Tragic Details About Matt Damon
Matt Damon has been incredibly lucky in both his professional and personal life. Not only is the actor happily married and a proud father of four stunning daughters, but he's earned millions at the box office. This is really no surprise when you consider the fact that he's been enamored with acting since he was just three years old. As he told The Guardian in 2015, he was so committed to his characters, even at such a young age, that he actually broke his ankle trying to be the best superhero he could be. "I climbed to the top of the jungle gym in my Shazam cape and I shouted 'Shazam!' and I tried to fly and I fell," he recalled.
However, despite all of the highs he's experienced, Damon has also courted plenty of controversy. He's been accused of cultural appropriation and whitesplaining, plus he's landed in hot water over headline-making comments on sexual assault and his use of the "f-slur." What's more, he's also experienced his share of tragedy and hardship, both on- and off-set. From losing an incredibly important family member to struggling with fame and depression, these are the tragic details about Matt Damon you likely don't know about.
Matt Damon dealt with overwhelming rejection before his big break
Matt Damon is a box office powerhouse with an Oscar to his name and millions in the bank, but his rise to fame wasn't as quick as it seems. Many think Damon found overnight success (along with BFF Ben Affleck) thanks to 1997's "Good Will Hunting," but the actor will be the first to tell you that's not the case. Speaking with The Project (via the Daily Mail) in 2017, Damon pointed out that he and Affleck actually hustled hard for a decade before they were catapulted into the spotlight. "We'd been in the union for ten years when we got 'Good Will Hunting' made," he mused. He also spoke candidly about how difficult it was to make it in Hollywood. "You have to have tough skin," he said. "It's nothing but rejection." It was especially disheartening to go to one audition after another and hear the same exact response each time. "Ben and I used to call it getting 'okay, thanks-ed' because you'd go pour your heart out and the person goes, 'okay, thanks,'" he recalled.
Damon and Affleck shared a similar sentiment when they stopped by Kelly Clarkson's talk show in 2023. "It beats you down," said Affleck of auditioning as a young actor. "There were probably 500 parts we didn't get, easily." That's where living together proved especially beneficial, as they'd come home dejected and immediately find support in one another. "That's the helpful thing about having your best friend do it too," Damon explained.
His commitment to acting nearly killed him
A year before he became a household name, Matt Damon appeared in 1996's "Courage Under Fire" opposite Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan. It was one of his first big roles, and the young actor went all in, slimming down to just 139 pounds (he usually weighs around 190 pounds) in order to portray a drug-addicted Persian Gulf War veteran. As he shared during a 2016 Reddit AMA, that was his most challenging role ever and it almost killed him. Rather than seeking professional help, Damon decided to shed the weight on his own, running 13 miles a day and eating nothing but chicken breast. "I just made it up and did what I thought I had to do," he told fans. And while he did hit his target weight, his diet was unhealthy, and it took a real toll on his body. "I went too far," Damon conceded, per Express. Indeed, a doctor later told him his heart could have shrunk permanently due to the lack of nutrients he was getting. Not to mention, he was already feeling the side effects while on-set. "I was a wreck," he said. "I was getting dizzy spells and hot flashes."
As Jordan Mazur, the now-director of nutrition for the San Francisco 49ers, told Men's Journal, while solely eating chicken breast can help you lose weight, it comes with major long-term risks. "You're missing out on many other important nutrients your body needs to function and thrive," he explained. "It will catch up to you."
Fame nearly pushed Matt Damon over the edge
After a decade of struggling to make it in Hollywood, Matt Damon finally found success with the release of 1997's "Good Will Hunting." However, with it came something he didn't expect: a major struggle. More specifically, the actor told People in 2023 that it was initially difficult for him to come to terms with fame, and it nearly derailed his career and his life. "The shock of becoming famous [...] that messed me up for a couple years," he admitted. "The whole world just starts to treat you differently, and so your subjective experience changes." Similarly, Damon told The Guardian in 2015 that it was particularly hard to maneuver his A-list status knowing that while the world hadn't changed, his place in it had. "That's the mind-f*** and it takes a few years to even get your head around what's happening," he mused. "I remember my brother said 'How are you doing?' and I was, like, 'I'm the f***ing same, but everyone else is different.'"
Thankfully, he got plenty of support from his family and as he told People, he often turned to Ben Affleck, too. "To check in with him, it was really, really helpful – stabilizing," he said. The feeling is mutual. "Having Matt has meant the world," Affleck agreed.
