Matt Damon on Ben Affleck coming to his rescue during a fight
From The Howard Stern Show (12 January 2026)
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To celebrate what is likely the 39th anniversary of Ben saving Matt from getting his ass kicked (and thus finally earning ride-or-die BFF status), here is, to the best of my knowledge, Matt and Ben's first time telling this story together in public.
[Full transcript under the cut.]
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STERN: Is it true that— Ben, you were what, about a year and a half older than Matt or so?
BEN: Younger. I'm younger than him, yeah. Now I like it! When we were younger, I was really pissed. Now I like to remind people.
STERN: But wasn't there some— Matt, I think you were getting into a fight with someone at school, and Ben came over and beat the shit out of the guy?
MATT: No, it was a snow day, so we would all go to Cambridge Commons and play tackle football. Everyone would just meet up there. It wasn't even that organized. I mean, however many people showed up, it could be like 20 on 20. And I had run back a kickoff and there was this kid — [to Ben] I shouldn't call out his name.
BEN: I wouldn't say his name. He was a lot bigger than Matt and he didn't like that Matt had—
MATT: He was 6'6''! He was 6'6''—
STERN: Is his name The Rock?
MATT: No, god, that would have been a problem!
BEN: If his name was The Rock, I would have let Matt get his ass kicked! You're on your own, prick!
MAT: But Ben was like 14! And we were probably each 5'2'' at the time. And I mouthed off to Justin, cuz I had kind of juked him. And I don't know what was going on in this kid's life, but he just piled drove me into the ground. And suddenly I was on my back, and I was like, "This is gonna be terrible!" And then out of nowhere, little Benny Affleck [Ben snorts], all 5'2'', just fucking came like Ray Lewis and just tackled this guy!
BEN: Because it was gonna need to be two of us to fight him, because he was twice as big.
STERN: He came in like Batman, you could say!
MATT: He came in like Batman. He really did, and tackled Justi— this kid off me. And then it got all broken up, and everybody was like, "This is fine—
BEN: It was a school or a place where that happened. That wasn't like an uncommon thing. You know, it was sort of kids getting into fights. There were all kinds of—
MATT: Me getting my ass kicked wasn't that uncommon!
First of all, it’s a really lucky thing it occurs to me now—I saw [Matt] the other day and we’re doing this movie together—very few people are lucky enough to spend their life in the same line of work with their best friend from when they were kids, manage to stay friends, not end up hating each other. Actually, be friends and love each other […] I mean, it was something that seemed really normal and that I took for granted because there we were: we were kids who— he was a bigger kid, for a brief period. I was 8, he was 10, he was a big kid, he played baseball, he was really cool, he had a bowl cut—those little feathered ones that we all wanted, of course—and he— And he was, you know, nice to me. And we were both interested in the same things. Just kids who grew up two blocks apart and both wanted to be actors—for whatever reason it is that makes you wanna do that thing—and hung out and then we’re in the same friend group and then sort of went off and did— “Oh, let's—” We’re just like dumb enough to think, “It’ll pan out for us! We’ll just go be actors! We’ll just go work!” And kind of believing in it. And then live together. But I think the reason why it wasn’t a thing—that sort of “competition” thing that you talk about—is because we did a lot of auditioning very early on. […] And always the thing was, we would get our little act together, and practice our scenes, and do our workshop—I mean, “nerdy” doesn’t even begin to describe it—but it really was a genuine thing, where we were like, “Look, I hope I get the part. But if I don’t, I really hope you do.” And for a while, we had this thing where we were like, “We’ll just split all our money!” […] I took for granted that he liked me, and rooted for me, and wanted me to succeed. We just didn't— We’re lucky enough not to have the friendship of that whole “It’s not enough that I succeed, all my friends have to fail” thing. And there are people I’ve wanted to fail! I can be just as petty and bitter as any other actor. But I loved him.
— Ben Affleck, in the SmartLess podcast (2 April 2023).
“Hey, I wrote this thing, I don’t know what the fuck to do with it.” And Ben read it and goes, “I don’t know what to do with it either, but we should do it together.” And I was like, “Sold! I’m in!” And so that was really the— I trusted no one in my life more than him. And we were just, you know— He was as close a friend as I’d ever had in my life or ever could imagine having. And I respected him, and I respected his taste. I mean, we— Our taste kind of formed together, you know what I mean? Those teenage years where you’re spreading your wings and gaining your own independence: we did that together. And so I know he would read a situation the same way I would. You know what I mean? We were just very… compatible.
— Matt Damon, in Ep. 432 of The Bill Simmons Podcast (3 October 2018)
We’re going home. Oh, do you two live together? Unfortunately, yes. So, how long have you two been together? Uh, a while. He can be pretty flaky sometimes, but we have a lot in common.
It was easy to fall into playing old buddies who have been kicking around on Earth together for eons, because that’s how we feel about each other […] We’ve been through a lot together; we’ve had some exciting times and some pretty boring ones, so we can imagine spending eternity in Wisconsin together.
— Matt Damon on playing fallen angels with Ben Affleck in Dogma (1999). In Biography Magazine’s issue on Ben Affleck (July 2002).
I am fascinated by the beginnings of their friendship. Even though they first met each other in 1980, at 10 and 8 years old, when Matt moved into the neighborhood, Matt has said that it was only when Ben started high school that they "started hanging out". This happened in 1986/1987, and Ben and Matt were "thick as thieves through that school year."
But they didn't seem to become besties straight away (despite Ben's wishes). Apparently, Matt felt a bit "threatened" by Ben's previous acting experience and was afraid he might displace him in the school's drama department. And so when Ben joined the Fall production of "The Visit" (playing Matt's son), Matt pulled him aside to offer some "advice". “This is the theater. It’s not about your looks. It’s about the work.” Ben took the words to heart. He really looked up to Matt and respected his opinion. But he also wanted to earn his respect, and, unable to perceive Matt's own insecurities at the time, Ben was hurt that Matt apparently thought so little of him and his acting abilities. He was so marked by this interaction, that he has often recounted it throughout the years, naming it a "stand-out" as one of the dumbest things Matt's ever done.
So how did they go from circling each other to "thick as thieves"? How did Ben finally manage to earn the respect of the older, cooler, taller, "good-looking" Matt? How did Matt decide to overcome his own fears and insecurities and let Ben into his heart so that they would never be jealous of each other again, always wishing the best for the other? How did they become partners?
