Matt Damon

Matthew Paige Damon ( ; born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, film producer, and screenwriter. He was ranked among ''Forbes'' most bankable stars in 2007, and in 2010 was one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. He has received various awards and nominations, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for three British Academy Film Awards and seven Primetime Emmy Awards.

Damon made his acting debut in the film '' Mystic Pizza'' (1988) before gaining prominence in 1997 when he and Ben Affleck wrote and starred in '' Good Will Hunting'', which won them the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay. He established himself as a leading man by starring as Tom Ripley in '' The Talented Mr. Ripley'' (1999), Jason Bourne in the ''Bourne'' franchise (2002–2007; 2016), and Linus Caldwell in the ''Ocean's'' trilogy (2001–2007). He received a nomination for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for playing an astronaut stranded on Mars in '' The Martian'' (2015). He also acted in '' The Rainmaker'' (1997), ''Saving Private Ryan'' (1998), ''Syriana'' (2005), ''The Departed'' (2006), '' The Informant!'' (2009), '' Invictus'' (2009), '' True Grit'' (2010), '' Contagion'' (2011), ''Ford v Ferrari'' (2019), '' Stillwater'' (2021), ''Air'' (2023), and '' Oppenheimer'' (2023), the last of which is his highest-grossing feature.

On television, Damon portrayed Scott Thorson in the HBO biopic '' Behind the Candelabra'' (2013), for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. He was Emmy-nominated for his guest role in ''30 Rock'' in 2011 and hosting ''Saturday Night Live'' in 2019. He also produced the reality series ''Project Greenlight'' (2001–2015) as well as the film '' Manchester by the Sea'' (2016). Damon has performed voice-over work in both animated and documentary films as well as established two production companies with Affleck, Artists Equity, and the former, Pearl Street Films. He has been involved in charitable work with organizations including the One Campaign, H2O Africa Foundation, Feeding America, and Water.org.

Early life and education

Matthew Paige Damon was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 8, 1970, the second son of Kent Telfer Damon, a stockbroker, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education professor at Lesley University. His father had English and Scottish ancestry, while his mother is of Finnish and Swedish descent; her family surname had been changed from Pajari to Paige. Damon and his family moved to Newton for two years. His parents divorced when he was two years old, and he and his brother returned with their mother to Cambridge, where they lived in a six-family communal house. His brother, Kyle, is a sculptor and artist. Damon has said that, as a teenager, he had felt lonely, as if he did not belong, and that his mother's by-the-book approach to child-rearing had made it hard for him to define his own identity.

Damon attended Cambridge Alternative School and Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and was a good student. He acted in several high-school theater productions, and has credited his drama teacher, Gerry Speca, as having had an important artistic influence on him, although noting wryly that Speca had given Ben Affleck (Damon's close friend and schoolmate) the "biggest roles and longest speeches". He attended Harvard University as a member of the class of 1992, residing in Lowell House, but left before receiving his degree to take a lead role in the film '' Geronimo: An American Legend''. While at Harvard, as an exercise for an English class, Damon wrote an essay in the form of a film treatment which was later developed into the screenplay '' Good Will Hunting'' (for which he received an Academy Award). At Harvard, Damon was a member of the Delphic Club, one of the university's elite Final Clubs. In 2013, he was awarded the Harvard Arts Medal.

Career

1988–1999: Early work and breakthrough

Damon entered Harvard University in 1988, where he appeared in student theater plays, such as '' Burn This'' and ''A... My Name is Alice''. Later, he made his film debut at the age of 18, with a single line of dialogue in the romantic comedy '' Mystic Pizza''. As a student at Harvard, he acted in small roles such as in the TNT original film ''Rising Son'' and the ensemble prep-school drama '' School Ties''. He left the school in 1992, a semester (12 credits) shy of completing his Bachelor of Arts in English to feature in ''Geronimo: An American Legend'' in Los Angeles, erroneously expecting the movie to become a big success. Damon next appeared as an opiate-addicted soldier in 1996's '' Courage Under Fire'', for which he lost in 100 days on a self-prescribed diet and fitness regimen. ''Courage Under Fire'' gained him critical notice, when ''The Washington Post'' labeled his performance "impressive".

