Matt Damon Shares Advice Wife Luciana Shared After He Fell Into ‘Depression’

Published: July 17, 2023

Matt Damon Shares Advice Wife Luciana Shared After He Fell Into ‘Depression’

By Movieguide® Contributor

Matt Damon recently shared the piece of advice his wife gave him as he grappled with career difficulties.

“I think, without naming any particular movies, that sometimes you find yourself in a movie that you know perhaps might not be what you had hoped it would be, and you’re still making it,” Damon explained.

He continued, “Halfway through production and you’ve still got months to go, and you’ve taken your family somewhere, and you’ve inconvenienced them,” he continued. “And I remember my wife pulling me up because I fell into a depression about, like, what have I done?”

Damon then shared the advice Luciana Barroso, his wife of 18 years, gave him.

“She just said, ‘We’re here now,’” the actor said. “I do pride myself, in a large part because of her, at being a professional actor. And what being a professional actor means is you go and you do the 15-hour day and give it absolutely everything, even in what you know is going to be a losing effort. If you can do that with the best possible attitude, then you’re a pro, and she really helped me with that.”

The couple met in 2003 when Barroso was working as a bartender in Miami, where Damon was filming a movie.

“He says, ‘Oh I saw you and I really wanted to talk to you.’ So I put him to work with me! It turned into a really fun night and then 15 years later here we are!” she said in a 2018 interview.

Damon has spoken about the benefits of having a relationship with someone who is not in the entertainment industry, saying he was “lucky” to fall “in love with a civilian.”

“Not an actress and not a famous actress at that,” he continued. “Because then the attention doesn’t double—it grows exponentially. Because then suddenly everybody wants to be in your bedroom. But I don’t really give them anything. If I’m not jumping up and down on a bar, or lighting something on fire, or cheating on my wife, there’s not really any story to tell. They can try to stake me out, but they’re always going to get the same story — middle-aged married guy with four kids. So as long as that narrative doesn’t change too much, there’s no appetite for it.”