Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Bromance Through the Years

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Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Bromance Through the Years

A bromance worth celebrating! Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have proved over the years that nobody does friendship quite like them. The childhood pals grew up together in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they became fast friends when Damon was 10 and Affleck was 8. Since then, the pair have gone on to become major movie stars. They’ve worked together on several projects, including School Ties, The Battle of Shaker Heights and Field of Dreams. When writing the Oscar-winning screenplay for 1997’s Good Will Hunting, the longtime pals were roommates. “We rented this house on the beach in Venice and 800 people came and stayed with us and got drunk,” Affleck previously said, according to Forbes. “Then we ran out of money and had to get an apartment. It was, like, everything was exciting,” he continued. “So we lived in Glendale and Eagle Rock and we lived in Hollywood, West Hollywood, Venice, by the Hollywood Bowl, all over the place. We’d get thrown out of some places or we'd have to upgrade or downgrade depending on who had money.” [jwplayer UF4yw26j-zhNYySv2] Speaking with Entertainment Tonight in 2016, Damon opened up about his long-term bond with Affleck. “I’ve known him for 35 years, and we grew up together,” he said at the time. “We were both in love with the same thing — acting and filmmaking. I think we fed on each other’s obsession during really formative, important years and that bonded us for life.” A source told Us Weekly in 2018 that Damon was “a huge support” for Affleck during his journey to sobriety. “He’ll always be there for Ben whenever he needs him,” the insider added. More than two decades after walking away with their Academy Award for Good Will Hunting in 1998, the pair teamed up again for Ridley Scott's The Last Duel, costarring in and writing the October 2021 feature along with Nicole Holofcener. "This friendship has been essential and defining and so important to me in my life," Affleck told Damon in a January 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." They again united forces for a forthcoming sports marketing flick. The untitled drama, which started filming in June 2022, is directed by Affleck and stars Damon as sneaker executive Sonny Vaccaro, who led Nike into its incredibly profitable partnership with Michael Jordan. Affleck also stars as American businessman Phil Knight. Scroll below to see Damon and Affleck’s enviable bromance over the years:

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1997: ‘Good Will Hunting’ Premiere

The costars celebrated the film's release in New York City on Dec. 4, 1997. The Massachusetts natives cowrote the drama, directed by Gus Van Sant. "I remember it was printed in Daily Variety that we were going to get $600,000 on it. We had no credit, so we went to rent this house that was $3,000 a month, and we used a copy of the Daily Variety to get the place," Affleck has said. "I was like, 'I don't have credit, but this is who we are.' And the landlord was like, 'All right, sure.'"

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1998: 70th Annual Academy Awards

Damon and Affleck won their first Oscar for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) in L.A. on March 23, 1998. "I just said to Matt, 'Losing would suck and winning would be really scary -- and it's really, really scary," Affleck said during his acceptance speech. "We're just two young guys who were fortunate to be involved with a lot of great people."

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1999: ‘Dogma’

The best buds appeared in the 1999 movie together. "Ben's still the youngest writer to ever win an Oscar for screenwriting," Damon has said. "I'd be the youngest if it weren't for Ben. F-cking a--hole!"

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2005: ‘The Brothers Grimm’ Premiere

The childhood pals yukked it up in L.A. on Aug. 8, 2005. Damon -- who starred in the film opposite Heath Ledger -- is Affleck's tenth cousin, once removed.

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2006: Lunch at Lario’s

The award-winning actors shared a meal in Miami on March 1, 2006. When Affleck's career took a nosedive and his love life became tabloid fodder, his best friend had his back. "That was really hard for me to watch as his friend, because I didn't think it was fair to him," Damon has said of Affleck's bad press.

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2007: Ante Up for Africa

The pair participated in the World Series of Poker tournament at the RIO Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on July 5, 2007. At one point, Damon had over $40,000 in chips!

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2007: ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ Premiere

Affleck suited up to support his best bud at the L.A. event on July 25, 2007. Damon once called Affleck his "hetero lifemate" in an interview with GQ.

