Ben Affleck and Matt Damon: Hollywood’s greatest love story
The concept of soulmates – for those who believe in it, anyway – doesn’t necessarily have to mean two romantic partners pre-destined to be together forever. Platonic bonds can survive thick and thin to last a lifetime, and there’s no better example in Hollywood than the unbreakable bromance between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
Meeting on the streets of Boston in the early 1980s when Affleck was eight, and Damon was ten, they couldn’t in their wildest dreams imagine that not only would they go on to become superstars with impressive careers, but their ongoing friendship would become a source of such endless fascination.
The former always harboured dreams of becoming an actor, but he didn’t have any kindred spirits until that fateful day. It is as if by fate, the latter appeared in his life, giving Affleck somebody who “gets it and wants to do it and thinks it’s interesting and wants to talk about it”. Just like that, an epic 40-year saga had been set in motion.
Their struggles have been well-documented, and the arduous years of living together as jobbing actors, sharing bank accounts, and becoming a single entity determined to make it to the top have become an integral part of the shared Affleck/Damon mythology, with the duo deciding that they weren’t going to consider going it alone. Quite frankly, it’s beautiful and indicative of the romantic love story that’s seen them lean on each other through the peaks, valleys, highs, and lows of navigating an unforgiving industry.
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Affleck wasn’t in the mind for beating around the bush. “This friendship has been essential and defining and so important to me in my life,” he said to his opposite number. “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”.
It would have been easy for them to rest on their laurels in the wake of their Academy Award-winning breakthrough Good Will Hunting, but despite separating at the hip to a meaningful extent for the first time in their professional lives, Affleck and Damon continued to rely on each other off-camera. Friends are a hard thing to come by under the harsh glare of celebrity, but dammit, if these two don’t bring a tear to the eye with how much they support each other.
Being branded “Hollywood’s very own Bert and Ernie” as they were in the late 1990s could be interpreted as disparaging by some, but never let it be forgotten the Sesame Street icons are beacons of brotherhood, friendship, positivity, and enduring appeal, something Affleck and Damon have experienced both individually and together.
They’ve collaborated on nine projects so far as either stars, writers, directors, or producers. With their tenth collaboration on the way, announced in June 2024 as co-starring in the crime thriller RIP, they continue to strengthen their creative partnership. They co-created the Project Greenlight docuseries to give aspiring filmmakers a leg-up in a manner not entirely dissimilar to their own journey, and they co-founded the Artist Equity production company with the express intention of allowing creatives to retain more control than they’d usually be afforded. Their enduring influence and camaraderie were recognised when they shared the ‘Guys of the Decade’ trophy from the definitely not sexist Guys’ Choice Awards.
Damon might be happily married to Luciana Bozán since December 2005 and be the doting father of three daughters, and Affleck completed his second complicated, long-running love story when he reunited with Jennifer Lopez two decades after they initially split, but their respective spouses must be fully aware that there’s a distinct possibility they’ll always be playing second fiddle in their husband’s life.
Even Jennifer Garner – Affleck’s ex-wife and mother of his three kids – once proudly proclaimed that “Ben is half of one of the greatest love stories ever told,” and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she wasn’t referring to herself as the other party. The self-awareness is commendable, and truer words have never been spoken.
