These days, Matt Damon is one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood.
“It’s the work,” he said.
“It’s the process itself.
I have done enough movies now movies that have failed, movies that have been successful.
All we have as the people making it is the love of the doing of it.”
However, Damon wasn’t always part of Hollywood’s upper echelon.
This is the stunning transformation of Matt Damon.
“It was an annoying way to be raised.
You couldn’t define yourself, because you already had been defined by her.”
Instead, Damon turned to games of make-believe, which led him to acting.
“I was obsessive about role-playing when I was a child,” he said.
The future “Gone Girl” star even once saved Damon from being beaten up by a taller kid.
“He tackled this kid off of me literally at the risk of his own life.”
(Ben Affleck is much taller these days.)
They took acting classes, and Damon toldBoston Magazinethat they credit their high school teacher with their work ethic.
Over the next several decades of his career, that’s exactly what Damon would do.
However, appearing in their first big Hollywood production wasn’t as glamorous as it might have seemed.
While filming, Damon and Affleck shared an apartment next to a dump.
“We moved into that place,” Damon toldVanity Fair.
“For me, it’s my first big movie and stuff, and I’m just really …
I’m anxious about it,” he said.
“I’m really anxious about it.”
“He already had a buzz.
He was incredibly intense.
He was not [in the show] to have fun or socialize.
He was here to work.”
The two wrote the script together and starred in the movie.
“We never cared about money we wanted to be in the movie,” Damon said.
“That was our only thing.”
Their hard work paid off; the film won them the Oscar for best original screenplay in 1998.
… Whoever we forgot, we love you and we thank you."
When he did lead films, they were often smaller dramas, like “The Talented Mr. That all changed in 2002 when he entered a new phase of his career: action hero.
The film required Damon to undergo extensive martial arts training.
“I guess he meant trying to do acting without too much weight put on.”
He explained, “I literally saw her across a crowded room.”
Next thing he knew, they were in love.
Barroso toldVogue Australiathat she remembered the night a little differently.
“It was just Matt, to me he’s just Matt.”
They married in 2006 in a ceremony at City Hall in New York.
The nuptials were small, but they were attended by several famous faces including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“They were thrilled,” he later toldPeople.
The year after their wedding, Damon and Barroso welcomed their daughter Isabella.
“They’re all really close, they’ll be an intimate family.”
Two more daughters followed in quick succession: Gia arrived in 2008, and Stella was born in 2010.
“As they are waking up on Saturday morning, I come through the door.”
Damon toldPeoplethat he enjoyed his new hairdo, joking, “It’s really liberating.
I get out of the shower and just execute the towel over my head and I’m done.”
Luckily, the ladies in Damon’s life were on board, too.
He told the magazine that his wife liked the effect, although, he allowed, she had to.
In a separate interview withPeople, Damon said that his daughter was fascinated by her bald father.
She liked to drum on his head, in fact.
“It was not the kind of thing I would hesitate about,” he said.
“This was a real opportunity.”
The film’s fabulous costumes helped Damon get into character, too.
“You just would feel different in the morning.
Damon got even more specific while speaking withABC News.
he said, referencing one jaw-dropping swimsuit his character wears as he emerges from a pool.
The HBO film was a critical success, picking up 11 Emmys.
Damon himself was nominated, though he didn’t ultimately win.
The series marked a new phase in Damon’s career: he became a controversy magnet.
In the premiere, Damon spoke over a Black producer named Effie Brown, dismissing her concerns about diversity.
I love making movies.”
However, there was one exception to that promise: Christopher Nolan.
“This is without knowing whether or not he was working on anything, because he never tells you.
He just calls you out of the blue,” Damon said.
“And so, it was a moment in my household.”
It’s the capstone on a filmography that has led Damon to a reported $170 million fortune.