I believe the big turning point took place in the Winter of 1986:
MATT: The last fight I got into would have been in the mid-80s*. I remember it, we had a snow day at school, so we would all meet in the Cambridge Common and play tackle football. Cause there would be a foot of snow on the ground and so it was kind of like you can't get hurt. So it was a really fun thing to do. I mouthed off to a kid that I knew. But he was your height. He was like 6''6', right? And I might have been 5''3' at the time. And I said something. I scored on him or something, I don't know, I said something but he came for me. And it was like this mountain of a guy came at me. And I was like, "Oh man..." So before I knew it, I was on the ground. He was above me and I was like, "This is gonna be bad!"
And it was right then that little 5''2' Ben Affleck tackled this dude off of me. Like out of nowhere. I was a junior and he was a freshman. And he tackled this kid off of me — literally at the risk of his own life. And really quickly then everyone broke it up. Cause they wanted to get back to the football game. Cause that was fun and this was ridiculous, right? And so that was the end of it. And the kid was reasonable and he was like, "Alright, I'm not fighting, I'm reasonable, let's play!" But I remember that was a big moment, going like, "This guy. He will put himself in a really bad spot for me. This is a good friend to have."
*This episode likely took place in late January 1987, as that was the only time that winter that the snow depth in Cambridge, MA, reached 6 inches, what would usually qualify for a snow day in the region.
The most likely date of the snow day in question is Monday, January 26th, 1987. While the snow depth reached 7 inches on the previous Friday, January 23rd as well, this happened during the night. It drizzled the rest of the day and by 7 PM the snow was back to 3 inches. The following Monday, however, it snowed all morning, reaching 7 inches by 3 PM. By that point, it had stopped actively snowing, likely inviting kids to go play tackle football in the Cambridge Common.
But so we have it. On that snow day in late January, brave little Ben risked "his own life" to come to Matt's rescue. And it was this reckless, ride-or-die devotion that made Matt finally go "This guy. [...] This is a good friend to have."
And from then on out they were "thick as thieves." They had "business lunches", where they spoke life into their dreams, and "planned their careers" together. They opened a shared bank account (with password "RiverP", after the recent breakout start River Phoenix, who they both admired). Ben even started secretly withdrawing his Voyage of the Mimi earnings from his college trust fund — $200 a week in a total of $7,000 before he was caught — which he has said was used to buy beers, pizza, and video games (but which I believe was also partly used to support their trips to New York for auditions). After all, "if one kid had enough for a candy bar, then the candy bar was bought and split in half—that’s just the way it’s been."
These acts of devotion, of being ride-or-die for each other, of pooling all their resources into their shared partnership, remained a linchpin of their friendship in the years to come. Even now, they always have each other's backs and are actively building a future together, through Artists Equity. And to me, it's just all the more wonderful to see where it all started.
Everyone has a Dickie Greenleaf in his life, someone he admires to the point of idolatry.
— Matt Damon, on The Talented Mr. Ripley at Urban Cinephile.
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Like everybody, I’m lonely to some extent. Like everybody, I live in fear of not being loved and not having love returned. And I think everybody has a Dickie Greenleaf in his life: someone who is extraordinarily charismatic but who can go away.
— Matt Damon, interviewed for The Advocate (January 2000).
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A 6-foot-3-inch buffed block of granite with a top-heavy build that leaves his arms hanging wide, Mr. Affleck is hardly aloof and anything but dull. Though he seems like the smart-aleck towel-snapper you avoided in gym class, he is, by Mr. Damon's account, ''charismatic, loyal, a fantastic storyteller and a great friend who can laugh even when things go terribly, terribly wrong.''
Mr. Affleck, he says, shares those endearing attributes with Dickie Greenleaf, the doomed playboy in The Talented Mr. Ripley. ''Unlike Dickie, Ben has survived,'' says Mr. Damon, who played that film's murderous Mr. Ripley. ''So far.''
— From Ben Affleck's interview with The New York Times (10 September 2000).
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See also:
Q: What were the key scenes for you to convey Ripley’s sexuality?
MATT: [T]he scene where Ripley says he’d take a bullet for Dickie [...].
[Later in the interview]
MATT: I guess it’s not enough for me to say that I love Ben so much that I’d take a bullet for him.
MATT: In The Rip you accuse me of lying. Do you feel like you know when I'm lying in real life? [Laughs] That's a good question.
BEN: Ugh, I like to think you do, but who knows if that's true? How would I know if I didn't know, you know what I mean? You could have been lying to me all this time and I would have no idea. You're actually... Dickie Greenleaf*.
[*Note: In this scenario, Ben would actually be the Dickie Greenleaf to Matt's Tom Ripley.]
Ben Affleck's issue in People Magazine (2 December 2002)
Sexiest Man Alive...Ben Affleck
What makes a man sexy? One part mischief, one part adventure, one part danger? There's no mathematical equation, but it adds up to Ben Affleck
By Samantha Miller
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He was buff. He was bad. He was dressed head to toe in tight red leather. And he hardly broke a sweat dangling from a ledge 10 stories above downtown L.A. without a safety net. No wonder Ben Affleck attracted crowds of adoring females when he did his own stunt work for his upcoming action film Daredevil. “We all swooned,” says his costar Jennifer Garner. “He’s your basic tall, dark and handsome. He’s it. You want him to save you. I can’t imagine anyone the world would rather see swoop in and save the day than Ben.”
Being a superhero takes more than good looks—and the same goes for being crowned this year’s Sexiest Man Alive. “Ben’s really loyal and really honest, really smart, really funny,” says Matt Damon, Affleck’s best buddy since boyhood. “He’s got more going for him than just about anyone I’ve ever met.”
The 30-year-old actor is also intriguingly complex. In private that big-screen big hunk (he’s 6’2″) displays impressive range: An easygoing charmer. A passionate political activist. An Oscar winner. A devoted son. A self-aware grownup. A flirt. A brainiac. A goofball. A head-over-heels romantic.
And—perhaps you’ve heard—husband-to-be to a certain Jennifer Lopez. Despite the hullabaloo over the joined-at-the-lips stars’ flashy four-month courtship—and much public clucking over Lopez’s short-lived pair of previous marriages—those close to Affleck applaud the engagement. “They understand each other,” says his mother, Chris, 59, a Cambridge, Mass., fifth-and sixth-grade teacher. “She’s just a lovely person. She’s very connected to her family. She’s very warm. She’s like the ideal daughter-in-law. The only downside is that she is so famous, but on the other hand, so is Ben, and who’s going to put up with that if they’re not in that same world?”
