The crowd at the Miami hot spot Crobar was getting rowdy, and Matt Damon was in the middle of it. Instantly recognizable after his Academy Award for Good Will Hunting, he couldn’t keep a low profile. “How ya like dem apples?” someone cracked. “Where’s Winona?” another chimed in, referring to the actor’s ex-girlfriend, actress Winona Ryder.
That stung. Matt’s most recent relationship had fizzled out. Looking to escape the hecklers, he ducked behind the bar.
He wasn’t even supposed to be in Miami. When he’d taken a role in a new comedy, Stuck on You, the plan had been to shoot in Hawaii. The studio wanted to film in L.A., and a compromise was struck: Florida was cheaper than the Aloha State.
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Matt had been on set at three o’clock that morning for makeup—putting on a heavy rubber suit that would make him Siamese twins with his costar, Greg Kinnear. Wearing that rig around all day under the hot lights wore him out.
“Come out with us,” one of the crew said to Matt.
“I’m not really into it,” Matt said. He wanted to go to bed.
The guys wouldn’t take no for an answer. And Matt didn’t want to seem stuck up. He let them drag him to Crobar.
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Now, as he peeked over the bar for a path to the exit, the bartender accosted him. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “You’re not supposed to be back here.”
Or maybe he was. Two years later, Matt married that bartender, Luciana. It was love at first sight, despite her stern rebuke. “All these years and four kids later, I can’t imagine life without her,” Matt has said in numerous interviews. “All that stuff happened by some series of coincidences, so it makes you wonder…. I don’t know how else our paths would have crossed.”