During the early 1990s, Damon and Affleck wrote '' Good Will Hunting'' (1997), a screenplay about a young mathematics genius, an extension of a screenplay he wrote for an assignment at Harvard, having integrated advice from director Rob Reiner, screenwriter William Goldman, and writer/director Kevin Smith. He asked Affleck to perform the scenes with him in front of the class and, when Damon later moved into Affleck's Los Angeles apartment, they began working on the script more seriously. The film, which they wrote mainly during improvisation sessions, was set partly in their hometown of Cambridge, and drew from their own experiences. They sold the screenplay to Castle Rock in 1994, but after a conflict with the company, they convinced Miramax to purchase the script. The film received critical praise; Quentin Curtis of ''The Daily Telegraph'' found "real wit and vigour, and some depth" in their writing and Emanuel Levy of '' Variety'' wrote that Damon "gives a charismatic performance in a demanding role that's bound to catapult him to stardom. Perfectly cast, he makes the aching, step-by-step transformation of Will realistic and credible." It received nine Academy Awards nominations, including Best Actor for Damon; he and Affleck won the Oscar and Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay.

He and Affleck were each paid salaries of $600,000, while the film grossed over $225 million at the worldwide box office. The two later parodied their roles from the film in Kevin Smith's 2001 movie '' Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back''.

Speaking of his "overnight success" through ''Good Will Hunting'', Damon said by that time he had been working in the cinema for 11 years, but still found the change "nearly indescribable—going from total obscurity to walking down a street in New York and having everybody turn and look". Before the film, Damon played the lead in the critically acclaimed drama '' The Rainmaker'' (1997), where he was recognized by the ''Los Angeles Times'' as "a talented young actor on the brink of stardom." For the role, Damon regained most of the weight he had lost for ''Courage Under Fire''. After meeting Damon on the set of ''Good Will Hunting'', director Steven Spielberg cast him in the brief title role in the 1998 World War II film ''Saving Private Ryan''. He co-starred with Edward Norton in the 1998 poker film '' Rounders'', where he plays a reformed gambler in law school who must return to playing high-stakes poker to help a friend pay off loan sharks. Despite meager earnings at the box-office, it is considered one of the best poker movies of all time.

Damon then portrayed antihero Tom Ripley in '' The Talented Mr. Ripley'' (1999), a role for which he lost . Damon said that he wanted to display his character's humanity and honesty on screen despite his criminal actions. An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel of same name, the film costarred Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Cate Blanchett, and received praise from critics. "Damon outstandingly conveys his character's slide from innocent enthusiasm into cold calculation", according to '' Variety'' magazine. In ''Dogma'' (1999), he played a fallen angel who discusses pop culture as intellectual subject matter with Affleck's character. The film received generally positive reviews, but proved controversial among religious groups who deemed it blasphemous.

2000–2008: Worldwide recognition

In 2000, Damon, Affleck, and producers Chris Moore and Sean Bailey founded the production company LivePlanet to create the Emmy-nominated documentary series ''Project Greenlight,'' which aimed to find and fund worthwhile film projects from novice filmmakers. Among the company's projects was the short-lived mystery-hybrid series '' Push, Nevada''.

Damon's attempts at leading characters in romantic dramas such as 2000's '' All the Pretty Horses'' and '' The Legend of Bagger Vance'' were commercially and critically unsuccessful. ''Variety'' said of his work in ''All the Pretty Horses'': "amonjust doesn't quite seem like a young man who's spent his life amidst the dust and dung of a Texas cattle ranch. Nor does he strike any sparks with enelopeCruz." He was similarly deemed "uncomfortable being the center" of Robert Redford's ''The Legend of Bagger Vance'' by Peter Rainer of '' New York'' magazine.

