Matt Damon's birthday
One of the best known faces in Hollywood, actor, producer and film writer Matthew Paige Damon was born on October 8th, 1970, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Damon began to act from a young age, appearing in several high school productions, which prompted him to attend Harvard in 1988 to study English. During his years at university, he performed in student plays, occasionally acting professionally. He made his film debut in a small role in 1988’s Mystic Pizza, and later appeared in School Ties (1992.)
Damon left Harvard in 1992, close to finishing his degree, to act in Geronimo: An American Legend, hoping to catch his big break, but the film wasn’t successful. While he continued to appear in movies, Matt, together with long time high school friend Ben Affleck —also an actor and lifelong collaborator—, wrote the script for Good Will Hunting (1997.) The resulting film ended up becoming a big hit and received a lot of positive praise, launching them to instant fame. It was also nominated for several Academy Awards, with the pair of friends winning for Best Screenplay. Other notable roles for Matt after his big win were in the movies: Saving Private Ryan (1990), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and Dogma (1999.)
In 2000, he founded —together with B. Affleck, Chris Moore and Sean Bailey— the production company LivePlanet. During this decade, Damon joined two very successful film franchises: The Ocean’s Trilogy (2001-2007) and The Bourne Trilogy (2002-2016), both becoming box office hits and getting positive reviews. Other acting credits of this time include geopolitical thriller Syriana (2005), The Good Shepherd (2000) and critically acclaimed The Departed (2007), which won the Oscar for Best Picture. Having confirmed his status as one of Hollywood’s most prominent stars, Damon continued to act in a series of diverse roles, from dark comedy The Informant (2009), which got him a golden globe nomination, to sports film Invictus (2009) Damon showed how he could adapt to any role thrown his way. He also delved into voice acting, dubbing the English version of Japanese animation feature, Ponyo, and later Happy Feet Two (2011.)
In 2010, Matt created yet another production company with Ben Affleck, under the name of Pearl Street Films. Damon appeared in the critically acclaimed Behind the Candelabra, a drama biopic about famous pianist Liberace, released on HBO in 2013. Matt Damon’s most recent filmography includes science fiction movies like Elysium (2013), Interstellar (2014) and The Martian (2015), for which he won a Golden Globe for Best Actor; comedies Suburbicon (2017) and Downsizing (2017); and dramas Stillwater (2021) and The Last Duel (2021), which he also co-wrote with Affleck. In 2022, he had a brief appearance in superhero movie Thor: Love and Thunder, and is set to appear in biopic Oppenheimer in 2023.
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