Happy Birthday Matt Damon! #book2movie

Matt Damon in The Martian

Last October I noted Matt Damon had to be flying pretty high on his birthday. The Martian was out and doing deservedly well with critics and the movie-going public. A year later I see no reason to do much other than change the date.
Somebody’s going to have a pretty amazing ~~45th~~ 46 birthday! The forties are a tough decade but with The Martian soaring like an extraterrestrial (if that’s what extraterrestrials do) at both the box office and with the critics, he’s got an awful lot to celebrate. Nope, no midlife crisis on the horizon for Matt Damon. He’s content with the path taken. A superstar but down to earth, likable, the kind of guy you’d like to have a beer with.

Ben Affleck with Damon in Good Will Hunting

Born on October 8th, 1970, Damon worked a full decade in Hollywood, achieving slow and steady success, before he and Ben Affleck really tore things loose with Good Will Hunting in 1997. Prior to that, it was either small or fairly forgettable parts —Damon got his start in Mystic Pizza and is rumored to have been an extra on both The Good Mother and Field of Dreams.

He starred in School Ties in 1992, followed that up with some TV work and a small part in a Ben Affleck turkey called Glory Days (as did Matthew McConaughey) in 1995 and in another Affleck picture, Chasing Amy in 1997.

1997 was a good year, between Chasing Amy and Good Will Hunting, came The Rainmaker based on the novel by John Grisham. The movie about an underdog lawyer who takes on a huge insurance company also starred Danny DeVito, Claire Danes, and Virginia Madsen but it was Matt Damon’s movie and while it wasn’t a hit—just the opposite—The Rainmaker was directed by the legendary Francis Ford Coppola. For a young actor, that’s a win right there.

Not a bad year for the 27-year-old Damon who’d later be nominated for Good Will Hunting, for both acting and writing. It’s pretty much common knowledge that he and Ben Affleck won the writing award, with the prevailing snark being that Matt did all the work while Affleck smoked dope.

Maybe, maybe not. I dunno, I wasn’t there. But that was the start of something big. Saving Private Ryan came next in 1998, along with Rounders, followed by The Talented Mr. Ripley in ’99 and The Legend of Bagger Vance in 2000.

The first Oceans movie came out in 2001, the first Bourne the following year. The rest, as they say, is history. Regrets? I’m sure he has a few, but then again, too few to mention, especially on his birthday.

Instead, let’s raise a glass and wish him well, while we watch Damon and James Cordon re-enact his entire film career in 8 minutes.