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2009: Matt Damon’s 31st Birthday

Affleck feted his friend at Library inside the Hudson Hotel in New York City on Oct. 6, 2011. "For a while, we thought maybe we should chill and just do other stuff, and not be Matt and Ben, Matt and Ben," Affleck has said. "But we have our company together and we're developing together."

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2010: At the Cinematheque Annual Gala Honoring Matt Damon

Affleck shared some kinds words about his partner in crime in Beverly Hills on March 27, 2010. "Ben is half of one of the greatest love stories ever told -- not with me," Jennifer Garner joked onstage. "They're the actual prototype for the great Hollywood bromance: Matt and Ben, Ben and Matt."

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2011: 16th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards

Though neither stars were nominated, they attended the L.A. event together on Jan. 14, 2011. "We see each other almost too often," Affleck has said of Damon. "I wonder if his wife is thinking, 'Is he really going to come over every night?'"

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2012: ‘Argo’ Premiere

Damon supported the future Golden Globe-winning director during the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 7, 2012. "He'll obviously direct again, but he wants to get some jobs from really good directors that he admires and just be an actor for hire," Damon has said of Affleck.

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2014: The ‘Project Greenlight’ Premiere

Damon candidly spoke about his familiarity with Affleck’s manhood when heading into the premiere for their former HBO show, Project Greenlight, in 2014. “Oh, I’ve seen it many times before [Gone Girl],” Damon told TMZ.

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2015: Super Bowl XLIX

A major win! The longtime buds headed to Glendale, Arizona, in 2015 to see their favorite team, the New England Patriots, play the Seattle Seahawks. The Patriots beat the Seahawks 28-24.

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2016: The Guys’ Choice Awards

In 2016, Damon and Affleck walked away with 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. “I did Gigli and Matt did that Liberace movie 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.”

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2017: The 89th Academy Awards

When presenting the Best Adapted Screenplay award at the 2017 Oscars, the duo were played off the stage by host Jimmy Kimmel — who has a “feud” with Damon. “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 music interrupted him. “I’m just presenting, you can’t play me off.” Kimmel, for his part, told Damon to “wrap it up” because “we want to go home.”

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2018: The 2018 World Series

The lifelong pals cheered on the Boston Red Sox as they played against the Los Angeles Dodgers during Game 5 of the World Series in 2018. Damon and Affleck were joined by Kimmel, who wore a matching “I’m With Stupid” T-shirt with the Bourne Ultimatum actor.

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2019: Teaming Up for ‘The Last Duel’

At the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival premiere of his movie Ford v Ferrari, Damon expressed his excitement to pen the script for The Last Duel with Affleck. “We wrote for the first time in 25 years with Nicole Holofcener, who is a hero or ours — amazing writer, she’s great,” he explained to Extra. “The three of us wrote this thing, so hopefully we will shoot it next year.”

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2020: Affleck Jokes His Child Stardom Led to Damon Becoming an Actor

“I did like it,” Affleck told SiriusXM in March 2020 about getting into acting as a child. “It instilled in me a deep sort of love and affection for this art and craft and line of work and it made Matt Damon so incredibly jealous. It drove him into a career in cinema. So, I really take credit for that.”

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2020: Sweepstakes Video

Affleck poked fun at Damon for not being “appealing” enough in an Omaze video in October 2020 as they invited one lucky fan to have lunch with them in Los Angeles after the COVID-19 pandemic ends. “You have to spice it up,” the Way Back star urged his pal while debuting a clean-shaven look. “Sell it, push it.”

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2021: Looking to the Future

After the trailer for Affleck and Damon's movie The Last Duel premiered in July 2021, the Jason Bourne actor said he hopes to collaborate with his BFF again as the years go on — especially because they’ve gotten better at time management.

"I think we'll write a lot more in the future just because it didn't turn out to be as time-consuming as we thought,” he told Entertainment Tonight. "Back in the day, we didn't have deadlines because nobody cared what we were doing, no one was waiting for the script, we were unemployed, so we literally had nothing else to do. And now we can build the time, it's a little more structured, right? Like, alright, let's write from 10 to 2, you know, because we can drop the kids off and then we can pick the kids up. We actually have lives now which is nice, finally."

