How is The Net Worth of Matt Damon an Insane $170m?

What is Matt Damon’s Net Worth?

The Usual Intro

Famous actor Matthew Paige Damon, better known as Matt Damon, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 8, 1970. He not only acts but also directs and has written films. He played his first film role in Mystic Pizza in 1988, followed by Courage Under Fire in 1996, followed by The Rainmaker the following year.

His first breakthrough, however, happened in 1997, in Good Will Hunting, a film that he co-wrote and acted in with Ben Affleck.  The film won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. 

Before the Spotlight

Matt Damon was born in 1970 to a stockbroker, Kent Telfer Damon, and his wife, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, a professor at Leslie College. His father was of English/Scottish descent, and his mother is of Swedish/ Finnish ancestry.  

His parents divorced shortly after he turned three.  He moved back to Cambridge with his mother, where they resided in a 6-family communal residence.  He has one brother, Kyle, who is a notable sculptor and painter. 

Damon attended school at the Cambridge Alternative School, as well as the Cambridge Ridge and Latin School, where he met his best friend, now-actor Ben Affleck.  

He was later admitted to Harvard University, where he was a member of the Class of 1992 but left prior to graduation to accept a role in a film about Native Americans. In 2013, he was awarded the Harvard Arts Medal. 

The Journey to Success

Damon claims that his artistic influence came from his high school drama teacher. In 1988, he accepted his first film role in Mystic Pizza.  He was later admitted to Harvard University, where he was a member of the Class of 1992 but left prior to graduation to accept an acting role in Geronimo: An American Legend. 

While at Harvard, he wrote the first draft of Good Will Hunting as an English class assignment, and later starred in the film with Ben Affleck. 

He acted in Saving Private Ryan in 1998, followed by Scott Ridley’s The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1999.  This was followed by three films based on the Bourne Identity. The third in the sequel, The Bourne Ultimatum, in 2007, earned $110 million at the box office and had the largest opening weekend in the month of August in film history, earning around $70 million in the US and Canada alone. 

Damon’s next film broke that record when Guardians of the Galaxy was released in 2016, before filming the 5th in the Bourne sequence, Jason Bourne. 

Damon continued doing high-profile projects, including The Bourne Identity (2002), along with its sequels The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).

In 2009, Damon received an Academy Award for his role-playing Francois Pienaar in the film Invictus under Clint Eastwood’s direction. In 2006, he starred in The Departed, followed by True Grit in 2010. 

Later that same year, he acted in another Eastwood film, Hereafter, followed by The Adjustment Bureau the next year. Another film that was shot in 2011 fell into the family-friendly category with We Bought a Zoo. In 2012.

The Best Moments

• Matt Damon’s first notable hit film was Good Will Hunting, which he wrote with Ben Affleck while still a student at Harvard in 1997, and which won his first Academy award.   
  
• Saving Private Ryan was also a notable point in the young actor’s career. The film is noted as being one of the best war films in history.  
  
• Oceans Eleven in 2001 was the first of a hit trilogy and marked Damon’s first in the genre. 
  
• In 2002, The Bourne Identity was the start of yet another series of related films for Damon, all of which were huge successes.

The Private Side

Matt Damon married his long-time sweetheart, Luciana Bozan Barroso, in 2005.  She is from Argentina. They have four children together and currently live in New York City.

Matt Damon Related YouTube Video

Good Will Hunting | Your Move Chief (HD)

Famous Quotes of Matt Damon

• “It’s better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.”

• “As a struggling actor, you’re not looking for roles that define you.  You’re just looking for work.”

• “If anyone wanted a photograph of my life, they’d get bored in a day.”

Lessons for Entrepreneurs

1.  “It’s pretty easy to kind of lose your way. Having kids is really helpful. They kind of disabuse you of the notion of your greatness pretty quickly.”
   
2. “People do things in the name of good, and in the name of ideals, but the world isn’t that simple. So they end up doing things that aren’t necessarily good. Even if they think they’re doing the right thing, but when viewed from a different perspective, they can look barbaric and crazy.”

The Unusual Stuff

• Matt Damon considers acting second to family, which is more important to him.
  
• Matt Damon is a serious environmentalist.
  
• Matt Damion is a liberal Democrat.
  
• Before Goodwill Hunting, Matt and his best friend, Ben Affleck, were so poor that they shared joint bank accounts. 

Answering Frequent Questions

How did Matt Damon meet his wife?

Matt Damon met his wife in a bar where she worked as a bartender.

What are Matt Damon’s daughters’ names?

The names of his daughters are Isabella, Gia, Stella, and Alexa.

What is Matt Damon’s favorite hobby?

His favorite hobby is playing baseball.

The Closing Remarks

Matt Damon is happily married, has four children, and is vocal about them being the most important things about his life.  His acting career began in high school, and he has gone on to be an internationally-known, award-winning actor who strives to give back to the world via his philanthropic donations and hard work to improve the environment. 

He and his family left a mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean in California to become permanent residents of New York, where he now lives and acts, directs, produces, and writes films. He supports almost 20 charities and has a goal of helping establish clean water in impoverished countries around the world.   

Featured image credit: Andrea Raffin / Shutterstock.com