Matt Damon

Matt Damon and his high school pal Ben Affleck shared the best screenplay Oscar for writing the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting. The two chums also starred in the film, and Damon was nominated for best actor, adding to the general sense of prodigies-on-the-loose surrounding the project. Over the next few years, Damon's earnest good looks and scoundrel's grin helped make him a bona fide star. He was featured in the title role in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998, with Tom Hanks), starred opposite Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, with Gwyneth Paltrow), appeared with Sean Connery in Finding Forrester (2001) and showed up in Steven Soderbergh's remake of Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its sequels Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). Damon also got a big-budget trilogy of his own, starring as the amnesiac superagent Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity (2002, with Clive Owen), The Bourne Supremacy (2004, with Julia Stiles), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007, with David Strathairn). In spite of big-time Hollywood success, Damon has not strayed from small independent projects and has appeared in several of Kevin Smith's movies, including Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999) and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001). He and Affleck also created Project Greenlight, a screenwriting competition and reality show that helped a few first-time filmmakers get their shot at success. Damon's other films include the cult poker film Rounders (1998, with Gretchen Mol), and Martin Scorsese's Boston crime epic The Departed (2006, with Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg).

Extra credit: Damon married Luciana Bozan in December 2005. Their daughter Isabella was born in 2006, and a second daughter, Gia, was born in 2008. Bozan also has a daughter, Alexia, from a previous relationship... Damon was an extra in the 1989 Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams... All three Bourne movies were based on the book series by novelist Robert Ludlum.