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2021: Supporting Renewed Love

In August 2021, Damon joined Affleck and Jennifer Lopez on what looked like a romantic stroll on the beach in Malibu. 

The Stillwater star said earlier that year that he supported his bro’s rekindled romance. “I love them both. I hope it’s true. That would be awesome,” he told Today in May when the reunion first made headlines. 

Damon added in a July interview that it’s silly to assume he’d do anything other than support his lifelong friend. “How else would I be? Like, would I be unhappy?” Damon said, before sarcastically adding, “Like, I hate true love. It sucks. Yeah. Yeah. I wish them nothing, but you know, hardship.”

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2021: 'The Last Duel' Premiere

The pals reunited at the Venice Film Festival in September 2021 for the premiere of their film The Last Duel. The men arrived via boat to the annual Italian event before posing on the red carpet together.

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2021: Promoting 'The Last Duel'

Ahead of the release of their collaboration The Last Duel, Affleck revealed that his character was originally supposed to kiss Damon's in the movie, but the filmmakers decided to cut the scene. "In the original actual version of that scene — the way that ceremony actually took place was that you kissed everybody on the mouth," the Argo director told Entertainment Tonight in October 2021. "And we had that in the script."

The Martian actor joked that the moment would have been the duo's "first on screen kiss," but instead, Damon's character kneeled before Affleck's in the scene.

At the New York City premiere of the film, the Justice League star told ET that he hopes the pals collaborate on more movies in the future. "It's cool to be doing another movie with him," he said. "We loved it, and we definitely want to do more."

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2021: Dream Costars

Damon revealed to E! News in 2021 that he and Affleck believed they would “never find the time” to collaborate on another project after Good Will Hunting. However, once they carved out the hours to write The Last Duel, they hoped to work together more.

“I grew up with this guy, I’ve known him forever. We’re from the same world and place and stayed close, and I often think about people who come into this business and there’s some challenges that get thrown at you,” the Gone Girl star added at the time. “And having somebody to go through it with me and bounce stuff off of has been really helpful. … You’re lucky if you get to do the job you love and luckier if it’s with people that you love.”

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2021: Reminiscing Over Teenage Photos

The Massachusetts natives appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where they brought a throwback photo booth snap of themselves, rocking matching puka-shell necklaces when they were 17.

"Hard not to see that those guys are going to make it," the Argo director joked at the time, as Damon added, “Yeah, those guys, clearly have 'star' written all over them. I think it's the matching puka necklaces that give it away."

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2022: On Set for Their Untitled Nike Movie

The BFFs were spotted making another onscreen return for their still-untitled sports marketing film, taking a break while working on set. 

The movie, directed by Affleck and costarring Damon, will center around Sonny Vaccaro (played by Damon), a well-known sneaker salesman, who led Nike in its pursuit of a partnership with Michael Jordan. Affleck will also costar as American businessman and billionaire Phil Knight. The forthcoming flick marks the first time the Argo filmmaker will direct the Informant! star. 

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2022: Interviewing Each Other

While promoting The Tender Bar in January 2022, Affleck was interviewed by Damon for Entertainment Weekly, and he noted that the Thor: Love and Thunder star's support was crucial to his career.

"I don't know that that would've been possible for me alone, doing this job in this world without somebody I grew up with who I loved, who I knew loved me and had my back, who believed in me, and whom the popularity of my movies or what people said about me wasn't going to change what they thought about me," Affleck gushed.

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2022: Wedding Bells

Damon was spotted arriving at the Savannah, Georgia airport in August 2022 ahead of Affleck and Lopez’s second wedding. The Justice League actor previously wed the “Jenny From the Block” singer in Las Vegas one month prior.

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2023: Making 'Air' Together

Affleck opened up about his friendship with Damon while discussing their movie Air, which tells the story of Nike's collaboration with Jordan. "I trust him and love him, and I know that this is somebody with integrity," the Deep Water star said in a March 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "In this business, failure is hard, and success is confusing and can make you lose your bearings. Having that friendship as a touchstone over the years was really meaningful."