When Matt Damon Admitted To Hiring A Fake Friends After Becoming Famous Overnight ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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In 1997, Good Will Hunting became a major success for Matt Damon, earning him widespread recognition. The actor co-wrote the film with his longtime friend Ben Affleck, and it not only won them Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay but also turned Damon into a household name almost overnight. However, Damon grappled with the challenges of life as a Hollywood star, as the sudden fame and attention left him overwhelmed, leading him to hire fake friends.
In the ‘90s, Matt Damon was no longer an anonymous face in Hollywood and became one of the most recognized celebrities. He once revealed that after gaining fame, he did a photo shoot for Premiere Magazine where he was supposed to be surrounded by friends playing mud football. Surprisingly, he discovered that extras had been hired to play his friends.
He said, “I remember thinking it was kind of the peak of the surreality because they had to hire fake friends. I remember just thinking, ‘This is… crazy. What is going on with my life?’ They’ve literally hired extras to play my friends and pretend to have a good time with me.”
The Oppenheimer star further shared that the hardest part of fame was how people around him started treating him differently. He explained that although the world remained the same, his subjective reality was altered forever. However, he admitted that he was fortunate to find support and solace in his family, who never changed towards him.
Damon said, “Everybody treats you differently. So the world is the same, but your world is absolutely different and never will be the same again. I’d always heard people say, ‘Well, you can’t prepare for it; it’s just something that you have to kind of deal with.’ And everybody deals with it with whatever tools they have, whatever their foundation is, and I was very lucky to have the family that I had.”
Good Will Hunting follows the story of a troubled genius working as a janitor, Will Hunting, who is a mathematical prodigy struggling with personal trauma.