Meanwhile Affleck’s move into the world of commitment marks an important milestone for the never-wed star, who stepped out with the likes of Shoshanna Lonstein and Famke Janssen following the 1999 breakup of his intense romance with Gwyneth Paltrow. “Recently he has matured a lot,” says his mother. “It’s no longer ‘I’m in love, but I’m young,’ it’s ‘I want to make a life now, I’m ready for this.’ ” Before Lopez came on the scene, recalls Daredevil director Mark Steven Johnson, “I used to joke with him about how he was going to be in his 50s hitting on 18-year-old girls. He laughed and said, ‘No, I won’t.’ ” As Affleck himself told Good Morning America in April, “What’s going to mean the most to me [is] being a father, being a husband, being a person of whom I can really be proud.”
Over the years his charm has attracted plenty of hopefuls. “Chicks gravitate to him,” says longtime pal Kevin Smith, director of Affleck and Lopez’s upcoming Jersey Girl. “The word on the street is that he’s the ideal man, chatty, gorgeous, generous and intelligent.” Affleck’s friend and Daredevil costar Michael Clarke Duncan thinks Ben’s secret is simple: “If you can get a woman to laugh, no matter how much money you have, no matter how much charisma you have, you can have that woman, and Ben can do that. He’s not this stuck-up guy who you can’t talk to.”
On movie sets Affleck is known for his eagerness to chew the fat with anyone from electricians to camera operators. “He’s a hugger,” says Phil Alden Robinson, who directed him in this summer’s The Sum of All Fears. “He loves being around people, and consequently he makes them happy. You can’t fake that kind of warmth.”
Then there’s plain old brains, that attractive but all too rare accessory to brawn and a $350,000 Bentley. “Ben has this nerdy smart-guy side to him,” says Liv Tyler, his love interest in 1998’s Armageddon. “He’s obsessed with the New York Times crossword puzzle. He reads a lot. He’s really interested in knowing more about the world.” The die-hard Democrat’s homework shows in his dedication to causes, from stumping for Al Gore across the country to urging Harvard University to raise wages for blue-collar employees. At a rally at the university in 2000, Affleck and Damon addressed a crowd of more than 500. “They spoke very passionately,” says noted historian and author Howard Zinn, a fellow speaker, “Ben talked about how his father had worked at Harvard at a menial job [like Matt Damon‘s Good Will Hunting character, Tim Affleck, 59, labored as a custodian from 1988 to 1990] and how he understood what it was like to work for an enormously rich corporation and get a pittance.”
Tim and Chris (who separated when Ben was 11 and later divorced) raised Benjamin Geza Affleck and his brother Casey, 27, in a working-class neighborhood in Cambridgeport, Mass. A rambunctious, outgoing youngster, Ben “was very good at imitating people, even when he was 3 or 4,” says Chris, who still lives in the blue clapboard house her sons grew up in (although Ben bought her a summer home on Cape Cod). By 7, he was an avid reader, Little League baseball player and budding actor. Dark End of the Street, an independent film directed by a family friend, marked his movie debut in 1979—and the first time Affleck would be smitten by his leading lady. “He had an appropriate 7-year-old crush on the 19-year-old girl” who played his big sister, recalls Affleck’s childhood acting coach David Wheeler. At 9, Ben landed a role in an educational series, The Voyage of the Mimi. “He was very bright and intensely curious,” says Wheeler.
And soon he became just a bit devilish. Thanks to his acting gigs (including a Burger King commercial and the 1987 miniseries Hands of a Stranger), “he was adept at age 13 or 14 at dealing with adults,” says Gerry Speca, his drama teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin public high school. “When he had to, he could turn on the charm. Like the Eddie Haskell syndrome.” Unbeknownst to his mother, Ben sweet-talked bank tellers into letting him withdraw earnings that she was socking away in a college fund. Affleck was more of a partyer than was his neighbor Damon, two years older and a pal since 1980. But the two “weren’t heartthrobs by any means,” says Damon’s brother Kyle, 35. “They weren’t even considered cool kids. They were drama geeks.”
Affleck—who grew almost a foot his junior year of high school—attended his 1990 prom with a group of friends. He met his first serious girlfriend, Cheyenne Rothman, now 30, at summer camp when they were teens; their relationship would continue on and off over the next seven years. The following fall Affleck headed to the University of Vermont. (He applied to Harvard but was rejected despite high SAT scores.) He dropped out after one semester to head for Hollywood. “I would always say, ‘Oh, Ben, you shouldn’t do this. You should go to college,’ ” says his mother. “But secretly I sort of suspected that he was going to make it.”
She was right. Roles in 1993’s Dazed and Confused and 1995’s Mallrats raised Affleck’s profile as he and Damon, crashing with two other roommates in a cluttered apartment, labored on the Hunting screenplay. “He had a hard time getting cast as anything but the biggish bully type,” recalls Kevin Smith, who directed Mallrats. “I had some producer try to talk me out of casting Ben in Chasing Amy [1997] because he was ‘too big’ to be a romantic leading man. But I figured, if I’m a guy and I can see what a catch this dude is, there’ve gotta be women out there who’d agree.”
Then Hunting sold for $600,000. On the first day on the set “Matt and Ben cried,” says coproducer Chris Moore, a longtime Affleck pal. “They had believed in it so much.” With his mom as his date—”It was such a rush,” she says—Affleck picked up the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1998 alongside his best friend.
Hollywood quickly saw Affleck’s beefcake potential. For Armageddon, director Michael Bay got a dentist to cap his teeth and hired a trainer to pump him up. The cameras took over from there. “I remember Ben coming to me one day and saying, ‘You’re not going to believe what happened to me,’ ” recalls costar Liv Tyler. “Basically Michael Bay had just made him stand there and have running water poured over his bare torso. He didn’t even know what scene it was for.”
He also discovered the world of celebrity dating. Sparks flew between Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow at Good Will Hunting‘s 1997 premiere. The couple were an item on and off for the next two years and remain friendly. “In Gwyneth he found a match of the minds,” his Forces of Nature director Bronwen Hughes said earlier this year.