During this period, Damon joined two lucrative film series—'' Ocean's Trilogy'' (2001–2007) and '' Bourne'' (2002–2016)—and produced the television series ''Project Greenlight'' (2001–2005, 2015). He co-starred as thief Linus Caldwell in the former's first installment, Steven Soderbergh's 2001 ensemble film '' Ocean's Eleven'', a remake of the Rat Pack's '' Ocean's 11'' (1960). The role was originally meant for Mark Wahlberg, who refused it in favor of other projects. The film grossed $450 million on a budget of $83 million. Damon, alongside Affleck and others, produced the documentary series ''Project Greenlight'', aired on HBO and later Bravo, which helped newcomers develop their first film. The series was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program in 2002, 2004, and 2005. Damon later said that he and Affleck felt proud that the show helped launch the careers of several directors; Damon later served as the executive producer of a number of projects directed by the winners of the show.

Damon began 2002 with writing and starring in '' Gerry'', a drama about two friends who forget to bring water and food when they go hiking in a desert. The reviews for the film were generally positive, but it was a box-office failure. He then played amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne in Doug Liman's action thriller '' The Bourne Identity'' (2002). Liman considered several actors for the role before he cast Damon. Damon insisted on performing many of the stunts himself, undergoing three months of extensive training in stunt work, the use of weapons, boxing, and eskrima.'The Birth of the Bourne Identity' DVD Making of Documentary (2003). Damon said that before ''The Bourne Identity'' he was jobless for six months, and many of his films during that period under-performed at the box-office. He doubted the film's financial prospects, but it proved a commercial success. Reviews for the film were also positive; Roger Ebert praised it for its ability to absorb the viewer in its "spycraft" and "Damon's ability to be focused and sincere". For his role, ''Entertainment Weekly'' named Damon among "the decade's best mixer of brawn and brains."

Damon voiced the role of Spirit in the animated film '' Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron'' (2002) and later played a conjoined twin in '' Stuck on You'' (2003), which received a mixed critical reception. His major releases in 2004 included starring roles in the sequels '' The Bourne Supremacy'' and '' Ocean's Twelve''. Both films earned more than $280 million at the box-office. In a review for ''The Bourne Supremacy'', BBC's Nev Pierce called the film "a brisk, engrossing and intelligent thriller", adding, "Damon is one hell of an action hero. He does a lot with very little, imbuing his limited dialogue with both rage and sorrow, looking harder and more haunted as the picture progresses". For the film, he earned an Empire Award for Best Actor; the award's presenter ''Empire'' attributed Damon's win to his "astute, underplayed performance, through which he totally eschews movie star vanity". He played a fictionalized version of Wilhelm Grimm alongside Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam's fantasy adventure '' The Brothers Grimm'' (2005), which was a critically panned commercial failure; ''The Washington Post'' concluded, "Damon, constantly flashing his newscaster's teeth and flaunting a fake, 'Masterpiece Theatre' dialect, comes across like someone who got lost on the way to an audition for a high school production of ''The Pirates of Penzance''."

Later in 2005, he appeared as an energy analyst in the geopolitical thriller ''Syriana'' alongside George Clooney and Jeffrey Wright. The film focuses on petroleum politics and the global influence of the oil industry. Damon says starring in the film broadened his understanding of the oil industry and that he hoped the people would talk about the film afterward. Peter Travers of ''Rolling Stone'' was mainly impressed with Clooney's acting, but also found Damon's performance "whiplash". In 2006, Damon joined Robert De Niro in '' The Good Shepherd'' as a career CIA agent, and played 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''. Assessing his work in the two films, Manohla Dargis of ''The New York Times'' wrote that Damon has the unique "ability to recede into a film while also being fully present, a recessed intensity, that distinguishes how he holds the screen." ''The Departed'' received critical acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

