Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s childhood friendship and subsequent rise to fame is the stuff of Hollywood legend, with the two being introduced through their moms as kids when they were growing up just a block and a half away from one another in Boston, Massachusetts.
It was during this time that the two men started working on their own script for a movie you may have heard of: Good Will Hunting. This ended up being the launchpad for their glittering Hollywood careers, catapulting both Ben and Matt to global fame in the late ‘90s.
Fast forward 26 years, and Ben and Matt are still best friends and two of the most famous actors in the industry.
And Matt reflected on this stark difference during a recent appearance on the Radio Times podcast with Ben’s brother, Casey Affleck. Reflecting on how “lucky” he has been when it comes to stardom, Matt admitted that he wouldn’t have been able to handle the “scrutiny” that Ben is subjected to.
Casey then remarked that Matt “navigated” his rise to fame really well, and Matt said that he thinks this is a result of him throwing himself into his work, and ultimately marrying somebody who wasn’t famous.
Matt then recalled one of the only times that he was photographed by paparazzi while he was living in New York, saying that it was soon after his youngest daughter, Stella, was born in 2010.
Discussing Ben directly, Matt added: “I can’t imagine living under that kind of scrutiny, and it’s been like that for 25 years. We’ve had parallel careers in a lot of ways, and so I’m fortunate to have been kind of excused from that part of it.”