Affleck found the single life after their breakup action-packed—but unfulfilling. “I felt very adrift,” he told Talk magazine in 2000. “So I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll go to these parties. I’ll try to embrace this life people think I have.’…And I found myself even more miserable.” In July 2001 he made a move that surprised most pals: He checked himself into Promises rehab center in Malibu for treatment for alcoholism. According to friends, his excess drinking was a problem he wanted to tackle early. “I think he figured out, ‘If I keep doing this, I’m going to wind up in a place that I don’t want to be,’ ” says Michael Clarke Duncan. Affleck knew the perils better than most: His father, Tim, now a still-life photographer in Indio, Calif., is a recovering alcoholic who got sober in 1990 with his ex-wife’s help. “I’m proud that he took stock of himself,” says Tim. “And like most things in Ben’s life, whatever he’s decided to undertake, he’s been successful at.”
The experience has changed more than Affleck’s attitude toward partying. “It involved a lot of introspection,” says his mother. “He’s very, very happy right now, really easy to talk to about difficult things,” adds Don Roos, who directed him in 2000’s Bounce. That transformation made it the right time to meet Ms. Right. “When you first get sober, you’re nervous about staying sober and you tend to stay close to home,” says Roos. “I credit Jennifer”—herself a teetotaler—”with being there to open up his life for him again.”
Now, it seems, Lopez, 33, is his sole addiction—unless you count diamonds: Her tokens of affection from Affleck (whose Daredevil salary is $12.5 million) have included a yellow-and-white diamond bracelet and, of course, the 6.10-carat Harry Winston pink diamond ring he gave her when he proposed. In an e-mail to Diane Sawyer, Affleck called Lopez “a truly graceful beauty with an artist’s soul”—and himself “the luckiest man alive.”
The news came as little surprise for director Kevin Smith, who watched the relationship deepen over the past few months during the Jersey Girl shoot. “After day one of watching them in rehearsals, I pulled him aside and said, ‘Within a year,’ ” Smith says. “I know there are a ton of cynics out there, but they haven’t seen these guys together. This isn’t just Nookie Betwixt the Rich and Famous. There’s obscene mutual respect and adoration. They both came from working-class backgrounds that led to these over-the-top career successes. Plus she finds everything he says funny.”
Their jet-set itinerary has included a few unadvertised stops. In August Affleck took Lopez on a tour of his old haunts in South Boston, including a favorite chicken parmigiana joint and a bar featured in Good Will Hunting. They also recently lunched with Affleck’s father at Ben’s new Beverly Hills home, on the property where Drew Barrymore lived before a house fire last year. “I think she’s nifty,” Tim Affleck says of Lopez. “I didn’t see her as a flashy movie star any more than I see my son as a flashy movie star. They’re just a couple of schlub dubs like the rest of us.”
He may be a secret schlub, but Affleck seems comfortable with his celebrity—and savvy about how to leverage it for creative as well as political causes. “Ben is not a guy who is handled by handlers,” says pal Moore, a partner with Affleck, Damon and Sean Bailey in the entertainment company LivePlanet. “He does what he wants.” With LivePlanet, Affleck developed the innovative HBO reality series Project Greenlight and this fall’s critically acclaimed but short-lived ABC drama Push, Nevada.
One crusade close to Affleck’s heart began serendipitously. In 1998 he noticed Joe Kindregan, then 10, in a motorized wheelchair watching him film a scene for Forces of Nature at Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C. Affleck came over to joke with the boy, who suffers from the rare degenerative disease ataxia-telangiectasia. The two struck up an e-mail friendship, and last year Affleck testified before Congress about the need for medical research into the condition. Affleck arranges for Joe and his family to see him about four times a year, including a recent 14th-birthday party on the set of his romantic comedy Gigli in L.A. “They had cheeseburgers and chocolate cake in his trailer,” says Joe’s mother, Suzi, 44, a Springfield, Va., homemaker. “I’ll love Ben forever for the way he puts light in my son’s eyes.”
Moments like that make it easy to envision Affleck doting on a child of his own. “You can just tell he’ll be a fantastic dad,” says Mark Steven Johnson, whom Affleck often quizzed about his experience as a father of three on the Daredevil shoot. “He’s a Boston boy. He wants his kid playing baseball—you know, a Red Sox boy.” Chris Affleck can’t wait. “I’ve been urging him for the longest time,” she says. “I want grandchildren.”
Lopez, too, has often spoken of her desire to start a family. But right now there’s only one Red Sox boy in her life—and forget those who say the match is too hot not to cool down. “I didn’t need People magazine to tell me he’s the sexiest man alive,” Lopez says. “The difference between me and People magazine is that he’ll still be the sexiest man alive in my eyes when he’s 100 years old.”
Matt Damon on bonding with Ben over their shared passion for acting
Interviewed by Krista Smith for Netflix's Skip Intro Podcast (19 January 2026)
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MATT: We used to go to the movies every weekend. I mean, it was all we wanted to do. We bonded over actors, actors we loved. We did high school theater together, and we had an amazing theater teacher. Amazing. Changed our lives. Changed a lot of people's lives. [...] And we'd go to New York and go to wherever this audition was, get rejected, five minutes, and turn around and go all the way back. But that was a real kind of bonding factor in our friendship because it was a very real dream and a real obsession of ours. And we fed off each other in that way. And we didn't feel like we were too young to be doing that. [...] The route that I was going was, well, I have to get to the Yale School of Drama. That's where Meryl Streep went. Or Juilliard. I need to get to one of these places. And the best chance I'll have is going to an Ivy League school. I told myself this. I don't know why. But I wasn't a great student. But when I was about 15, I said, that's what I'm going to do. And I just became a straight-A student. And it was just— I brute forced it. I just worked really hard to get good grades. And so that's basically what I did. I did homework, and I did theater, and I was very kind of single-minded about it.
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See also:
BEN: That’s why he’s brilliant! Because that guy has been absolutely convinced that— and has paid attention to like very little else in his free time—other than acting. Since he was a little kid, doing Wheelock Community College theater when he was 11 years old, with absolute conviction that this is what he was gonna do.
— From the SmartLess podcast (3 April 2023).
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[Full transcript under the cut]
SMITH: For you, do you remember, and I want to relate this back to Ben, because you and Ben were kids when you met. Is there an identifying film that you guys bonded over when you were younger?