He once 'fell into a depression' while filming a movie
For all the box office hits that Matt Damon has filmed, he's also starred in some major flops. From "The Last Duel" to "The Great Wall," the actor knows what it's like to tank, but that hasn't been the hardest part of his career. Rather, as he told "Jake's Takes" in 2023, his biggest struggle as an actor came on the set of an unspecified film when he realized he was making a flop while shooting it. "Sometimes you find yourself in a movie that you know, perhaps, might not be what you had hoped it would be, and you're still making it," he shared. With months to go and no way to turn things around, he was feeling hopeless. "I fell into a depression about like, 'What have I done?'" he admitted. Luckily, his wife, Luciana Barroso, talked him through it and pushed him to keep going. "She just said, 'We're here now,'" he recalled. "You do the 15-hour day and give it absolutely everything, even in what you know is going to be a losing effort, and if you can do that with the best possible attitude, then you're a pro – she really helped me with that."
While Damon didn't name names, it sure sounds like he could have been referring to 2016's "The Great Wall." He previously told the WTF podcast in 2021 that the flick fell apart while filming, noting he realized early on that "it doesn't cohere; it doesn't work as a movie."
Matt Damon watched his father suffer
Matt Damon was incredibly close to his father, actor Kent Damon, who died in December 2017 at the age of 75 from a rare blood disease called multiple myeloma. Kent had been diagnosed in 2010 with what Mayo Clinic explains is a type of cancer that forms inside white blood cells called plasma cells. Side effects include bone pain, fragile bones, kidney problems, and anemia, and, as Damon told "The Off Camera Show" in 2018, it was a long and painful struggle. "My dad kind of died in slow motion," he said. "[He] was too weak to move" and all Matt and his brother, Kyle Damon, could do was watch. Even so, they decided to be by his side every step of the way. "The last year of his life, we moved back to Boston and we were just in the hospital for a year, so we had a lot of conversations," Matt revealed. They also watched a lot of baseball and cracked a lot of jokes, but it wasn't easy. "It's been a slow unfolding," the actor told Extra just days before his father's passing. "We'll take any prayers you got."
Proving just how tight their bond was, Matt honored his late father with a tattoo in March 2023. Los Angeles artist Winterstone posted the ink to Instagram: the word "nomad" in delicate, thin cursive writing. "For his late father we tattooed NOMAD which was his father's boat and also says DAMON backwards!" he explained.
His father's death changed his outlook on life
Not only did Kent Damon's death hit Matt Damon hard, but the loss also shook up his entire outlook on life. Sitting down with CNN's Chris Wallace in 2023, the actor shared how his dad's passing in 2017 deeply impacted the way he approached each new day. "You start to see the end game and you start to feel like, 'I want to make every second count. I don't want to fritter away time anymore,'" he shared. Ben Affleck, who was also extremely close to Kent, was similarly impacted. "It changed something in us," Matt said. The effect was compounded by streaming Peter Jackson's 2011 documentary, "The Beatles: Get Back." Recalling the final moments of the film when the band is seen playing their last-ever live gig on a London rooftop, he mused, "It made me so sad because you look at them and they're so happy." That was all the inspiration he needed to pick up the phone and place a very important call to Affleck. "I said, 'Look, man, we were talking about doing this and it's been 25 years or something since 'Good Will Hunting' — what are we doing?'"
Damon was adamant that they should stop putting it off and start collaborating more immediately, and so they did. In 2022, they co-founded a new production company called Artists Equity. Its first project was none other than 2023's "Air," which they both starred in, and which Affleck also directed.
Matt Damon lost a number of beloved peers
The list of actors we've lost far too soon sadly continues to grow with each year that passes, and a number of those losses have hit close to home for Matt Damon. In 2013, for example, he spoke to paparazzi about Paul Walker's tragic death, saying, per TMZ, "It's f***ing horrible." Then, in 2014, he shared an emotional tribute to his "Good Will Hunting" co-star Robin Williams. "Ben [Affleck] and I owe everything to him," he told Yahoo!. "I look around at the life I have and how blessed I feel, and so much of it started with him." As he explained, "Good Will Hunting" was in pre-production for two years and faced an uncertain future before Williams agreed to appear in the film, spurring execs to finally get it made. Damon also praised him for being "the funniest person that I ever met in my life" and an all-around great person. Speaking with The Guardian in 2015, a year after Williams' death by suicide, Damon said he hoped something good would come from the tragedy. "I hoped that it could lead to a wider discussion about mental health because if somebody that incredible and wonderful — just such a light — could be living with that, hopefully it could give other people permission to talk about this to people around them," he mused.