joined the venture. Released in December 1997, ‘Good Will Hunting’ was an instantaneous hit, easily topping the $100 million mark and picking up nine nominations at the 1998 Academy Awards. Robin Williams walked away with the Best Supporting Actor award while Matt and Ben became the humble winners of a Best Original Screenplay award. Matt Damon’s star had well and truly shown now and over the next few years he appeared in hits such as ‘Saving Private Ryan’ with Tom Hanks, ‘Rounders’ with Edward Norton, ‘All The Pretty Horses’ with Penelope Cruz and ‘Dogma’, about an abortion clinic worker with a special heritage who is called upon to save the existence of humanity from being negated by two renegade angels trying to exploit a loophole and re-enter Heaven..

Choosing his projects intelligently, Matt managed to make the right career moves without opting for high-earning, quick turnaround movies favored by some. Displaying his menacing side in ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ (1999), alongside Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett, set in late 1950's New York, Tom Ripley, a young underachiever, is sent to Europe to retrieve a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy, named Dickie Greenleaf. But when the errand fails, Ripley kills the playboy and begins to assume his life , he won a new multitude of fans proving his talents lay above and beyond his sparkling, boy-next-door looks. Next was the romantic drama "The Legend of Bagger Vance" (2000) starring Will Smith, about a down-and-out golfer who attempts to recover his game and his life with help from a mystical caddy. Then came the drama "Finding Forrester" (2000) with Sean Connery, about an young teen writing prodigy who finds a mentor in a reclusive author. 

The crime comedy "Ocean's Eleven" (2001) was another huge hit that allowed Damon the chance to work with heavy-hitter stars like George Clooney and Brad Pitt, in this flick about Danny Ocean and his ten accomplices plan to rob three Las Vegas casinos simultaneously. Damon also took the artistic freedom to work on ventures such as ‘Project Greenlight’, which provided a inspired vehicle for new movie making talent. The television show behind the project was a great accomplishment and earned Matt Damon and Ben Affleck an Emmy nomination. The pair continued to work on a number of productions having created Pearl Street Productions together with Chris Moore In 1998.

It was with ‘The Bourne Identity’ in 2002 where Matt Damon made a comeback to the big screen, a role that earned him a enormous $10 million. The film, about a man who is picked up by a fishing boat, bullet-riddled and without memory, then races to elude assassins and recover from amnesia is based on the Robert Ludlum novel. The film was a worldwide success and spawned the sequels ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’.

‘Ocean's Twelve’ marked another turning point in the young actor’s career as did ‘The Brother’s Grimm’ with Heath Ledger about two con-men who convince villagers they're being mistreated by nasty spirits, and then cash in as exorcists. Next for Damon was the dramatic thriller "Syriana" 2005) with George Clooney, a politically-charged epic about the state of the oil industry in the hands of those personally involved and affected by it. Next was the smash hit crime thriller "The Departed" (2006) with an all-star cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg, about two men from opposite sides of the law who are undercover within the Massachusetts State Police and the Irish mafia, but violence and bloodshed boil when discoveries are made, and the moles are dispatched to find out their enemy's identities. 

Rounding out the tear was the Robert DeNiro thriller "The Good Shepard" (2006) with Robert DeNiro and Angelina Jolie, about the tumultuous early history of the Central Intelligence Agency and how it is viewed through the prism of one man's life. Damon started of the following year with the drama "Margaret" (2008) about a young woman who witnesses a bus accident, and is caught up in the aftermath, where the question of whether or not it was intentional affects many people's lives. 

The year 2009 had several Mat Damon projects including the war drama "Green Zone" (2009), a thriller about a pair of CIA agents on the trail of certain Weapons of Mass Destruction and a foreign correspondent following their mission. Inspired by Imperial Life in the Emerald City. Next was the biography "The Human Factor" (2009) with Morgan Freeman, a look at the life of Nelson Mandela after the fall of apartheid in South Africa during his first term as president when he campaigned to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup event as an opportunity to unite his countrymen.  Matt Damon was then cast and hired for the crime thriller "The Informant" (2009), where the U.S. government decides to go after an agri-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, vice president turned informant Mark Whitacre. 

On the private front Matt has dated a number of his co-stars including Winona Ryder and Minnie Driver, whom he prominently ditched during an appearance on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’. However, the qualified bachelor married interior designer, Luciana Barroso, in a top secret ceremony in New York in December 2005, after meeting during the filming of his movie 'Stuck on You'. On 11th June 2006 Matt and Luciana's first child together, Isabella, was born in Miami. Luciana has one other child, Alexia, from a previous marriage.

• Also Credited As:
  Matthew Paige Damon
• Born:
  on 10/08/1970 in Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Job Titles:
  Actor, Screenwriter

Family

• Brother: Kyle Damon. Born 1967
• Daughter: Isabella Damon. Born June 11, 2006; mother is Luciana Bozan
• Father: Kent Damon. Born 1943; divorced from Damon's mother 1973
• Mother: Nancy Carlsson-Paige. Divorced from Damon's father 1973

Education

• Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, English, 1988-1991

Add Your Link / Exchange Links

[Get FREE Product Samples At FreeLance Free Stuff!]

See Also: Claire Danes, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Heath Ledger, Robert De Niro, 
 Matthew McConaughey, George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner, Jimmy Fallon, Kevin Bacon, Will Smith,
Val Kilmer, John Travolta, Kevin Costner, Samuel L. Jackson, Ryan Phillippe, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jack Black,
Nick Stahl, Benjamin Bratt, Mike Myers, Michael Cera , Hanson, Bruce Willis, Zac Efron, Daniel Radcliffe