Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Friendship: The Complete Ride-or-Die Chronicles
The friendship between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon began—where else?—in the hallowed streets of Boston in the early 1980s when the future Hollywood heavyweights were just kids.
“Before Matt, I was by myself,” Affleck told Parade in 2007. “Acting was a solo activity where I’d just go off and do something, act in a little TV show or something, and no one understood it. None of the other kids knew what it was I did, how it worked, or anything. All of a sudden, I had this friend, Matt, and he gets it and wants to do it and thinks it’s interesting and wants to talk about it. Soon, both of us are doing it.”
The actors’ allegiance to each other was cemented when Affleck defended Damon in a fight against a schoolyard bully. “I remember that was, like, a big moment,” he told Conan O’Brien in 2019. “He will put himself in a really bad spot for me. This is a good friend.”
And so began one of Hollywood’s most enduring partnerships, which spans four decades, nine movies together, and has inspired everything from Oscar wins to Dunkin’ Donuts commercials, Mindy Kaling’s Off-Broadway play, and the pair’s own production company. “This friendship has been essential and defining and so important to me in my life,” Affleck told Damon in a 2022 Entertainment Weekly interview. “There were a few critical times, which are private and I don’t want to share, but where your support was so profoundly meaningful to me that I don’t think I would’ve been able to be successful without it.”
To commemorate their new film, Air, we bring you some highlights from Damon and Affleck’s friendship, from the era of Good Will Hunting and joint bank accounts to the start of their own business venture.
From Paramount/Courtesy Everett CollectionSchool Ties (1992)
After appearing as extras in 1989’s Field of Dreams, Affleck and Damon booked supporting roles in this Brendan Fraser-led teen drama. During the early period of their careers, the duo even shared a bank account. “It was unusual, but we needed the money for auditions,” Damon said on the Bill Simmons Podcast, admitting it was “a weird thing in retrospect.” Affleck added, “It was, like, ‘You’re not going to be alone. I’m not going to be alone. Let’s go out there and do this together.’”
From Miramax/Courtesy Everett CollectionGood Will Hunting (1997)
The duo’s careers and lives changed forever with the release of Good Will Hunting, which they wrote in their early 20s. “We came up with this idea of the brilliant kid [played by Damon] and his townie friends [one of whom is played by Affleck], where he was special and the government wanted to get their mitts on him. And it had a very Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run sensibility, where the kids from Boston were giving the NSA the slip all the time,” Affleck told Boston Magazine in 2013. “We would improvise and drink like 6 or 12 beers or whatever and record it with a tape recorder. At the time, we imagined the professor and the shrink would be Morgan Freeman and [Robert] De Niro, so we’d do our imitations of Freeman and De Niro. It was kind of hopelessly naive and probably really embarrassing in that respect.”
From Evan Agostini/ImageDirectThe 70th Academy Awards (1998)
What began as “hopelessly naive” became one of the year’s most successful films, earning Affleck and Damon the Oscar for best original screenplay. “I just said to Matt, ‘Losing would suck and winning would be really scary’—and it’s really, really scary,” Affleck said during their acceptance speech. “We’re just two young guys who were fortunate to be involved with a lot of great people.” The friends, who brought their mothers as dates, remain two of the youngest people to ever win this award.
From Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett CollectionDogma (1999)
Post-Oscars, the duo was branded “Hollywood’s very own Bert and Ernie” by Evgenia Peretz in Affleck’s October 1999 cover of Vanity Fair. Although Damon and Affleck would appear in a few of the same projects over the years, including 1997’s Chasing Amy and 1999’s Dogma (both directed by mutual friend Kevin Smith), they made a concerted effort to cement their own professional identities.
“For a while, we thought maybe we should chill and just do other stuff, and not be Matt and Ben, Matt and Ben,” Affleck told Boston Magazine. “We have our company together, we’re developing together. And Matt lives down the street from me like he used to. His kids are living with him, the way we used to live with our folks. The only difference is that we have pools.”
