Matt Damon

Matt Damon the Unknown had talent and range, blonde and toothy good looks, and ambition. So did everybody else in town. What Damon the Unknown had, that everybody else didn't, was a script.

A very good script, it turned out. Massachusetts-born Damon learned to act in local theatre, commercials, and as an extra in Boston-shot films. At 16, he took himself to New York for a casting agency audition. One Mystic Pizza (1988) later, he could be found very respectably attending his hometown college (Harvard, no less) majoring in English, and penning a script he called Good Will Hunting. The Ivy Leaguer juggled Rising Son (1990) and School Ties (1992) with studies, but Hollywood beckoned before Harvard was done with its man, and Damon left the east for Los Angeles.

There he was cast in Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), The Good Old Boys (1995, TV), and Courage Under Fire (1996). For the last, he impressed the Hollywood people that matter by deliberately losing a health-endangering 40 pounds to look his part. Health and flesh regained, he took on 1997's Chasing Amy and The Rainmaker, and then, together with his former neighbour, long-time friend, and co-screenwriter Ben Affleck, talked producers into filming Good Will Hunting (1997) with its writers as leads. The project was a dizzying success for Damon and Affleck, bringing two Golden Globes, a Best Actor Oscar nomination, and Best Original Screenplay Oscar win, plus National Board of Review, various Film Critics Association, Berlin Film Festival, Golden Satellite, and Silver Bear awards. As well, Damon was named ShoWest Male Star of Tomorrow.

Big-budget scripts began to pour in, and Damon prepared for his roles as intensely as ever . For Rounders (1998), the gambler/lead "studied" by entering, and, incidentally, losing early on, the 1998 World Series of Poker. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) showed a well-developed and nicely-acted dark side, and for the Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) the actor once again suffered physically, cracking a rib and blistering his hands with eight hour days spent perfecting his golf swing. All the Pretty Horses and Titan A.E. (reportedly filmed without injury) completed the year.

Off screen, each of the handsome star's dates, real or imagined, is carefully scrutinized by an eager industry press. Damon is number three on People's Most Eligible Bachelors list. He and friend, fellow Eligible Bachelor Affleck, are considered "near-Siamese twins of acting" and the two are enshrined in literally hundreds of tribute websites, with only one anti-page among them. Upcoming for Damon, with and without Affleck, are several acting and producing projects - Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, The Bourne Identity, I Know This Much Is True, The Ninth Man, and Oceans Eleven on the big screen, and The Runner (reality television).

The ambitious pair has launched a scriptwriting contest at www.projectgreenlight.com that will see the winner's movie produced and self-directed, complete with documentary. Damon and Affleck call their website "an online community for those who love films and filmmaking." Damon is a perfect co-head of such a community. Anyone who'd starve and crack a rib for film deserves to be king.