matt damon | biography (b. 1970) | gallery

Matt Damon

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SYRIANA

B I O G .

Actor

Date of birth:

8 October 1970
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Height:

Matthew Paige Damon

Height:

5' 10"

Spouse:

Heidi Henderson (5 March 1989 - 1992) (divorced) 2 children
Mary Beth Hurt (1971 - 1981) (divorced)

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Facts
MATT DAMON is one of Hollywood’s most sought-after talents. He is currently filming The Good Shepherd for director Robert De Niro, in which he stars with Angelina Jolie. Most recently he completed shooting The Departed for director Martin Scorsese, starring alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson.
Earlier this year audiences saw Damon in The Brothers Grimm, starring with Heath Ledger for director Terry Gilliam. He also recently reprised his roles as Linus Caldwell in Ocean’s Twelve for director Steven Soderbergh, and as Jason Bourne in the box office hit The Bourne Supremacy, the second installment in the series following The Bourne Identity.
In 2004, Damon starred with Greg Kinnear in the Farrelly Brothers comedy Stuck on You, and in 2002, in Gerry with Casey Affleck for director Gus Van Sant.
In 2000, audiences saw Damon star in The Legend of Bagger Vance, for director Robert Redford and in the film version of the Cormick McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses for director Billy Bob Thornton.
In 1999, Damon starred in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor. That same year he rejoined Chasing Amy director Kevin Smith and pal Ben Affleck in Dogma, a film about a pair of outcast angels.
In 1998, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with longtime friend Ben Affleck for the critically acclaimed drama Good Will Hunting, a coming-of-age story about a young mathematical genius who, due to his upbringing in inner-city Boston, can’t live up to his potential. Damon also earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his work in the title role. In addition, both he and Affleck received a Golden Globe Award for their screenplay, and Damon also garnered a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. The film, directed by Gus Van Sant, received seven additional Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture and a win for Robin Williams for Best Supporting Actor.
In the same year, Damon starred in the title role of the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan for Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg, and in John Dahl’s Rounders, about a reformed gambler who is drawn back into New York’s underground poker world to help a recently paroled friend pay off loan sharks.
In 1997, Damon made a cameo appearance in Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy. In the same year, he starred as an idealistic young attorney in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rainmaker, based on the best-selling novel by John Grisham.
Damon first gained the public’s eye in 1996, when he gave a vivid performance in Courage Under Fire, in which he portrayed a guilt-ridden Persian Gulf War soldier tormented by an incident that happened in the heat of battle.
The versatile young actor made his feature film debut in 1988 in a small role in the critically well-received Mystic Pizza. He went on to play Brian Dennehy’s medical school dropout in the TV movie Rising Son (TNT, 1990) and gained further attention when he returned to the big screen as a fascist preppy in School Ties (1992).
For director Walter Hill, Damon enjoyed a sizeable supporting role as the green second lieutenant new to the West who narrates Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), and in 1995 he appeared in The Good Old Boys, directed by Tommy Lee Jones for TNT.
In 1998, Damon and Affleck partnered with Good Will Hunting associate producer and longtime friend Chris Moore to form Pearl Street Productions, now known as LivePlanet. This unique company produces feature films, television series and new media projects. LivePlanet has produced three Emmy-nominated seasons of Project Greenlight, the documentary series chronicling the making of an independent feature film by a first time writer and director. The three Project Greenlight films produced have been Stolen Summer, The Battle of Shaker Heights and Feast. Damon’s latest LivePlanet project is Running the Sahara, a documentary about three men running across the Sahara Desert, directed by Academy Award-winner James Moll.
Damon, who attended Harvard University, first gained acting experience at the American Repertory Theatre as well as other Boston-based theatre venues.