MATT: Tons of them. Oh, we used to go to the movies every weekend. I mean, it was all we wanted to do. We bonded over actors, actors we loved. We did high school theater together, and we had an amazing theater teacher. Amazing. Changed our lives. Changed a lot of people's lives. He was one of those incredible teachers that you just hope that your kid has. But [he] changed the way we approach work and really taught us how to write. He was an English teacher as well, but taught us how to write. He would do a play each year. We'd do crazy stuff like, you know, Chūshingura, The 47th Samurai, and like a kabuki play. But then he'd have one where the kids would write it, and he'd essentially oversee that process kind of through improvisation. And it's essentially the same technique that Ben and I use to write still.
We talked about it now, like when our kids got to kind of the age of like 14 or 15. And we realized that was the age we were going to New York from Boston and auditioning for things. And we'd always go together and either take the Pan Am shuttle, which was like 40 bucks, or the Eastern shuttle. And one left on the half hour, the Pan Am was on the half hour, the Eastern was on the hour. And we'd go to New York and go to wherever this audition was, get rejected, five minutes and turn around and go all the way back. But that was a real kind of bonding factor in our friendship because it was a very real dream and a real obsession of ours. And we fed off each other in that way. And we didn't feel like we were too young to be doing that.
SMITH: It's kind of an incredible origin story. I mean, it's amazing to hear about— I mean, teachers are all, like, we can all remember teachers that had a profound effect on us. But that feels very sophisticated for high school, right? Like, teaching kids in theater, you know, now when people say theater, it's like I try to get my kids into theater, like, "Just do it. Like, you don't really understand Shakespeare until you try to say it out loud, you know?" Obviously, it falls on deaf ears. To me, that experience, and I did that as a kid in high school, I got a lot out of understanding just humanity and the world at large through plays and things like that. But it's amazing to hear that. And also, you guys are so young. Your parents are like, "Yeah, get on the plane, go to New York, and come back." But I guess it was the two of you.
MATT: They were great. I mean, they didn't encourage it, but they didn't stop us either. You know, I remember my parents said explicitly to me, "We really hope you don't get a job as a professional. We want you to go to college. We want you to finish high school, go to college." And they were right. I'm glad that I didn't get anything until I was in college. The route that I was going was, well, I have to get to the Yale School of Drama. That's where Meryl Streep went. Or Juilliard. I need to get to one of these places. And the best chance I'll have is going to an Ivy League school. I told myself this. I don't know why. But I wasn't a great student. But when I was about 15, I said, that's what I'm going to do. And I just became a straight-A student. And it was just— I brute forced it. I just worked really hard to get good grades. And so that's basically what I did. I did homework, and I did theater, and I was very kind of single-minded about it.
I feel for Matt & Ben, they must have been at their wits end with how their friendship has been the selling point of the promotion of The Rip. Whoring themselves out, again, cheapening their relationship, again, when questions could have been more focused on their vision of the craft of filmmaking, and so on. Like, at the end of the day, their relationship is a private matter? I don't think this way of promoting movies, and I blame Netflix here, is a good way to get them to make more movies together. And as you said, it was less intense during Air, but there was the Bennifer thing at the same time... Anyway, it is frustrating to watch from the outside, so I can't imagine what it's like for them.
Hi anon, yes, exactly! Like, this whole being celebrity friends thing is such a tough balancing act. On the one hand, they are one of the most important people in each other's lives. And not only would it feel awful to have to hide or downplay that to avoid the attention, but there is also a joy to be found in openly celebrating this other person and how much they mean to you. But it must feel equally awful to see this most precious thing in your life treated like a commodity being fed to the masses for profit. It's like Matt said:
I don’t want to be his friend in public [...] It’s way too important a friendship for that, and it goes so beyond this career or anything. You know, it’s a significant part of my life and not for public consumption in that way.”
— Matt Damon’s interview for GQ (September 2021).
They have dealt with this conundrum since they exploded onto the scene. And their previous response was to avoid the circus altogether and just maintain their friendship privately. But in their bid to protect their personal relationship, they sacrificed their creative partnership. And for two guys whose shared passion for acting is at the bedrock of their entire lives together and apart, being cut off from experiencing the joy of creating together must have felt heartbreaking.
That's why the Get Back story never fails to move me (and why seeing it get brought up ad nauseam during this press tour, being slowly chipped away until it becomes just another trifle anecdote, made me incredibly sad). Another example is the way people react to the shared bank account thing, treating it like a novelty and making them feel self-conscious about it. It's so tricky because it does feel like something special. Two people trusting and loving each other enough to tie their fates and resources together is something special. It shouldn't be, it should feel normal, but it is. People care and are fascinated by their relationship because there's something at the core of it that feels profoundly precious and beautiful. The kind of unconditional love they have for each other is something we all crave in our own lives.
So I'm looking at them too. I'm consuming them too. In an ideal world, this consumption does not have to be a bad thing; it could remain mutuallistic. Their relationship is inarguably one of the biggest selling points of the movie. They knew this going in; they actively played with people's preconceptions during the film; and now they (and hopefully the rest of the crew) will profit from it. If all of this is kept sane and consensual, it's great for everyone involved. We're entertained, and they get to make a living doing what they love with the people they love. But there is a point after which things can tip from joint sharing to invasive exploitation. Hence the balancing act.
I believe they've never been better equipped to deal with these pressures than they are now. That they're too mature and cognizant of the preciousness of what they have together to ever let anything else come between them. I can only hope that this experience will not put them off collaborating in the near future. Not just because of my selfish interest in it, but because I genuinely feel like the joy they derive from creating together is too meaningful to be wasted.
"It was such a good publicity thing for marketing people," says Damon later at Affleck's house. "We ended up just talking about our friendship, which is really kind of a weird thing to do.... Hey, Ben," he asks, "what do you think about whoring out our friendship for personal gain?"
"At a certain point, some things in your life shouldn't be used to sell movies," Affleck replies. "Hey, I have two sphincters! See my movie!"
— From Ben Affleck's interview for Vanity Fair (October 1999).
-
Well, the trick now is that we’re writing two movies at once. So whichever one turns out better will be the one we turn in first. We also happen to have been paid by two separate movie studios to write something. Not much money, by modern screenplay standards. But we’ve cashed the checks anyway, so we owe scripts. We’ve put off doing them because both of us, I think, wanted some time between Good Will and our next movie. We were sick of hearing about ourselves. And I assume everyone else was sick of hearing about us.
— From Ben Affleck's interview with Playboy magazine (December 1999).
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Q: At first, your friendship with Ben was a good marketing ploy. But now that your careers are established, has that strategy gotten tired?
DAMON: Absolutely. You reach a point where it’s your friendship and no one else’s.
