Exploring the Bond Between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon: 'No One Knows Ben Like Matt Does'

On March 6, Matt Damon was spotted arriving in Greece to film The Odyssey. But that didn’t stop him from showing up to support best bud Ben Affleck at the premiere of his latest flick, The Accountant 2 — which took place all the way in Austin — just two days later.

Ben was clearly touched by his pal’s presence.

“You don’t need a million friends. You need a few good ones,” he told reporters on March 8. “I’m really lucky to have had a friend in Matt.”

Outside of the red-carpet bromance, hilarious Dunkin’ commercials and joint projects they work on through their Artists Equity production company, the pair have a genuine bond — and Matt, 54, gets to see a side of Ben, 52, that nobody else knows.

“I don’t want to be his friend in public,” the Oppenheimer star has said to GQ. “It’s way too important a friendship for that, and it goes so beyond this career or anything. You know, it’s a significant part of my life and not for public consumption.”

As an insider exclusively tells Life & Style: “Ben can tell Matt anything, and Matt will listen and never judge; he’ll tell the truth, but never in a hurtful way. Matt understands Ben better than anyone.”

Indeed, Ben told GQ he credits his BFF for helping him survive Hollywood.

“My own kind of sanity and mental health really benefited from having someone who I grew up with and knew as a child who was also going through something similar,” he noted. “It’s just been such an asset to me.”

The Boston natives met when Ben was 8 and Matt was 10 and connected over a shared love of baseball and acting. But what truly cemented their friendship was Ben stepping up to defend Matt in a fight with bigger kids.

“He will put himself in a really bad spot for me,” Matt recalled on Conan. “This is a good friend.”

As young actors in the ‘80s, the duo competed for roles but always rooted for each other and even kept a joint bank account for audition expenses and other necessities.

“You were allowed to take out $10 and get quarters and go to [the arcade] and play video games,” Matt said on “The Bill Simmons Podcast.” “Eventually, we were allowed to try to buy beer.”

Sometimes, like in 1992’s School Ties, they got to share the screen. Of course, it was another joint venture, 1997’s Good Will Hunting, that turned the pair into industry darlings and scored them their first Oscar wins for screenwriting.

Since then, they’ve collabed again and again — from their Project Greenlight competition series to 2023’s Air, which they starred in and Ben directed.

“It was great,” Matt told Today of making the movie. “You can waste so much time by trying to be polite … We can just say, ‘You suck.’”

Their personal relationship has only gotten stronger as the years go on, too.

“After my dad passed in 2017 … it changed something in us, I think,” Matt spilled on Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?. “You start to see the end game and you start to feel like, ‘I want to make every second count.’”