According to ''Forbes'' in August 2007, Damon was the most bankable star of the actors reviewed, his last three films at that time averaged US$29 at the box office for every dollar he earned. Two of his major releases in 2007 were the films '' Ocean's Thirteen'' and ''The Bourne Ultimatum'', which were the third installments of their respective film series. Both films earned more than $300 million at the box-office. Damon had an uncredited cameo in Francis Ford Coppola's '' Youth Without Youth'' (2007) and another cameo in the 2008 Che Guevara biopic '' Che''. While he was working on the ''Bourne'' films, Damon declined an offer from James Cameron to star in his upcoming film ''Avatar'', as he did not want to break his ''Bourne'' contract. Cameron offered Damon 10% of the profits for the film, which went on to become the most successful of all time. Damon said later: "I will go down in history… you will never meet an actor who turned down more money."

2009–2019: Established actor

He made a guest appearance in 2009 on the sixth-season finale of '' Entourage'' as himself, where he tries to pressure Vincent Chase ( Adrian Grenier) into donating to his real foundation ''ONEXONE''. His next role was Steven Soderbergh's dark comedy '' The Informant!'' (2009), in which his Golden Globe-nominated work was described by ''Entertainment Weekly'' as such: "The star – who has quietly and steadily turned into a great Everyman actor – is in nimble control as he reveals his character's deep crazies." Also in 2009, Damon portrayed South Africa national rugby union team captain François Pienaar in the Clint Eastwood-directed film '' Invictus'', which is based on the 2008 John Carlin book ''Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation'' and features Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. ''Invictus'' earned Damon an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. ''The New Republic'' observed that he brought "it off with low-key charm and integrity." Damon also lent his voice to the English version of the animated film ''Ponyo'', which was released in the United States in August 2009.

In March 2010, Damon and Ben Affleck collaborated once again to create another production company titled Pearl Street Films, a Warner Bros.-based production company. That year, he reunited with director Paul Greengrass, who directed him in the ''Bourne Supremacy'' and ''Bourne Ultimatum'', for the action thriller ''Green Zone'', which flopped commercially and received a score of 53% on Rotten Tomatoes and ambivalent reception from critics. He appeared as a guest star in an episode of ''Arthur'', titled "The Making of Arthur", as himself. During season 5 of ''30 Rock'', he appeared as a guest star in the role of Liz Lemon's boyfriend in the episodes " I Do Do", " The Fabian Strategy", " Live Show", and " Double-edged Sword". Damon's 2010 projects included Clint Eastwood's '' Hereafter'' and the Coen brothers' remake of the 1969 John Wayne-starring Western '' True Grit''. He also narrated '' Inside Job'', a documentary film about the effects of financial deregulation in the 2008 financial crisis.

In 2010, he was one of the highest-grossing actors of all time, ranking 37th. In 2011, he starred in '' The Adjustment Bureau'', '' Contagion'', and '' We Bought a Zoo''. That same year, the documentary which he narrated, ''American Teacher'', opened in New York before national screening. Also in 2011, he voiced a krill named Bill in the animated film '' Happy Feet Two''. In January 2012, Damon signed a multiyear deal to be the voice of TD Ameritrade advertisements, replacing Sam Waterston as the discount brokerage's spokesman. Damon donated all fees from the advertisements to charity. In April 2012, Damon filmed ''Promised Land'', directed by Gus Van Sant, which Damon co-wrote with John Krasinski. Damon's next film with frequent collaborator Steven Soderbergh was '' Behind the Candelabra'', a drama about the life of pianist/entertainer Liberace (played by Michael Douglas) with Damon playing Liberace's longtime partner Scott Thorson. The film premiered on HBO on May 26, 2013.