— From Matt Damon’s interview for The Advocate (18 January 2000).
-
DAMON: Both of us were pulling for our own and the other’s movie, and the stakes had gotten so high. During press interviews, people would ask, “Whose movie is going to do better?” and I was like, “I don’t fucking care, as long as we’re both okay.” I honestly don’t care much anymore about the media stuff. Each of us got really leery talking about the other or about our friendship, because it felt cheapened when we saw it in print. At this point I just acknowledge to myself that I love him and he’s going to be in my life forever.
— From Matt Damon’s interview with Playboy magazine (August 2004).
-
Over the years, the two teenage friends have remained close, in a way that—as they separately acknowledge—far transcends the cartoon best-Hollywood-buddy way it can often be depicted.
“Like, I don’t want to be his friend in public, you know what I mean?” Damon says. “It’s way too important a friendship for that, and it goes so beyond this career or anything. You know, it’s a significant part of my life and not for public consumption in that way.”
— Matt Damon's interview for GQ (September 2021).
-
AFFLECK: 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. This friendship has been essential and defining and so important to me in my life. 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. So let me take this opportunity to thank you.
— From Ben Affleck's interview with Matt Damon for Entertainment Weekly (January 2022).
-
Q: What's the maddest you guys have ever been at each other?
[5 seconds of utter silence]
Q: Have you ever been— has there ever been like a real, "I can't, I'm so mad at Ben right now, blah, blah, blah," or anything like that? Or have you always been aligned?
AFFLECK: Ugh, nothing— nothing that is appropriate for a podcast.
DAMON: Yeah.
AFFLECK: Because it wouldn't be, you know, "Oh, I'm so mad," you know—
DAMON: "Ugh, I'm mad because you did not take out the trash," you know. It's like— But, ugh—
AFFLECK: Although, that Matt— I do remember a time that me and Casey, in Summerville, just being, "Let's see how long he can go."
— Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's interview for The Bill Simmons Podcast (March 2023). Transcription starts at 1:19:45.
Matt Damon on how birth order shaped his personality
Interviewed by Krista Smith for Netflix's Skip Intro Podcast (19 January 2026)
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SMITH: How has your birth order informed who you are as a person?
MATT: I've thought about this a lot because my wife is the oldest of three, and I'm the youngest of two. I really think that's one of the reasons we work so well. Because I think as the youngest [...] I'm extremely adaptable. I have no need to be in charge. [...] But I think Lucy and I gel together really well because she's five years younger than me, but she just naturally takes on that kind of leadership role. Then I'm completely fine with it.
We bought our house in L.A. years ago. We were living in New York, and we had talked about moving to L.A., and we were going out because I was going to shoot Behind The Candelabra in L.A., and so we needed to rent a house for the summer. And she went out to find the rental and saw a house for sale that was on the same street that Ben lived on, and called me and said, "There's this house, and I love it!" And Ben came down and looked at it. And so I had my two favorite people on the phone. And Ben was like, "You should get this place." And Lucy said, "I love this place." And I was just like, "OK." Like, we bought it, and I'd never seen the house. But I knew if they love it, I'm sure it's great. And if she loves it and she's going to be happy, I know I'm going to be happy. I know it's nicer than some of the hotels I've stayed in while I'm shooting. So this is going to be totally fine. And it was. And we lived there for nine years.
SMITH: That's amazing. And now they run your company, basically, right? Artists Equity?
MATT: Actually, yeah. We're the three partners in the company. And when I was shooting— Another thing that was unique about that Odyssey experience for my kids was that when I was shooting that, Ben was shooting this movie called Animals. [...] And Lucy produced it. And so she left to go to L.A. I left to go to Europe. And we had to have somebody stay with the kids. [...] We both went in separate directions. But there were these incredible moments, kind of dream-come-true opportunities for each of us. And the kids were like incredibly supportive of that.
-
See also:
[After reading the book for The Last Duel, Ben Affleck] became possessed with a great sense of urgency—“we have to do this and get it done now”—that he needed Damon to share. “He’s got a busy life, he’s all over the place,” Affleck explains, “and he frankly requires being marshaled a little bit to focus and zone in.” So Affleck laid out a plan of action: “Okay, and this is how we’re going to do it: We’re going to do four hours a day, I’m going to schedule it, I’m going to come over there…”
— From Matt Damon’s interview with GQ (September 2021).
-
[Full transcript under the cut]
-
SMITH: How has your birth order informed who you are as a person?
MATT: I've thought about this a lot because my wife is the oldest of three and I'm the youngest of two. I really think that's one of the reasons we work so well. Because I think as the youngest— and you can tell me if this has been your experience, it certainly has been mine. I'm extremely adaptable. I have no need to be in charge.
And I remember, as a kid, my brother's girlfriend was on the YWCA swim team. And so my brother joined the YWA swim team, right, as the only boy. And I had to join the YWCA swim team because my mom, you know, is a professor— She was, you know, a single mom. My dad, they were divorced, but my dad had us like every other weekend and one day a week. So my mom had to figure out what to do with us after school. So I was just on the swim team with my brother. Like she just kept us together on the swim team. And it didn't strike me at the time that this was some kind of unfairness or injustice that I didn't want to be on the swim team. I just did it, you know, and I think I'm that way.
[In] my career— your career as an actor, you're living out of a duffel bag for the whole first part of your career. And you're in this Best Western Hotel and you kind of live in the production, which is always a little chaotic. And I never really had a problem with it. It never— it seemed like, "Yep, well, that's what I have to do." But I think Lucy and I gel together really well because she— She's five years younger than me, but she just takes on the role that kind of— naturally takes on that kind of leadership role. Then I'm completely fine with it.
We bought our house in L.A. years ago. We were living in New York, and we had talked about moving to L.A. And we were going out because I was going to shoot Behind The Candelabra in L.A., and so we needed to rent a house for the summer. And she went out to find the rental and saw a house for sale that was on the same street that Ben lived on, and called me and said, "There's this house and I love it!" And Ben came down and looked at it. And so I had my two favorite people on the phone. And Ben was like, "You should get this place." And Lucy said, "I love this place." And I was just like, "OK." Like we bought it and I'd never seen the house. But I knew if they love it, I'm sure it's great. And if she loves it and she's going to be happy, I know I'm going to be happy. I know it's nicer than some of the hotels I've stayed in while I'm shooting. So this is going to be totally fine. And it was. And we lived there for nine years.
