MATT DAMON

MATT   DAMON

The 27-year-old actor and screenwriter Matt Damon was born on October 8, 1970 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University where he majored in English. Matt has been romantically linked to a number of women including two of his past co-stars the actresses Claire Danes and Minnie Driver as well as Winona Ryder.

Matt's mother is a child psychologist. His parents are divorced. Damon has a brother named Kyle. He made his feature film debut in 1988 with a small role in the critically acclaimed 'Mystic Pizza'. In 1990 he portrayed a medical school dropout in the TNT movie 'Rising Son.' Matt gained further attention in the movies as one of the fascist preppies in 'School Ties'. In 1996 Damon gave a vivid performance in 'Courage Under Fire', in which he portrayed a guilt-ridden Persian Gulf Soldier. Prior to that he had a supporting role in 'Geronimo: An American Legend.' In 1995 Damon appeared in 'The Good Old Boys,' for TNT.

His first big starring role in 1997 was as the fledgling attorney in "the Rainmaker", based on John Grisham's best-selling novel. He has been nominated for an Oscar as "Best Actor" for his leading role in "Good Will Hunting", in which he plays Will Hunting, who comes to terms with his life and genius through the relationship he develops with a therapist and his love interest. Damon has been nominated for a second Oscar for co-writing the screenplay for 'Good Will Hunting', with his co-star and real-life longtime friend Ben Affleck. The two have been friends since third grade and shared the same acting career aspirations during and after high school. After the struggling actors poured over at least 500 scripts a year they decided they should take a crack at writing one themselves. Matt and Ben educated themselves about writing about a person such as Will Hunting and made Will a heroic character that was also flawed. Says Damon 'Instead of a thriller, we decided to use this character as the basis for a story that really said something about engaging in life, experiencing it to the fullest and allowing yourself to be vulnerable to people who you care about, and learning how to be smart in life.'  Damon and Affleck began writing 'Good Will Hunting' when Damon was 22 and Affleck was 20. The movie garnered a total of nine Oscar nominations including 'Best Picture.' The writing of the screenplay took five years out of their lives and was rejected by many studio people. When the script was finally accepted by Miramax it took a great deal of resolve on the studio's part to stick with Matt Damon rather than going with a big name star. Damon will appear with Tom Hanks in the motion picture 'Saving Private Ryan', a World War II saga shot on location in London under the direction of Steven Spielberg set for a July release by DreamWorks SKG. He will also star in the Miramax motion picture Rounders with John Malkovich and Ed Norton scheduled for release in August. This is all pretty exciting for someone that was virtually unknown up until several months ago.