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Biography

Matthew Paige Damon (born October 8, 1970) is an American actor and screenwriter. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his screenwriting in Good Will Hunting and was nominated for his lead performance in the same film. Growing steadily in popularity from the 1997 film, he has since matched up with A-list actors in mainstream films, and today is rated amongst the top actors in Hollywood. With his wife, Luciana Bozán Barroso, Damon has a daughter, and also a stepdaughter from Barroso's prior marriage. He has won multiple awards for his film performances and is one of the top twenty-five highest grossing actors of all time. Damon has been actively involved in several charitable organizations, including the ONE Campaign and H2O Africa Foundation. Damon currently has four upcoming films that will debut between 2007 and 2009. In his most recent roles, he portrayed Jason Bourne in The Bourne Ultimatum, and had an uncredited cameo in Youth Without Youth. His next upcoming role will be in Margaret, due in 2007.



Damon was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Kent Telfer Damon, a stockbroker, realtor, and tax preparer, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education professor at Lesley University. In an interview with Mail on Sunday, Damon responded that his grandfather is probably the most "impressive person he knows," stating, "He's Finnish, a very proud man, who would never take help from anybody. He came to America when he was a little boy, grew up during the Depression and sold shoes. He always used to tell us the story about getting a raise of three and a half cents, and how that was an incredible moment of success. He's extraordinary." Damon has a brother, Kyle, who is an accomplished sculptor and artist. Damon 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. His first film role came in 1988 when he was 16, with a single line of dialogue in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza. Damon appeared in small roles before landing a big part in Geronimo: An American Legend with Gene Hackman and Jason Patric. He next appeared as a heroin-addicted soldier in 1996's Courage Under Fire. He was required to lose 40 pounds (18 kg) 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, and has stated that it was worthwhile to properly portray his character and show the industry how committed he was to the role. Damon and actor Ben Affleck, close personal friends as well as co-stars in several films, developed a thriller about a young math genius, which they pitched around Hollywood. Receiving advice from writer/director/actor Rob Reiner, screenwriter William Goldman, and their friend writer/director Kevin Smith, the two changed the script around to focus on a young math genius trying to make his way in the world.



This script eventually became Good Will Hunting, and received nine Academy Awards nominations, earning Damon and Affleck Oscars for Best Original Screenplay. Damon was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for the same film (which netted an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for co-star Robin Williams). Damon and Affleck were each paid salaries of $500,000, and the film grossed over $100 million at the box office. Damon parodied his role in the film in Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. After watching Good Will Hunting, director Steven Spielberg cast Damon in the World War II film Saving Private Ryan. In motion pictures that feature him as a leading actor or supporting co-star, his films have grossed a total of $1.92 to $2.28 billion (based on counting his roles as strictly lead or including supporting roles) at the North American box office, placing him in the top twenty-five grossing actors of all time. In August 2007, financial magazine Forbes created a list of actors who generated the best box office performance related to their salaries. The list placed Damon as the most bankable star of the actors reviewed, revealing that Damon had averaged $29 at the box office for every dollar he earned for his last three films.



Damon has had relationships with several actresses throughout his career. Damon had a three-year relationship with actress Winona Ryder. He also dated Odessa Whitmire, who has worked as a personal assistant for Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Affleck, from 2001 to 2003. His relationship with Good Will Hunting co-star Minnie Driver reportedly ended when Damon announced their break-up on The Oprah Winfrey Show, though both actors have repeatedly denied this. Damon later stated that he was "sick and tired" of hearing the story, saying it was false. Driver's sister allegedly told Cosmo that the couple had broken up before the show was taped. Although the media often claimed Damon dated actress Eva Mendes, both have denied any relationship, with Mendes saying "it wasn't true." In 2007, he was named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine.