Matt Damon’s ‘Two Week Rule’ Proves That His Wife And Family Are More Important Than His Career

Apr 20, 2022 by apost team

Matt Damon may be one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, but he is also a family man that is dedicated to his wife and children. The star is a producer and screenwriter as well as a critically acclaimed actor. Damon is best known for playing Jason Bourne in the Bourne franchise. He first rose to prominence after writing and starring in "Good Will Hunting" with Ben Affleck, for which they both won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay in 1997.

Some of Damon's other iconic films include "Saving Private Ryan," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "The Departed" and "The Martian." Among his many accolades are five Academy Award nominations and one win, two Golden Globe Awards and six Screen Actors Guild Awards. He was also the recipient of seven Primetime Emmy nominations and three BAFTA nominations. 

Damon was born and raised in Massachusetts and always achieved good grades in school. He even attended Harvard after graduating from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. While at Harvard, Damon participated in theater productions. When he was 18, he was cast in the film "Mystic Pizza." The star didn't end up finishing his degree after he left to play the lead in "Geronimo: An American Legend." But, he did end up writing a treatment for the film "Good Will Hunting" for an English class while he was there.

In 2005, Damon married Luciana Bozán Barroso, who also goes by Lucy Damon. The pair met in a bar where Barroso worked as a bartender, and they hit it off immediately. They have four daughters named Alexia, Isabelle, Gia and Stella. Keep reading to learn more about how the couple met and why Damon doesn't go more than two weeks without seeing his family.

Damon has a very romanticized memory of the night he met his wife, but she remembers it a little differently. Barroso told Vogue:

"I was working as a bartender in South Beach (Miami) and he was shooting a movie there and the crew ended up in the bar one Saturday night … Matt's story is that he saw me across the room and there was a light on me. And I'm like: 'Yeah it was a nightclub — there were lights everywhere!'" 

The incident took place in 2003 when Damon was filming "Stuck On You." The crew wanted a night off, but things took a turn after Damon was recognized by fans. Barroso added:

"But he had started getting recognized and asked for pictures and autographs, and then it got kind of aggressive because people were drinking and stuff, and so he came and hid behind my bar … (wanting to) just hang out back there and have a drink. He says 'Oh I saw you and I really wanted to talk to you.'"

The couple got along immediately. Barroso explained: 

"So I put him to work with me! I said: 'You know, if you're going to be back here, you can't just be standing there!' He had trained as a bartender for a film years before, so he started making drinks. And he made me a ton of money in tips that night because of course everyone wanted to go and see him. So it turned into a really fun night and then 15 years later here we are!" 

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The former bartender also opened up about their relationship. She said: 

"We definitely had a connection right away, it was so easy to talk to each other. We were very comfortable (with each other), and by the end of the night, he invited me to go out with his friends. But I was like: 'I can't, I have a four-year-old daughter, I'm not going anywhere' … and that was one of the things he loved, that I had a daughter. He said: 'I love that you're a mum and that's your priority.'" 

It was then that Barroso knew that she had found someone special. She said: 

"Some guys might have been different, they might think it's complicated, but for him, it wasn't. When you meet somebody that you have a connection with, that's just the person that you have a connection with, all the other stuff — the movie-star part — wasn't really a factor. It was just Matt, to me he's just Matt."

As for Damon, he knows how fortunate he is to have his wife and family. He shared on "Ellen" in 2011: "I'm so happy now; I'm so lucky. I hit the jackpot with my wife." The reason the actor considers himself so lucky to have met Barroso is that if it weren't for a series of events, the two would likely have never met in the first place. He explained:

“We were supposed to shoot in Hawaii, then the movie got moved to Miami. I’d never really hung out in Miami, then one night in the middle of the shoot a couple of the guys said they were going to get a beer somewhere and I said ‘I’m not really interested’ but they dragged me along and we ended up in a bar where my wife was a bartender and I literally saw her across a crowded room." 

Barroso's side of the story revealed what happened next but it's incredible to think that the two may have never crossed paths if it weren't for him winding up in Miami and subsequently her bar that night. After getting married in 2005, Damon and Barroso expanded their brood of daughters to four. The eldest is Alexia, who Barroso already had when she and Damon met, followed by Isabelle, Gia and Stella.

In fact, the family is so close that they have some ground rules when it comes to spending time away from each other, and these mostly apply to Damon. Since being a world-famous movie star can mean going off on long shoots in far-off places, the actor has an agreement with his family that he won't do a movie if he'll be away from home for too long. Or alternatively, his family will join him on the shoot. In 2016, Damon said:

"Every decision to make a movie is really up for (sic) to the family. If it is going to be too disruptive, I just can’t do it. We try to not be apart for two weeks. We have this two week rule, but three weeks has been the longest we have ever been apart.

Nevertheless, his family has made it to some of his film shoots, including a stay in China for six months back in 2015. Damon said in the same interview:

"When making the movie, I always take them and go on a big family trip. Sometimes it is an adventure. Last year I went to China for six months and it was a big family trip and that was awesome."

What do you think about how Matt Damon and his wife Luciana Barroso met? Do you think it's nice that the actor is so devoted to his family? Let us know, and be sure to pass this on to your friends and loved ones so they can read about it too.