- George De Sota/Getty Images
Project Greenlight (2001)
They did, however, team up for an HBO documentary series highlighting first-time filmmakers. The project came at a tenuous time for Affleck in the spotlight, as Damon would later recount in a 2015 interview with The Hollywood Reporter: “Ten years ago, the public image of him could not have been farther apart from who he actually is. It was like he was being cast in a role, that he was a talentless kind of meathead, with his whole relationship with Jennifer Lopez…. He just got cast as this person that he wasn’t. It was just really painful. It was painful to be his friend because it wasn’t fair, you know?”
From Featureflash Archive / Alamy Stock PhotoCinematheque Annual Gala Honoring Matt Damon (2010)
While paying tribute to Damon onstage, Affleck’s then wife Jennifer Garner poked fun at their eternal bond. “Ben is half of one of the greatest love stories ever told—not with me,” she quipped. “They’re the actual prototype for the great Hollywood bromance: Matt and Ben, Ben and Matt.”
From Randy Holmes/Getty ImagesJimmy Kimmel Live! (2016)
Jimmy Kimmel, who has long been locked into a fake “feud” with Damon, welcomed Affleck as a guest on his late-night show only to be duped on-camera. Affleck snuck Damon onstage, stowing him inside a huge coat that—once unbuttoned—revealed the mystery man inside. During Affleck’s most recent appearance on the show, Damon was invited to participate via Zoom before his Wi-Fi predictably cut out mid-sentence.
From Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesGuys’ Choice Awards (2016)
Damon and Affleck received the Guys of the Decade award at Spike TV’s Guys’ Choice Awards. “I think it goes without saying that this is an award Matt and I have been dreaming about since we were little boys,” Affleck said during their speech. He then joked about how the diverting critical reactions to their work kept them apart professionally. “I did Gigli and Matt did that Liberace movie [Behind the Candelabra] and all of a sudden it all seemed out of reach. Then I did [Batman v Superman] and all of a sudden it was back in reach again.”
From Eddy Chen/Getty Images89th Academy Awards (2017)
While presenting best original screenplay to Manchester By The Sea at the 2017 Oscars, the pair was played off the stage by Kimmel, who was hosting that year’s ceremony. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Wait a minute. Hold on. What is with the music? Am I being played off? Seriously?” Damon said as the music began. “I’m just presenting, you can’t play me off.” Kimmel told Damon to “wrap it up” because “we want to go home.”
From Jerritt Clark/Getty ImagesWorld Series (2018)
Affleck and Damon cheered on their cherished Boston Red Sox during game five of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Drawing attention to their playful feud, Kimmel and Damon each wore matching “I’m With Stupid” T-shirts to the event. The Boston Red Sox won 4-1.
From Lifestyle pictures / Alamy Stock PhotoThe Last Duel (2021)
After decades spent resisting the urge to operate as a unit, Damon and Affleck reunited onscreen and off for The Last Duel, which they cowrote with Nicole Holofcener in addition to starring as medieval era-knights. “We fell prey to this idea that, ‘Well, if you don’t individuate your careers and do your own things, people will always associate you together. That will be limiting,” Affleck told The Hollywood Reporter this year.
He continued, “The motivation behind making Good Will Hunting was to serve as an acting reel so that we could get jobs as actors, not because we wanted to be writers. So when we became successful and had the opportunity to do movies, we took them. And it’s very hard to let go of that hand-to-mouth mentality you have as an actor. The phone could stop ringing at any time, and especially where Matt and I grew up pretty modestly, it was almost irresponsible to not take a job where they were going to pay you a lot of money.”
- JC Olivera/GA/Getty Images
Air (2023)
Affleck directs Damon for the first time in his latest film, Air, in which both star as key players in Nike’s battle to sign Michael Jordan to the brand. It’s also the pair’s first film under their Artists Equity production company, where Affleck serves as CEO and Damon as chief creative officer.
“Because we have known each other for so long, I’m very used to creative problem-solving with him. If one of us comes up with a terrible idea, we will say it. Your feelings aren’t hurt,” Damon told Vanity Fair recently at the film’s premiere. “There’s always respect, and we move on to the next idea. But—I mean, to nobody’s surprise—he’s a brilliant director. He’s just absolutely great, and I can’t wait to do it again. He’s my ride-or-die as a friend and creative partner.”
