Bourne for this life! Matt Damon loves being a girl dad — and was happy to be thrown into the role when he became stepdad to wife Luciana Barroso’s daughter Alexia.
“I jumped into the deep end with [my wife]. I mean, Alexia was already 4 [when we met]. I was an extra dad,” he told Parade in December 2011. “The only way I can describe it – it sounds stupid, but at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you know how his heart grows, like, five times its size? Everything is full. It’s just full all the time.” (The Argentina native shares Alexia with ex-husband Arbello Barroso.)
The Oscar winner met the interior designer when she was a single mother working at a bar in Miami in 2003. Damon, who was shooting a movie in town at the time, was recognized by fans in the club and “hid behind” Luciana’s bar when the crowd got aggressive.
“He says, ‘Oh, I saw you and I really wanted to talk to you,’” Luciana told Vogue in 2018. “So I put him to work with me! I said, ‘You know, if you’re going to be back here, you can’t just be standing there!’ He had trained as a bartender for a film years before, so he started making drinks. And he made me a ton of money in tips that night because of course everyone wanted to go and see him. It turned into a really fun night. Then 15 years later here we are!”
The pair went on to tie the knot in 2005 after two years of dating. Daughters Isabella, Gia and Stella, arrived in 2006, 2008, and 2010, respectively.
In December 2012, the Good Will Hunting star opened up about how it feels to be a dad to four daughters.
“I never expected to be surrounded by girls, but it’s great. … You never know which way life’s going to take you,” he gushed to Today. “I’m learning so much, not the least of which is how much smarter girls are. I operated under the assumption that us guys had a chance, but I realized when I was completely wrapped around my [toddler’s] finger, and she knew it. If they can do that to us at 2 years old, when they’re fully grown we really don’t stand a chance.”
While close with all of his kids, Damon has often shared the special dynamic he has with Isabella — who routinely pokes fun at him for being “uncool.”
“She’s really funny. She’s actually one of the funniest people I know, which makes it worse because she just crushes me,” he quipped to Fatherly in July 2021. “The other two still, I still got a little time with the other two.”
In July 2021, he joked to CBS Monday Morning that the teen likes to troll him over his acting career.
“[Isabella] doesn’t want to see any movies that I’m in that she thinks might be good. She just likes to give me s—t,” he quipped, noting she doesn’t want to watch Good Will Hunting. “My daughter said, ‘Hey remember that movie you did, The Wall?’ I said, ‘It was called The Great Wall.’ She goes, ‘Dad, there was nothing great about that movie!’ She keeps my feet firmly on the ground.”
Despite the jokes at his expense, the We Bought a Zoo actor couldn’t be happier as a family man and has gushed about the life-changing experience various times over the years.
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“I knew I was going to love being a father and a husband. People who were already parents would tell me: ‘It’s great!’ ‘It’s wonderful!’ But I don’t think you can really appreciate it until you experience it for yourself. It’s really quite something,” he told The Guardian in March 2012.
