Through his constant effort and dedication to acting, Matt Damon has established a name for himself in Hollywood. The 52-year-old actor knew he wanted to be an actor since he was very young. Damon envisioned attending Columbia for a liberal arts degree so that he can enter the Yale Graduate School of Drama.
Damon is one of those actors who is a former Harvard student and during an interview, the actor stated that there was a time in his life when he regretted not continuing his studies.
Matt Damon chose his acting career over his Harvard University degree
At Harvard University, Matt Damon chose English as his major. The Stillwater actor reportedly took three trips away from Harvard to work on his movies. He stepped away from Harvard in the first year to work on the film The Rising Son. For his sophomore year, Damon returned to Harvard but he soon left to work on another film project. For the third time, he gave up on his college to star in Geronimo: An American Legend with Jason Patric. The 52-year-old actor finally decided it was time he started concentrating on his acting career after giving up on his education three times. While talking about college, The Great Wall actor said,
“I really believed it was time to focus full time on my career. By the time I figured out I had made the wrong decision, it was too late. I was living out here with a bunch of actors, and we were all scrambling to make ends meet.”
Damon stated once that he is very proud that he is a former Student of Harvard. The We Bought A Zoo actor said he always tries to Honor his Harvard roots through his work.
Read More: Matt Damon Said Smooching With Marvel Actress in $100M Movie “Was like kissing my sister”
Matt Damon started writing Good Will Hunting when he was at Harvard University
When Damon was at Harvard University he already penned down 40 pages of his movie Good Will Hunting. Later those 40 pages were scrapped and the Rounders actor and Ben Affleck started writing the drama romance movie once again. While discussing the writing part of the film, the 52-year-old actor said,
“We were totally frustrated as actors. We couldn’t find work. We couldn’t get arrested. That frustration built and built, until we decided to write.”
In November 1994, Damon completed writing the script and he also started receiving many offers for the story. The bidders for the script wanted the story but they didn’t want to cast Damon and Affleck. The Green Zone actor said,
“We never considered that offer, not for a second. It didn’t matter that we were completely broke. We kept thinking of Sylvester Stallone and how he turned down $30,000 for the Rocky script, even though he had a family and $103 in the bank. We used him as our code word whenever the bids got too high.”
Soon Damon received an offer from the makers who were ready to cast him and the Justice League actor. The Hereafter actor won an Oscar for the best screenplay for his movie Good Will Hunting.
Source: Orlando Sentinel; The Harvard Gazette
