CELEBRITY BIRTHDAY SPOTLIGHT

Matt Damon
Born: October 8, 1970
Place: Cambridge, Massachusetts







Matt Damon has a brother, Kyle, who is an accomplished sculptor and artist. He and his family lived in Newton for the first two years of his life, but after his parents divorced, Damon and his brother moved with his mother to Cambridge.

Damon grew up near Ben Affleck, a close friend since childhood and future collaborator on several films.

He graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge in 1988 and performed in several theater productions. He attended Harvard University the same year. He could have graduated in 1992, but chose to defer classes to pursue acting projects, including the TNT original film “Rising Son” and assemble prep-school drama “School Ties”. While at Harvard, he studied English. Damon dropped out of the university to pursue his acting career in Los Angeles when “Geronimo: An American Legend” was expected to be a big success.

His first role came in 1988 when he was eighteen, with a single line of dialogue in the romantic comedy “Mystic Pizza.” Damon appeared in small role before landing a big part in “Geronimo: An American Legend” with Gene Hackman and Jason Patrick. He appeared next in “Courage Under Fire” as a heroin addicted soldier. He was required to lose 40 pounds in 100 days, for only two days of filming. After following a self-prescribed diet and fitness regimen to lose the weight, Damon was told after filming that he was fortunate his heart did not shrink. Damon took medication for several years afterwards to correct the stress inflicted on his adrenal gland.

Damon and Ben Affleck wrote a screenplay about a young math genius, which they had pitched around Hollywood. The script eventually became “Good Will Hunting” and received nine Academy Awards nominations, earning Damon and Affleck Oscars for Best Original Screenplay.

Matt met Argentine, born Luciana Bozan Barrosa, in Miami where she was working as a bartender. They married in a private civil ceremony on December 9, 2005. Damon became stepfather to Bozan’s young daughter, Alexia from her previous marriage. Together the couple has had two children, Isabella born in 2006 and Gia born in 2008.


On July 25, 20076, Matt Damon became the 2,343rd person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.