Born October 8, 1970, in
Boston,
Massachusetts,
Matt's parents divorced when he was a
young child. Staying with his mother, and he and his brother moved with her to the suburbs of
Cambridge. A specialist in child education, his mother fostered Matt's interest in acting.
While growing up, Matt appeared in many local theater productions and managed working as an extra on movies filming in or around the Boston area. It was around this time that he met Ben Affleck, who would later rise with him to stardom. Constantly pushing himself creatively more and more each day, Matt auditioned for and landed a small role in Mystic Pizza, with Julia Roberts.
It was in 1992, that Matt would land his first substantial role, in School Ties. Not that long after, Matt decided to drop out of Harvard to pursue acting in Los Angeles. He eventually landed an important supporting role in Geronimo: An American Legend, starring Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. It was just after that Damon made his first starring turn in the 1995 TNT TV movie The Good Old Boys, costarring Tommy Lee Jones.
Content with his small screen work only for a while, Matt?s breakthrough performance, however, came in the 1996 film Courage Under Fire, costarring Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan. Damon lost 40 pounds and reportedly became dangerously ill in preparation for his role as a strung-out Army medic in the Gulf War drama, for which he earned a good deal of critical praise.
The following year, Francis Ford Coppola cast Matt as the lead in his film adaptation of John Grisham?s best-selling novel The Rainmaker. It was at this point that Matt had earned enough of a reputation to help float his and Ben Affleck's screenplay, Good Will Hunting. Co-starring Minne Driver and Robin Williams, it became an instant hit, catapulting the two to as of yet unexplored heights of popularity. The film was nominated for several Academy Awards, and eventually earned one for best screenplay.
Having hit major stardom, Matt was finally noticed by some of the big guns in Hollywood, including Steven Spielberg. In 1998, Damon played the title role in Spielberg?s World War II epic Saving Private Ryan, earning high acclaim. That same year, he starred opposite Edward Norton and John Malkovich in Rounders.
Matt rejoined his friend Affleck in Kevin Smith's epic Dogma. Near the end of 1999, he took on his a challenging role with The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Matt lent his voice to the animated space epic Titan A.E., which met with a mediocre reception among critics and audiences. Later that year, he starred in an adaptation of All the Pretty Horses, as well as the Robert Redford's terribly-recieverd The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), costarring Will Smith.
Matt took on Julia Roberts again along with George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Ocean's Eleven, which earned high accalim from both critics and audiences alike. His most recent role is that of Jason Bourne in Robert Ludlam's The Bourne Identity.
... Tonight, actors Robert De Niro, Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie talk about the ... believable, as credible as it could be. MATT DAMON, ACTOR: I had Bob as my backstop ... trailer for the film. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MATT DAMON: Everybody has secrets ... 