SMITH: That's amazing. And now they run your company, basically, right? Artists Equity?
MATT: Actually, yeah. We're the three partners in the company. And when I was shooting— Another thing that was unique about that Odyssey experience for my kids was that when I was shooting that, Ben was shooting this movie called Animals. It's great. It's going to come out on Netflix later in the year. It's a great movie. And Lucy produced it. And so she left to go to L.A. I left to go to Europe. And we had to have somebody stay with the kids. Luckily, it happened over the spring break time. So there was like a week on one side of spring break. Then spring break happened and they could come, and then there was a week on the other side. So it worked out. But we both went in kind of separate directions. But there were these incredible moments, kind of dream-come-true opportunities for each of us. And the kids were like incredibly supportive of that.
EXTRATV: And what's it like, bringing your wife on? I know you guys worked together before but as producer, like, the boss lady, you know.
MATT: It's great and she's really great at it. And now it's at the point where, you know, Ben just directed this other movie while I was doing The Odyssey and Lucy produced that. And now he's saying he will never do a movie without her producing it. So he's her second husband at this point, her work husband.
BEN: And I'm professional first choice, I hope. That's what I ask. Like, you gotta be available to do the movies. Not that I want to come in between, you know what I mean? (laughs)
— Ben Affleck & Matt Damon interviewed by extratv (Jan. 2026)
Thank you @eclipxium for embracing my unexpected tag essay, but in the interest of actually being able to add useful tags to this post, I'm pasting them under the cut instead (kept in all their original rambling glory):
#(and like i have so many thoughts and feelings about the polycule vibe they've been giving off)#(I'm unable to do them all justice right now)#(but amid all the lovelyness theres something a bit sad about how matt can easily call ben lucy's second husband)#(which he quickly softened by calling him the work husband instead)#(and how this term readily applies to what he and ben have been to each other for years as both creative and business partners)#((even while 'work husband' is a gross understatement of what matt and ben are to each other))#(but like he probably couldn't get away with just casually or even jokingly calling ben his husband that easily))#(and not even in a 'do they know it's alowed now' kind of way)#(it'd just draw too much unwanted attention to their relationship again)#(i've been feeling that despite all the lovely clips and quotes the rip press tour has brought us)#(m&b are starting to chaffe a bit at all that external focus and having their relationship be such a selling point for the movie)#(you can tell by how sometimes they start downplaying the relationship)#(going 'oh it's just a normal friendship like everyone has the only difference is that we happen to work together')#(or ben going 'i dont know what is wrong with the world that everyone's so amazed at us still being friends' or something to that effect)#(it's like matt said: he doesn't want to be ben's friend in public)#(their relationship is too sacred to be used as a marketing tool to sell movies or be put out for public consumption)#(and i think in this press tour specifically the friendship being the explicit selling point was much more of a thing than it was for air)#(i think they'll bear it this time instead of withdrawing from the public eye like in the 2000s )#(but just bc they're at a point in their lives where the joy they get from working and spending time together is greater than all this noise#(but it's sad to me that matt can't even describe ben as his husband too bc the attention that would garner would immediately cheapen it)#(the closest he's come is calling him his hetero lifemate i believe)#(and of course often referring to him as his partner and one of his two favorite people)#(which don't get me wrong: to me personally are all more endearing and descriptive than husband)#(but still it's just interesting to me how they can't or won't fully express what they mean to each other in public)#(bc the very act of exposing it to others seems to invariably cheapen it instead of enhancing it)
Matt Damon on his and Ben Affleck's Spanish skills
Interviewed by Krista Smith for Netflix’s Skip Intro Podcast (19 January 2026)
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SMITH: You and Ben both got to flex your Spanish skills.
MATT: Yeah, his has gotten much better than mine, actually. We were at about the same level for about 25 years. And during COVID he started taking intensive classes. And I didn't know. When we did the movie Air, we were doing a press junket. We're sitting next to each other, and Univision or one of the Telemundo came in and asked a question in Spanish. And I was about to answer and he just ripped into a monologue in Spanish. And I looked at him like, "What? When did this happen?" But he really used that time to do something productive.
SMITH: When did you learn Spanish? As a kid?
MATT: Yeah, when I was 15, 16, and 17, my mom took me to Mexico. 15 and 16, to Cuernavaca. There was a language school there and we lived with the family for a couple of weeks in the summer. Went to school in the day and then lived with the family at night. And the family spoke no English, so it had to force you to try to communicate in Spanish. And then in '88, when I was 17, we went to Guatemala and did that in Antigua. So that was where basically the foundation for all my Spanish came from. But I haven't used it enough in the intervening years.
SMITH: Wow, Ben, just letting it rip.
MATT: I know. I know.
-
[See here for further context on Nancy Carlsson-Paige's activism in South America.]
I am so glad you are back! My dash wasn't the same without you. Very happy to read your analysis as well, you always have very thoughtful & interesting things to say. I hope the PhD is treating you well too!
Hello again, my dear anon!! I'm so glad you're still here as well! The Matt & Ben brainrot left me just long enough for me to successfully defend my thesis and move back to Europe. But now The Rip has re-awakened the hyperfixation, and I'm afraid I'm back on my ravings. I honestly tried just watching the movie and interviews like a reasonably-interested, non-obsessive fan, but they've been saying such interesting stuff that I'm inevitably back to hording information and screaming into the void about it... So you can't imagine the joy it gives me to realize you've been here in the void with me all along! 🤗
Matt Damon on recognizing the innate essence in his children and father
Interviewed by Krista Smith for Netflix’s Skip Intro Podcast (19 January 2026)
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MATT: Kids come out as who they are. And I don't think I appreciated that until I had kids. [...] That is what makes me believe that there is something else. It really does. I also had that experience when my father passed away; of seeing that happen before my eyes and then instantly not recognizing him. And it was me and my brother. And if you had given me a hundred chances at a line of dialogue — and I write professionally — I never would have gotten it right. I said, "Kyle, have you ever seen this man before?" And he said, "I've never seen that man in my life."
-
[Follows immediately after this clip. Full transcript under the cut.]
-
SMITH: So do you see some of these attributes in your own daughters? Like oldest, youngest?
MATT: Yeah, I mean, I definitely see that effect of birth order. But also, I don't know if it's been your— I really— Kids come out as who they are. And I don't think I appreciated that until I had kids.
SMITH: Absolutely.
MATT: Really see that, you know...