Damon starred in the science fiction film ''Elysium'' (2013), where he played former car-thief-turned-factory-worker Max DeCosta. He also appeared in the science fiction movie '' The Zero Theorem'' in 2013, directed by Terry Gilliam. That same year, Damon appeared in a 20-second advertisement for Nespresso, directed by Grant Heslov, with whom he worked on '' The Monuments Men''. The deal earned him $3 million. Damon also provided voice-over for United Airlines' resurrected "Fly the Friendly Skies" advertisement campaign in 2013. In 2014, he starred in George Clooney's '' The Monuments Men'', and played the minor role of scientist Dr. Mann in Christopher Nolan's '' Interstellar''. That same year, Damon appeared as a celebrity correspondent for '' Years of Living Dangerously''.

In 2015, Damon portrayed the main character, astronaut Mark Watney, in Ridley Scott's '' The Martian'', based on Andy Weir's bestselling novel of the same name, a role that earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and his second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Having not returned for the fourth film in the ''Bourne'' film series, Damon reprised his role in 2016's '' Jason Bourne'', reuniting with Paul Greengrass. In 2017, Damon played the lead role in Zhang Yimou's '' The Great Wall'', a hit internationally and a disappointment at the domestic box office. The film, and Damon's casting, were not well received by critics. Later in 2017, he starred in two satires, George Clooney's 1950s-set '' Suburbicon'', which was released in October, and Alexander Payne's comedy '' Downsizing'', which was released in December. In September 2018, he portrayed jurist Brett Kavanaugh on the late night sketch series ''Saturday Night Live''. In 2019, Damon portrayed Carroll Shelby in the action biographical drama ''Ford v Ferrari'', directed by James Mangold.

2021–present: Continued positive critical reception

, the films in which he had appeared had collectively earned over $3.88 billion at the North American box office. In 2021, Damon starred in Tom McCarthy's crime drama '' Stillwater'', playing an unemployed oil rig worker from Oklahoma who sets out with a French woman to prove his convicted daughter's innocence. The film had its world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. IndieWire praised Damon's performance as "graced with a quiet softness that offsets the sheer volume of the character he's playing". That same year saw the release of the historical drama '' The Last Duel'', which he starred in and co-wrote alongside Ben Affleck. The film, set in medieval France and based on the book of the same name, focuses on the true story of a knight, Jean de Carrouges, portrayed by Damon, who challenges his former friend to a judicial duel after he's accused of raping his wife. It premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival and earned positive reviews while being a financial failure at the box office.

In 2023, Damon starred as Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro in ''Air'', a drama film about the launch of Air Jordan, co-starring and directed by Affleck. It marked the first release from Affleck and Damon's independent production company, Artists Equity, which they had formed in 2022. Damon received praise for the role, earning a nomination for a Golden Globe Award. He also reunited with Christopher Nolan in the biographical film '' Oppenheimer'', playing Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project. The film was a critical and commercial success, becoming Damon's highest grossing movie.

In 2024, Damon starred in and produced '' The Instigators'', alongside Casey Affleck, for Apple TV+.

Damon will work with Nolan once again on ''The Odyssey'', portraying Odysseus.

Activism

Damon, alongside George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub, is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch Project, an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities such as in Darfur. Damon supports One Campaign, which is aimed at fighting AIDS and poverty in Third World countries. He has appeared in their print and television advertising. He is an ambassador for ONEXONE, a nonprofit foundation committed to supporting, preserving, and improving the lives of children at home in Canada, the United States, and around the world.

Damon is a spokesperson for Feeding America, a hunger-relief organization, and a member of their Entertainment Council, participating in their Ad Council public service announcements. He is a board member of Tonic Mailstopper (formerly GreenDimes), a company that attempts to halt junk mail delivered to American homes each day. Damon was the founder of the H2O Africa Foundation, the charitable arm of the Running the Sahara expedition, which merged with WaterPartners to create Water.org in July 2009. Water.org has partnered with corporate sponsors to promote awareness and raise funds to support its mission of bringing safe, clean, cost-effective drinking water and sanitation to developing countries. In this context, Damon has been the face of advertising campaigns to promote Water.org in conjunction with products from major sponsors.

