It was 23 years ago that Matt Damon met his now-wife Luciana Barroso while she was working in a Miami bar. But it turns out there was another Hollywood A-lister very close to Matt that Luciana first thought was "the cute one" – yes, Ben Affleck.
In 1997, Luciana and a friend went to the movie theater to watch Good Will Hunting, a drama starring newcomers Ben and Matt, and the acclaimed actor Robin Williams.
© WireImageMatt starred as the titular Will, who chooses to work as a janitor at MIT, despite his genius-level IQ, and Ben as his childhood best friend. When Will's talents are discovered, he is taken under the wing of an MIT professor (Stellan Skarsgård) and also begins therapy with psychologist Sean Maguire (Williams), which forces him to confront his past.
But despite Matt's leading man status and good looks, it was Ben who Luciana had a crush on, and one Matt discovered early on in their romance.
"After we'd been together for a little while, probably a few months... think I met her best friend from high school and it came out that the two of them went and saw Good Will Hunting together and her best friend thought I was the cute one, and she thought Ben was the cute one," Matt shared earlier in 2026 during an appearance on The Howard Stern Show.
Luckily for Matt, Luciana was smitten with Matt by this point, and he joked that by the time she met Ben, "all that went away."
© Getty ImagesThe pair have been married since 2005 and share four daughters: Alexia, 27, whom Matt adopted after their December 2005 wedding, Isabella, 20, Gia, 17, and 15-year-old Stella.
Ben married Jennifer Garner that same year, and they welcomed three children together during their marriage. They divorced in 2018. Ben went on to marry Jennifer Lopez in 2022; they divorced in early 2025.
© GettyMatt and Luciana enjoyed a meet-cute made for the screens; Matt was filming Stuck on You in Miami when he and castmates visited a local bar. When fans began to recognize the actor, he asked Luciana if he could hide behind the bar to which she told him he could only stay if he helped out.
Matt started serving drinks and making cocktails – and the rest was history.
Their relationship has also been a beacon for Ben, who told Howard that it was "a really gorgeous marriage and friendship and two people who, when they're apart and independent of one another, are one another's partner."