SMITH: And so I joke I could take all the natal vitamins. I can do all the things. These kids come out hardwired.
MATT: They really are hardwired.
SMITH: It's amazing.
MATT: Their spirits are, you know—
SMITH: Totally.
MATT: That is what makes me believe that there is something else. It really does. I also had that experience when my father passed away; of seeing that happen before my eyes and then instantly not recognizing him. And it was me and my brother. And if you had given me a hundred chances at a line of dialogue — and I write professionally — I never would have gotten it right. I said, "Kyle, have you ever seen this man before?" And he said, "I've never seen that man in my life." And so it really made me appreciate that idea that— They say Namaste and what that means is the light in me sees the light in you, right? That really, in a very deep way, kind of brought that home. Like, "Oh, I get it." And that's what I see with my kids. When they come, it's like you see who they are from the second you look at them.
MATT: Wow, I never thought of that. I lost both my parents a while ago, but I've never thought about that: looking completely different. That's just the way in which you just articulated that.
MATT: It was like he was replaced, in the blink of an eye, by some old man from central casting; that just was there. And yeah, they said at the place, "People like to stay with the body." And my brother and I were like, "We're good." We'd been there for 48 straight hours. And we were like, we don't ever want to see this place again. See you later. Like, he's not here.
Matt Damon on how birth order shaped his personality
Interviewed by Krista Smith for Netflix's Skip Intro Podcast (19 January 2026)
-
SMITH: How has your birth order informed who you are as a person?
MATT: I've thought about this a lot because my wife is the oldest of three, and I'm the youngest of two. I really think that's one of the reasons we work so well. Because I think as the youngest [...] I'm extremely adaptable. I have no need to be in charge. [...] But I think Lucy and I gel together really well because she's five years younger than me, but she just naturally takes on that kind of leadership role. Then I'm completely fine with it.
We bought our house in L.A. years ago. We were living in New York, and we had talked about moving to L.A., and we were going out because I was going to shoot Behind The Candelabra in L.A., and so we needed to rent a house for the summer. And she went out to find the rental and saw a house for sale that was on the same street that Ben lived on, and called me and said, "There's this house, and I love it!" And Ben came down and looked at it. And so I had my two favorite people on the phone. And Ben was like, "You should get this place." And Lucy said, "I love this place." And I was just like, "OK." Like, we bought it, and I'd never seen the house. But I knew if they love it, I'm sure it's great. And if she loves it and she's going to be happy, I know I'm going to be happy. I know it's nicer than some of the hotels I've stayed in while I'm shooting. So this is going to be totally fine. And it was. And we lived there for nine years.
SMITH: That's amazing. And now they run your company, basically, right? Artists Equity?
MATT: Actually, yeah. We're the three partners in the company. And when I was shooting— Another thing that was unique about that Odyssey experience for my kids was that when I was shooting that, Ben was shooting this movie called Animals. [...] And Lucy produced it. And so she left to go to L.A. I left to go to Europe. And we had to have somebody stay with the kids. [...] We both went in separate directions. But there were these incredible moments, kind of dream-come-true opportunities for each of us. And the kids were like incredibly supportive of that.
-
See also:
[After reading the book for The Last Duel, Ben Affleck] became possessed with a great sense of urgency—“we have to do this and get it done now”—that he needed Damon to share. “He’s got a busy life, he’s all over the place,” Affleck explains, “and he frankly requires being marshaled a little bit to focus and zone in.” So Affleck laid out a plan of action: “Okay, and this is how we’re going to do it: We’re going to do four hours a day, I’m going to schedule it, I’m going to come over there…”
— From Matt Damon’s interview with GQ (September 2021).
-
[Full transcript under the cut]
-
SMITH: How has your birth order informed who you are as a person?
MATT: I've thought about this a lot because my wife is the oldest of three and I'm the youngest of two. I really think that's one of the reasons we work so well. Because I think as the youngest— and you can tell me if this has been your experience, it certainly has been mine. I'm extremely adaptable. I have no need to be in charge.
And I remember, as a kid, my brother's girlfriend was on the YWCA swim team. And so my brother joined the YWA swim team, right, as the only boy. And I had to join the YWCA swim team because my mom, you know, is a professor— She was, you know, a single mom. My dad, they were divorced, but my dad had us like every other weekend and one day a week. So my mom had to figure out what to do with us after school. So I was just on the swim team with my brother. Like she just kept us together on the swim team. And it didn't strike me at the time that this was some kind of unfairness or injustice that I didn't want to be on the swim team. I just did it, you know, and I think I'm that way.
[In] my career— your career as an actor, you're living out of a duffel bag for the whole first part of your career. And you're in this Best Western Hotel and you kind of live in the production, which is always a little chaotic. And I never really had a problem with it. It never— it seemed like, "Yep, well, that's what I have to do." But I think Lucy and I gel together really well because she— She's five years younger than me, but she just takes on the role that kind of— naturally takes on that kind of leadership role. Then I'm completely fine with it.
We bought our house in L.A. years ago. We were living in New York, and we had talked about moving to L.A. And we were going out because I was going to shoot Behind The Candelabra in L.A., and so we needed to rent a house for the summer. And she went out to find the rental and saw a house for sale that was on the same street that Ben lived on, and called me and said, "There's this house and I love it!" And Ben came down and looked at it. And so I had my two favorite people on the phone. And Ben was like, "You should get this place." And Lucy said, "I love this place." And I was just like, "OK." Like we bought it and I'd never seen the house. But I knew if they love it, I'm sure it's great. And if she loves it and she's going to be happy, I know I'm going to be happy. I know it's nicer than some of the hotels I've stayed in while I'm shooting. So this is going to be totally fine. And it was. And we lived there for nine years.
SMITH: That's amazing. And now they run your company, basically, right? Artists Equity?
MATT: Actually, yeah. We're the three partners in the company. And when I was shooting— Another thing that was unique about that Odyssey experience for my kids was that when I was shooting that, Ben was shooting this movie called Animals. It's great. It's going to come out on Netflix later in the year. It's a great movie. And Lucy produced it. And so she left to go to L.A. I left to go to Europe. And we had to have somebody stay with the kids. Luckily, it happened over the spring break time. So there was like a week on one side of spring break. Then spring break happened and they could come, and then there was a week on the other side. So it worked out. But we both went in kind of separate directions. But there were these incredible moments, kind of dream-come-true opportunities for each of us. And the kids were like incredibly supportive of that.
