Ben Affleck recently opened up about his longtime friendship with Matt Damon.
But while the 52-year-old actor said he values the ‘beautiful’ friendship he has with his pal and business partner, he also admitted the sad truth that Damon is one his only pals in Hollywood.
‘I’m really lucky to have had a friend in Matt,’ he told Business Insider at the SXSW premiere of The Accountant 2 last week, where Damon, 54, showed up in support of his friend.
‘It’s a beautiful thing,’ he said, but added: ‘You know, I don’t have very many [friends].
‘None of us really have very many friends. You don’t need a million friends,’ added the Gone Girl star — who also shared, at the premiere, his brutal, two-worded response to his 13-year-old son Samuel when he asked him to buy $6K sneakers.
‘You need a few. You need good ones.’
Ben Affleck recently opened up about his longtime friendship with Matt Damon
Affleck has previously been critical of Hollywood life, and last year talked about cancel culture in a joint interview with his pal Damon.
‘I’m one errant remark away from being canceled,’ he told Deadline. ‘Or I’m one movie bomb away from never working again, and I’ve got a family and so forth. Naturally, people seek to do what’s in their best interest.’
Affleck and Damon’s friendship goes back to their childhood, when their mothers introduced them, their kids, to each other in the 1980s.
The pair went on to work as uncredited extras together in the 1989 Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams.
Since then, the best friends have also won an Oscar together for writing Good Will Hunting in 1998.
A long way from being struggling actors who used a shared bank account they opened together in high school and used for years to support and ‘help each other,’ they previously told Business Insider in 2023.
Nowadays, Affleck and Damon also work together at their production company Artists Equity.
Damon also previously gushed about the close bond he has with Affleck.
Also back in 2023, he reflected on how their friendship changed after his dad passed away in 2017.
The pair got even closer and he told Today that his friendship with Affleck was one of the ‘three most significant partnerships’ in his life.
‘I’m really lucky to have had a friend in Matt,’ he told Business Insider at the SXSW premiere of The Accountant 2 last week , where Damon, 54, showed up in support of his friend
Since then, the best friends have also won an Oscar together for writing Good Will Hunting in 1998
A long way from being struggling actors who used a shared bank account they opened together in high school and used for years to support and ‘help each other,’ they previously told Business Insider in 2023; pictured January 2003
Nowadays, Affleck and Damon also work together at their production company Artists Equity. Damon also previously gushed about the close bond he has with Affleck; pictured in 1997 Good Will Hunting movie still
Back in 2023, Damon said his friendship with Affleck was one of the ‘three most significant partnerships’ in his life; pictured January 2024 at Golden Globes
The best friends’ upcoming projects include the theatrical release of Affleck’s The Accountant 2 on April 25.
As for Damon, he will be leading the star-studded cast in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming epic The Odyssey, which is set to premiere next year in July 2026.
The pair produced The Accountant 2 together through Artists Equity.
Affleck and Damon co-founded the production company together back in 2022.
About working on The Accountant sequel as both producer and star, Affleck said at the SXSW premiere: ‘It’s been very rewarding to create an opportunity for other people, directors and artists, to kind of be able to take responsibility for and manage and have a more creative say in their projects.
He also told Business Insider that director Gavin O’Connor had a strong vision.
‘We wanted to set him up to succeed, and I feel like this movie, frankly, really validates that approach.’
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