Ben Affleck and Matt Damon say this aspect of their lifelong friendship might surprise people
- - Ben Affleck and Matt Damon say this aspect of their lifelong friendship might surprise people
Mike MillerJanuary 17, 2026 at 12:03 AM
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Claire Folger/Netflix
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in 'The Rip'
In the three decades Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have been in the spotlight, they've been asked just about every question you could imagine about their lifelong friendship.
The famous duo, who met when they were 8 and 10 (Damon is a couple of years older), grew up a couple of blocks apart in Cambridge, Mass., and bonded in high school over their shared dream of becoming professional actors. They moved to L.A. together, sharing an apartment (and even a bank account), until they caught their big break — plus a pair of Oscars — with 1997's Good Will Hunting. Their latest film, Netflix's The Rip, marks their 15th big-screen collaboration.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly about the Joe Carnahan-directed film, in which they costar as Miami cops who stumble upon a massive stash of ill-gotten cash, Damon and Affleck open up about an aspect of their relationship that some might not expect.
Mitchell Gerber/Corbis/VCG/Getty Matt Damon and Ben Affleck at the 'Good Will Hunting' premiere in 1997
"I think what might surprise people, just based on the questions that we have been asked recently, is that maybe people associate a high level of competition or ego with this particular line of work," Affleck says, explaining that it's "not a bulls--- platitude" when they say they're close.
"I think part of the key is like, we are able to have this friendship because we didn't start off in a fundamentally competitive zero-sum-game way," he adds. "And I think a business where there's a lot of scarcity can really inculcate that attitude, because you get the sense that anybody's achievement is somehow eating into yours, or taking away from your opportunity, and we just didn't approach it that way."
What's their secret? The Town star admits, "I'm not even sure why. Because, yeah, I'm auditioning for something, I wanna get the part. If I'm not gonna get it, I want him to get it."
Damon offers one pragmatic reason as to why, at least early in their careers, they were able to separate their egos from the friendship. "As we got older and into our 20s and moved out to L.A. and were living together, that was a practical necessity: If I didn't get the part, I really needed him to get it because we needed to pay the f---ing rent, you know?"
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Affleck notes another advantage unique to life in the public eye: "You go through something very strange that changes your whole life experience, which is that the world seems to change around you because all of a sudden other people know who you are, you don't know who they are. And having somebody who shares your basic frame of reference in life in terms of growing up with you, who's also experiencing that, creates a very rare use case where you have someone to bounce that stuff off of who can relate to it.
Courtesy of Netflix
Ben Affleck, Teyana Taylor, Steven Yeun, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Matt Damon, and Sasha Calle in 'The Rip'
"Otherwise, other people are going, 'I don't know. You tell me. Is it weird? Is it crazy?'" he continues, adding candidly, "There's also a tendency to feel like, 'Oh, I can't really complain because ostensibly I've been given something that somebody else wants.'"
In The Rip, Affleck and Damon play friends on the force whose relationship is put to the test when they find millions in drug money hidden in a rundown home occupied by a young woman named Desi (The Flash's Sasha Calle). "It was a page turner," Damon says of what attracted him to the script. "There are these competing agendas, and people aren't saying exactly what's going on, and you're trying to figure out who you can trust, who you can't, who's the good guy, who's the bad guy."
Also featuring an all-star cast including recent Golden Globe winner Teyana Taylor, Kyle Chandler, and Steven Yeun, the crime thriller is streaming now on Netflix.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
