| Actor
Matt Damon
Most of us know Matt Damon as the hunky leading man from films
like "The Bourne Identity" and "Oceans 11." But did you know
that he got straight As in school? Or that he met actor Ben
Affleck and began their lifelong friendship at age 10?
Matt
always wanted to be an actor. He grew up in Boston, played
Little League, and had a pretty normal childhood. He appeared
in commercials from time to time. To gain experience acting,
He and Ben—who were inseparable—signed on as extras
in every movie they could. They combined their love of baseball
and movies by both becoming extras in "Field of Dreams".
His
good grades got Matt into Harvard, where he majored in English.
But then he dropped out just 12 credits short of graduating
and moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting full time. By that
time, Ben was living in L.A. too, and Matt slept on his couch.
Matt
had a string of small parts in movies, but it took a while
for him to become a big star. He and Ben had written a script
for a movie called "Good Will Hunting." Once that movie got
made, it turned both Matt and his childhood friend into household
names, and more and more movies followed. No more sleeping
on couches for this actor!
In His Own Words
"If
anybody wanted to photograph my life, they'd get bored in
a day. ‘Here's Matt at home learning his lines. Here's
Matt researching in aisle six of his local library’.
A few hours of that and they'd go home."
"It's just better to be yourself than to try to be some
version of what you think the other person wants."
Fun Facts
-
His middle name is Paige, which was his mother’s maiden
name
-
His uncle is the oldest person to have swum the English
channel
-
Voted People magazine’s "Sexiest Man Alive" in 2007
-
He and Ben Affleck played Dungeons and Dragons together
as children
-
Won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for "Good
Will Hunting"
-
Has a brother who is a sculptor
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