Matt Damon explains one 'non-negotiable' rule he's refused to break with wife of 20 years
Matt Damon certainly seems to have a knack for playing movie characters who want to get home and it’s no surprise why when you consider the rules his own family sets themselves.
The Boston-born actor produces another sensational performance as Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s latest epic The Odyssey, having also focussed on getting back to his family in Interstellar, The Martian and Saving Private Ryan.
Now 55, Damon has a reputation for really throwing himself into his characters and that was reflected when he lost 50lbs in 100 days for movie role that had extreme consequences on his health.
But now that the intense filming of The Odyssey is over and all of the premieres are done, the American actor can get back to what is most important to him, and that's something he and his family try to do every single night.
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"We have family dinner every night, and that’s non-negotiable, and it’s always been that way,' the father of four told People.
He is father to Alexia, 27, Isabella, 20, Gia, 17, and Stella, 15, sharing the latter three with his wife Luciana after they married in 2005, having met in a Miami bar in 2002 when Alexia was already four.
He pointed out: “One of my daughters said, ‘Well, family dinner, last night we didn’t talk.’ And we realised, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re right.’ We sat down for dinner, and you can get lost in that routine a little bit and not appreciate why you established the routine in the first place.
"That’s the kind of family mindfulness we’re all working on," he noted.
Damon is clearly committed to his family, so much so that they probably would have loved him in Fast and Furious, as he has the names of all four of his daughters tattooed on his right arm.
However, the nightly family dinners are looking a little different these days after Alexia and Isabella both left home, with Gia and Stella not too far off leaving the nest as well.
Damon added: "I feel like we are facing it and embracing the fact that it’s happening.
"We’ve been talking a lot about presence and about really trying to be in the moment, and because you can’t slow time down, the only way to really do it is to really be there and be in it."
Things may have looked very different for Damon given that his wife has admitted to him that she actually found his long-term buddy Ben Affleck the cuter of the two.
Speaking on SiriusXM's The Howard Stern Show earlier this year, he said: "After we'd been together for a little while, probably a few months, she admitted that – I 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.
"So she admitted to me... I'm like, "You got the wrong one?" She told me that 23 years ago."
Topics: Matt Damon, Celebrity News, Entertainment, Parenting
James Moorhouse