In October 2011, Water.org received an $8 million grant from the PepsiCo Foundation to scale up WaterCredit, which provides microloans to families throughout India. Damon has been part of promoting those efforts, tying in with the Aquafina and Ethos Water brands of bottled water owned by PepsiCo and Starbucks. Since 2015, Damon has promoted Anheuser-Busch InBev's Stella Artois beer brand as a Water.org partner, including the sale of limited-edition "blue chalice" glasses imprinted with an embellished blue version of the brand's logo. In a television advertisement made for broadcast during the 2018 Super Bowl of the United States' National Football League (NFL), he promoted Water.org and Stella Artois's role in supporting its work.

In October 2021, he announced a new partnership with the cryptocurrency trading platform Crypto.com, under which Crypto.com was to make a $1 million donation to Water.org. In the announcement, Damon said, "Crypto.com gave us this great donation, which is amazing. The money that I make for the commercials to promote them, I give 100% of that to Water.org as well. So, it's millions of dollars coming in to us." Damon's Crypto.com commercial started rolling out in cinemas late in 2021, and then on television in January 2022, mainly during sports programming such as NFL games. Once it was broadcast widely on television, it sparked much criticism, as did its accompanying "making of" featurette. In ''The Independent'', Nathan Place wrote, "Twitter is cringing after a TV commercial starring Matt Damon compared trading cryptocurrency to mankind's greatest achievements. In the ad, which aired during Sunday night’s NFL games, Mr Damon makes an abstract plug for crypto.com – a platform for exchanging digital currencies like Bitcoin – while striding past images of explorers and astronauts. ''The New Zealand Herald'' published an article by Lexie Cartwright summing up viewer reaction: "Matt Damon's new commercial plugging cryptocurrency has been absolutely savaged on social media, with viewers dubbing it 'insulting' and 'disgusting'." The story included a series of tweets, among them one by Carole Cadwalladr of ''The Observer'' in which she wrote, "There isn't enough yuck in the world to describe Matt Damon advertising a Ponzi scheme and comparing it to the moon landings." Jody Rosen in the ''New York Times'' said that "There is something unseemly, to put it mildly, about the famous and fabulously wealthy urging crypto on their fans", and "The bleakness of that pitch is startling."

Public image

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel had a running gag on his ABC television show, '' Jimmy Kimmel Live!'', where he apologized for not being able to interview Damon at the end of each show. It culminated in a planned skit on September 12, 2006, when Damon stormed off after having his interview cut short. Damon appeared in several of E! Entertainment's top ten ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' spoofs. On January 24, 2013, Damon took over his show and mentioned the long-standing feud and having been bumped from years of shows. It involved celebrities who were previously involved in the "feud", including Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, and Sarah Silverman.

Personal life

Damon met his Argentine wife, Luciana Bozán, while filming '' Stuck on You'' in Miami in April 2003. They became engaged in September 2005 and married in a private civil ceremony at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau on December 9, 2005. They have three daughters together born in June 2006, August 2008, and October 2010. He also has a stepdaughter Alexia Barroso (born 1998) from Bozán's previous marriage, and considers her to be his own.

The couple has lived in Miami and New York City; and, since 2012, they have lived in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles. In 2018, Damon bought a luxury penthouse in New York City's Brooklyn Heights neighborhood for $16.5 million.

He is a fan of the Boston Red Sox. After the team won the 2007 World Series, he narrated the commemorative DVD release of the event. He has competed in several World Series of Poker (WSOP) events, including the 2010 World Series of Poker main event. He was eliminated from the 1998 WSOP by poker professional Doyle Brunson.

Political and social views

While discussing the Iraq War on '' Hardball with Chris Matthews'' in December 2006, Damon expressed concern about inequities across socioeconomic classes with regard to who is tasked with the responsibility of fighting wars.

