Matt Damon

Matthew Paige Damon (/ˈdeɪmən/; born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, film producer, and screenwriter. Ranked among Forbes ' most bankable stars, the films in which he has appeared have collectively earned over $3.88 billion at the North American box office, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. He has received various awards and nominations, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for three British Academy Film Awards and seven Primetime Emmy Awards.

Damon began his acting career in the film Mystic Pizza (1988). He continued acting in Courage Under Fire (1996) and The Rainmaker (1997). He gained prominence in 1997 when he and Ben Affleck wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting, which won them the Academy and Golden Globe awards for Best Screenplay. He established himself as a leading man by starring as Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Jason Bourne in the Bourne franchise (2002–2007; 2016), and con man Linus Caldwell in the Ocean's trilogy (2001–2007). Damon's other notable performances were in Saving Private Ryan (1998), Syriana (2005), The Departed (2006), The Informant! (2009), Invictus (2009), True Grit (2010), Contagion (2011), Ford v Ferrari (2019), Stillwater (2021), and The Last Duel (2021). He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for playing an astronaut stranded on Mars in The Martian (2015).

He is also known for his performances in television, including his portrayal as Scott Thorson in the HBO biopic Behind the Candelabra (2013) for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. He has guest-starred on 30 Rock in 2011 and Saturday Night Live in 2019. He also produced the reality series Project Greenlight (2001–2015) as well as the film Manchester by the Sea (2016).

Damon has performed voice-over work in both animated and documentary films, and has established two production companies with Affleck. He has been involved in charitable work with organizations including the ONE Campaign, H2O Africa Foundation, Feeding America, and Water.org.

Early life and education
Damon was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 8, 1970, the second son of Kent Telfer Damon (1942–2017), a stockbroker, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige (b. 1946), an early childhood education professor at Lesley University. His father had English and Scottish ancestry, while his mother is of Finnish and Swedish descent; her family surname had been changed from Pajari to Paige. Damon and his family moved to Newton for two years. His parents divorced when he was two years old, and he and his brother returned with their mother to Cambridge, where they lived in a six-family communal house. His brother, Kyle, is a sculptor and artist. As a lonely teenager, he has said that he felt he did not belong. Due to his mother's "by the book" approach to child-rearing, he had a hard time defining his own identity.

Damon attended Cambridge Alternative School and Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he was a good student. He performed as an actor in several high school theater productions. He credited his drama teacher Gerry Speca as an important artistic influence, though his close friend and schoolmate Ben Affleck got the "biggest roles and longest speeches". He attended Harvard University, where he was a resident of Lowell House and a member of the class of 1992, but left before receiving his degree to take a lead role in the film Geronimo: An American Legend. While at Harvard, Damon wrote an early treatment of the screenplay Good Will Hunting as an exercise for an English class, for which he later received an Academy Award. He was a member of The Delphic Club, one of Harvard's select Final Clubs. He was awarded the Harvard Arts Medal in 2013.