Matt Damon is one of the most successful actors of his generation. He has starred in some of the biggest films of the past two decades, including the Bourne franchise, Good Will Hunting, and The Martian. He has also been nominated for multiple Academy Awards, winning one for his role in Good Will Hunting.
In addition to his successful acting career, Damon is also a noted philanthropist. He is a co-founder of the water charity Water.org and has also worked with various other organizations to promote education and clean water access.
Table of Contents:
1. Early Life and Career
2. Acting Roles
3. Philanthropy
4. Awards and Nominations
5. Personal Life
6. Matt Damon Quotes
- Early Life and Career
Matt Damon was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 8, 1970. He is the eldest of four children born to Kent Damon, a stockbroker, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education professor.
Damon attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he was a talented student and athlete. He was captain of his high school’s football and basketball teams and was named the school’s Class Day Speaker.
After graduating from high school, Damon enrolled at Harvard University. He initially planned to pursue a career in law, but he eventually switched his focus to English and drama. He appeared in several student productions, but he left Harvard before graduating to pursue his acting career.
Damon’s first film role was in the 1988 independent film Mystic Pizza. He followed this with a small role in the 1989 film Field of Dreams. His first major role came in the 1992 film School Ties, in which he played a prep school student who is revealed to be Jewish.
In 1997, Damon starred in the Academy Award-winning film Good Will Hunting. He co-wrote the screenplay for the film with his friend Ben Affleck, and he received an Academy Award nomination for his performance.
- Acting Roles
In addition to his role in Good Will Hunting, Damon has starred in many other successful films.
He played the title role in the Bourne franchise, a series of action films based on the novels by Robert Ludlum. The first film in the franchise, The Bourne Identity, was released in 2002.
Damon has also starred in several films directed by Steven Soderbergh, including the Ocean’s Eleven franchise and the critically acclaimed drama Contagion.
More recently, Damon starred in the 2015 film The Martian. Based on the novel by Andy Weir, the film tells the story of an astronaut who is stranded on Mars and must find a way to survive. The Martian was a commercial and critical success, and Damon received a Golden Globe Award for his performance.
- Philanthropy
In addition to his work as an actor, Damon is also a noted philanthropist.
He is the co-founder of Water.org, a non-profit organization that works to provide access to clean water and sanitation in developing countries. Water.org has helped to provide clean water to over 10 million people worldwide.
In 2010, Damon was named a United Nations Global Ambassador for Water. In this role, he has worked to raise awareness of the global water crisis and the importance of access to clean water.
- Awards and Nominations
Damon has been nominated for multiple Academy Awards, winning one for his role in Good Will Hunting. He has also been nominated for Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and BAFTA Awards.
In addition to his acting awards, Damon has also received several honors for his work as a philanthropist. He was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” in 2010, and he was awarded the Freedom Award by the International Rescue Committee in 2013.
- Personal Life
Damon has been married to Luciana Bozán Barroso since 2005. The couple has three daughters: Isabella, Gia, and Stella.
Damon is a fan of the Boston Red Sox, and he is a supporter of the Democratic Party.
Matt Damon Quotes
“Some people just see the glory and they don’t want to know about the story.” — Matt Damon
“Right before ‘The Bourne Identity’ came out, I hadn’t been offered a movie in a year.” — Matt Damon
“I didn’t grow up with great privilege, nor did I grow up wanting for anything. I was a middle-class kid and, relative to the rest of the world, that’s great wealth.” — Matt Damon
“If you can’t help people, then what is the point of being successful?” — Matt Damon
“And you know, we were talking about American identity, and where we’ve come from and where we are and where we’re headed. We knew that we wanted to have a hopeful ending and we wanted it to be pro-community, and a pro-democracy type of movie.” — Matt Damon
“Now that I have kids, I’m probably more overprotective than I’ve ever been. My wife’s nickname for me is ‘red alert.’ I sometimes check just to see if the kids are breathing. But I try not to be a helicopter parent.” — Matt Damon
“The values that I have are the values I was raised with, from where I’m from, which is a middle-class place. So that informs everything about me, my politics and all that stuff. I mean, politically, I vote against my own self-interest at every election. I actively ask these people to raise my taxes.” — Matt Damon
“I’m always cautious about overstepping any boundaries. At the end of the day, it’s a director’s medium, and if they don’t want to hear from me I just step back.” — Matt Damon
“My heart goes out to the people of the city of Boston. My thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost loved ones in such a senseless and heartless way.” — Matt Damon
“If we listen to the better angels of our nature, there are creative and good solutions to serious problems.” — Matt Damon
“I don’t see as many movies as I used to. Or, I should say, as many movies as I would like to.” — Matt Damon
“I think what’s important for kids to know is that your decisions here on earth matter, your behavior matters, and how you treat other people matters.” — Matt Damon
“Now I feel I have an unspoken deal with the paparazzi: ‘I won’t do anything publicly interesting if you agree not to follow me.’” — Matt Damon
“Any moron with a pack of matches can start a fire. Raining down sulfur takes a huge level of endurance. Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, next to soccer.” — Matt Damon
“I fell in love with a civilian. Not an actress and not a famous actress at that. Because then the attention doesn’t double – it grows exponentially. Because then suddenly everybody wants to be in your bedroom. But I don’t really give them anything.” — Matt Damon
“It’s intuitive in terms of when I read a piece of material or I hear about a project. I’m a writer, so I’ve written movies. I’ve read at this point thousands and thousands and thousands of screenplays. So if something gets me, then I don’t ignore that.” — Matt Damon
“The very first big photo shoot I ever did was with Bruce Weber. I couldn’t believe this guy was taking my picture, so when he told me to get in the bathtub, I just did. It’s only now, looking back, that I realize, you don’t have to do everything people tell you.” — Matt Damon
“I can’t think of any more important value to instill in our children than the desire to help others. I feel strongly about setting an example for them. Real problems can be solved by the next generation if we instill in them the right values.” — Matt Damon
“The only way I can describe it at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you know how his heart grows like five times? Everything is full; it’s just full all the time.” — Matt Damon
“When you have a child, your relationship with every child in the world changes. It’s like you’re in a club you didn’t know existed before a child came into your life. I believe you should make the world more beautiful for all children in any way that you can.” — Matt Damon
“As for poker, I’ve stayed away from that, even though when I was in Vegas for Ocean’s Eleven, I would get accosted by these guys begging me to play. They just want to take my money. They see me, think ‘actor’ and see some easy money.” — Matt Damon
“It’s just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants.” — Matt Damon
“Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting.” — Matt Damon
“History is change happening one person at a time.” — Matt Damon
“Clean water is only as far away as the nearest tap, and there are taps everywhere. There’s a faucet everywhere. But the reality is, the water in our toilets is cleaner than the water that most people are drinking.” — Matt Damon
“You don’t know about real loss, ’cause it only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much.” — Matt Damon
“If you work at something, you get better at it.” — Matt Damon
“If you’re just an actor you’re reactive. You’re saying, “Well, I hope Hollywood gives me a role, or gives me a chance at a role,” whereas if you can generate your own content, then you can go where you want to go.” — Matt Damon
“I honestly if I get a vacation I’m gonna go and sit on my couch in New York cause that’s the one place I haven’t been for a very long time.” — Matt Damon
“Generally, the bigger the budget, the less interesting the characters become.” — Matt Damon
“I was never that much a focus of interest that I became a ‘thing’ at an earlier point in my career. I’m aware of having become a ‘thing’ now, which doesn’t give me a lot of pleasure.” — Matt Damon
“I’ll play Pretty Pretty Princess with you if you just let me watch a little bit of March Madness.” — Matt Damon
“It’s pretty easy to kind of lose your way. Having kids is really helpful. They kind of disabuse you of the notion of your greatness pretty quickly.” — Matt Damon
“For a lot of actors, our biggest fear is that we’re going to start talking about things we don’t fully understand and sound like idiots.” — Matt Damon
“If you are writing a story and trying to draw an audience to come and hear you tell it, it’s got to in some way relate to them. Who wants to come and hear about your specific problems? It’s not therapy – it’s supposed to be a communal piece of entertainment.” — Matt Damon
“People do things in the names of good, and in the name of ideals, but the world isn’t that simple. So they end up doing things that aren’t necessarily good. Even if they think they’re doing the right thing, but when viewed from a different perspective they can look barbaric and crazy.” — Matt Damon
“You will never solve poverty without solving water and sanitation.” — Matt Damon
“It’s better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.” — Matt Damon
“I grew up in and the teachers. I think I was very lucky. I think I had a lot of social capital, and so when I found myself in this position of influence, I just – then I started to engage a bit with some of the problems in the world and realize that I could actually have an impact.” — Matt Damon
“Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage.” — Matt Damon
“You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.” — Matt Damon
“Liberty is a soul’s right to breathe.” — Matt Damon
“Listen, here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.” — Matt Damon
“Paranoid is what people who are trying to take advantage call you in an effort to get you to drop your guard.” — Matt Damon
“I should have done it years ago. It’s amazing I didn’t even want cigarettes anymore.” — Matt Damon
“The better the actor, the less you know about his life. I mean, nobody’s better than De Niro and you don’t know anything about him, right?” — Matt Damon
“If there’s an idea I think is really good and I feel like I can write it, then I’ll do it.” — Matt Damon
“Please find out what you can do to make a difference. Take five minutes to educate yourself on an issue you didn’t know about before. Then tell somebody else.” — Matt Damon
“We’re here for such a short time. When your great-great-grandkids study history, don’t you want them to be proud that you were part of the solution?” — Matt Damon
“Our problem is civil obedience.” — Matt Damon
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