In an interview with the ''Sunday Herald'' in January 2003, Damon expressed his support for gun control with "I actually hate guns. They freak me out."

Damon is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has made several critical attacks on Republican Party figures. However, he also expressed disappointment over the policies of President Barack Obama. He had a working relationship with the Obama administration, primarily due to his friendship with Jason Furman, his former Harvard roommate who became Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to Obama. In 2012, Damon joined Ben Affleck and John Krasinski in hosting a fundraiser for Democratic Senate nominee Elizabeth Warren. Damon endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

In October and December 2017, Damon made headlines when he made a series of comments regarding the Me Too movement against sexual harassment and misconduct. On October 10, Sharon Waxman, a former reporter for ''The New York Times'', mentioned that Damon and Russell Crowe had made direct phone calls to her to vouch for the head of Miramax Italy, Fabrizio Lombardo. In her report, she suspected Lombardo of facilitating incidents of Harvey Weinstein's sexual misconduct in Europe. However, Damon clarified later that the calls were solely to reassure her of Lombardo's professional qualifications in the film industry. Waxman endorsed Damon's statement on Twitter hours later. Also during this time, Damon said that he had heard a story from Ben Affleck that Gwyneth Paltrow, a co-worker on a feature film of his, had been harassed by Weinstein in 1996, but thought "she had handled it" because they continued to work together, and Weinstein "treated her incredibly respectfully".

In another series of interviews during December 2017, Damon advocated for a "spectrum of behavior" analysis of sexual misconduct cases, noting that some are more serious than others. The comment caused offense to prominent members of the Me Too movement and the public for being "tone-deaf in understand ngwhat abuse is like". On January 17, 2018, Damon apologized on '' The Today Show'' for his social commentary, stating that he "should get in the back seat and close ismouth for a while".

In March 2018, Damon and Affleck announced they would adopt the inclusion rider agreement in all their future production deals through their company Pearl Street Films.

In August 2021, Damon sparked controversy after stating in an interview with ''The Sunday Times'' that he had only "months ago" stopped using the word " fag", saying that it "was commonly used when I was a kid, with a different application". This had come after an incident in which his daughter left the table due to his usage of the word and "wrote a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous". He denied ever using the six-letter word "faggot" in his personal life, and, in regard to the word "fag": "I explained that that word was used constantly and casually and was even a line of dialogue in a movie of mine as recently as 2003... To my admiration and pride, she was extremely articulate about the extent to which that word would have been painful to someone in the LGBTQ+ community regardless of how culturally normalized it was. I not only agreed with her but thrilled at her passion, values and desire for social justice."

Awards and honors

Aside from awards he has garnered for his role as an actor and producer, Damon became the 2,343rd person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on July 25, 2007. He reacted to the award by stating: "A few times in my life, I've had these experiences that are just kind of too big to process and this looks like it's going to be one of those times."

File:MattDamonHWoFOct10.jpg, alt=Pink granite star on a black granite side-walk., Matt Damon's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
File:MattDamonGraumanHandFootprintsOct10.jpg, alt=Hand and foot prints in cement dated of June 6, 2007, Handprints and footprints of Damon in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Notes

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Damon, Matt

1970 births
Living people
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
Film producers from Massachusetts
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American people of English descent
American people of Finnish descent
American people of Scottish descent
American people of Swedish descent
American philanthropists
Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners
Best Original Screenplay Academy Award winners
Best Screenplay Golden Globe winners
Cambridge Rindge and Latin School alumni
Harvard University alumni
Male actors from Boston
Male actors from Brooklyn
Male actors from Cambridge, Massachusetts
People associated with cryptocurrency
People from Brooklyn Heights
People from Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles
Screenwriters from Massachusetts
Screenwriting duos
Spokespersons
Television producers from Massachusetts
Writers from Boston
Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners