> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Matt and Ben: Competition strengthens their friendship - URL: https://www.smdp.com/matt-and-ben-competition-strengthens-their-friendship/ - Published: 2002-06-14T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T00:20:01.000Z - Author: Guest Author - Tags: local, Santa Monica, #archive-import *By SEAN DALY Special to the Daily Press* One way to spice up any relationship is to throw in a dash of good, old-fashioned competition. Just ask Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. They've been best friends since the early days of Pac-Man, shared an Oscar for “Good Will Hunting,” even dated a pair of best friends — Winona Ryder and Gwyneth Paltrow. But can their close ties survive a head-to-head battle at the multiplex? Youbetcha! “There is no rivalry between us,” insists Affleck, now 10 months sober and still beaming from the success of his blow-'em-up thriller “The Sum of All Fears.” It was number one again last weekend (earning $18.7 million), but Affleck remains in obvious denial of his box-office clout. “I certainly don't think I am a bigger star than Matt,” he says. Still, the number-crunchers at Forbes magazine disagree. They rank the University of Vermont dropout No. 44 out of America's 100 most famous celebrities. Damon failed to make the list. That's okay, says the buzz-cut Harvard grad, who will try his hand as an action star this weekend in “The Bourne Identity.” “Neither of our successes depends on the other's failure,” Damon notes, denying reports that a falling-out occurred when Damon's cameo appearance as a waiter was snipped out of Affleck's movie. “We're always keeping our fingers crossed for each other.” It's been that way since Affleck and Damon first deposited their allowance money into a joint bank account to fund audition trips to Manhattan, and began organizing “business lunches” in the cafeteria of Cambridge Ridge Latin High School, near Boston in the early 1980s. “We'd sit there with our trays and little crappy 50-cent chicken sandwiches and we'd say things like ‘We're going to be big actors,’” Affleck remembers with a smile. “We're going to really take the town by storm!” In 1998, with their mothers as dates, Affleck, 29, and Damon, 31, stood center stage at the Academy Awards to claim their trophies for the screenplay of “Good Will Hunting.” “Neither of them really changed that much after the movie took off,” says friend and director Kevin Smith. In fact, in the four years since, Affleck insists the two actors have grown even closer. “We're probably better friends now,” he says. “I think we value our friendship more and understand how rare it is to have a good friend.” There are, of course, occasional problems, but nothing that most best friends don't learn to laugh about. “Matt and I have strains in our relationship the way I have strains with the rest of the friends I have known my whole life,” Affleck says. “Matt's a #%@&-ing slob and he won't clean and he can be annoying. He comes over and he leaves his \[stuff\] around and I say, ‘I'm not your #%@&-ing maid. Pick up your dishes.’” In recent years, the pair has seen their careers drift in slightly opposing directions. Affleck has become more of the “popcorn movie” actor, starring in big-budget fare like “Pearl Harbor,” “Bounce,” and “Shakespeare in Love.” Damon, on the other hand, has gravitated toward more artistic, less commercial projects. And not always with the same amount of success. “The last few movies that I've headlined (”All The Pretty Horses,” “The Legend of Bagger Vance”) have not been very successful,” he acknowledges. “So I know a lot is riding on ‘The Bourne Identity.’” In his first foray into action movies, Damon stars as a young man who washes ashore in the Mediterranean and races to recover his memory while evading assassins. The film is based on a novel by the late Robert Ludlum (which also served as the basis for a 1988 television movie starring Richard Chamberlain). It's the first in a trilogy of Jason Bourne stories: Up next, “The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum.” “I didn't sign up for a sequel,” Damon reveals. “I think they have everyone else locked up for a sequel. This was my first foray into this type of a movie and I didn't really know if I was going to like it.” Despite the pressure to deliver at the box office, Damon says he is proud of his previous choices — all of them — and even allowed Affleck to poke fun at him last summer in Smith's comedy “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.” 4CB,“I'm sorry I dragged you always from whatever gay serial killers who ride horses and like to play golf, touchy-feely picture you were going to do this week,” Affleck taunts a scene where the two actors are working on the fictitious sequel “Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season.” “I take it you haven't seen ‘Forces of Nature,’” Damon chides back. Says Smith, “They felt like enough time had passed and they were both of the mind of ‘Lets skewer the public personas and how people see us before someone else does it,’” says Smith. Affleck is currently filming the sci-fi move “Daredevil” with director Mark Steven Johnson, while Damon is giving his final performances in the London stage production of “This Is Our Youth.” Affleck was in the audience on May 25 to cheer on his pal (and his brother Casey, who also appears). “That's the secret to a good friendship — you always support the other person.” Affleck says. “Whether it is Matt or my brother or whoever. You know you are not good friends with somebody if his success pisses you off. So even if my career totally falls apart or I have one of those tragic P-R disaster things — like I get arrested with a male hooker or something — I still hope Matt does well.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/061402-10_01.jpg) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 14, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/061402.pdf?ref=smdp.com)