The boyishly handsome Matt Damon was trained by poker star Phil Hellmuth for his role in the 1998 movie Rounders, where he played a law school student who loses his tuition money in a high stakes poker game, only to be dragged back into the circuit to pay debts incurred to a Russian mobster. The lessons must have took, because Damon has since then played in major Poker tournaments. He is also best friends with red hot poker star Ben Affleck, who won the Commerce Casino's California State Poker Championship.
In 1997, Damon and Affleck won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance in the same film. He has also been nominated for SAG and Golden Globe Awards as well. Matt Damon's television appearances include such shows as Will And Grace, Extra, The Bernie Mac Show, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and Project Greenlight, which he produces in concert with Ben Affleck. His movie credits include such films as Mystic Pizza (1988), Courage Under Fire (1996), Chasing Amy (1997), The Rainmaker (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Dogma (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), All the Pretty Horses (2000), Finding Forester (2000), Ocean's Eleven (2001), The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), Ocean's Twelve (2004), The Brothers Grimm (2005), and Syriana (2005). He is currently filming The Bourne Ultimatum.
