Matt Damon has shared that his wife underwent brain surgery just days before the 2024 Oscars.
During a new interview with GQ for its Men Of The Year issue, the Odyssey star recalled that shortly before that year’s Academy Awards – where his previous Christopher Nolan collaboration Oppenheimer was the big success story of the night – “we had this whole scary thing happen where my wife had a brain aneurysm”.
“She’s totally fine, thank God, but [she] had this brain surgery the week before the Oscars,” Matt recalled.
“But [the Oscars] was the first night she felt good enough to get up and had her energy back. And she surprised me and got a dress and we went out to the after-party.”
Matt explained that the reason his wife, film producer Luciana Barroso, was so adamant they attend the event was because of an incident years earlier, when filming commitments meant that he missed the 2007 Oscars, where his movie The Departed picked up both Best Picture and Best Director for Martin Scorsese.
“She remembered that the last time it happened, I didn’t do it. And she was like, ‘This time we’re going out’,” he said.
“And it was pretty fucking heroic of her to do that and really meaningful.”
Matt and Luciana have been married for 21 years and share three daughters, 20-year-old Isabella, 18-year-old Gia and 16-year-old Stella.
The Ocean’s Eleven star is currently at the centre of yet more Oscar buzz off the back of his leading performance in Christopher Nolan’s epic The Odyssey.
He has previously been nominated for his acting work in Good Will Hunting, Invictus, The Martian and Manchester By The Sea, and won one in 1998 for co-writing the script for Good Will Hunting with his friend and frequent collaborator Ben Affleck.
Read Matt Damon’s full interview in GQ here.
