Matt Damon and artist brother Kyle leaving the after party for the movie “Good Will Hunting” on December 2, 1997.Photo:Denny Keeler/Getty
Denny Keeler/Getty
Matt Damonand his older brother, Kyle Damon, have a special bond that they’ve nurtured over the years.
After their parents split, the boys and their mom ended up living in a “hippie commune” made up of six families in a “really urban part of Cambridge,” Kyle recalled toArt Works Magazinein 2020.
The two helped their mom repair the house, and it was the beginning of Kyle finding his love of mixed media art — though the repetitive work wasn’t Matt’s favorite. And while it wasn’t the typical upbringing, it helped both of them find their passions in life.
“Throughout those years when I was doing art, I was building things, and Matt was taking on characters,” Kyle said. “We didn’t grow up with anything, but we didn’t know any better. We were happy.”
Here’s what to know about Matt Damon’s brother — Kyle Damon — and his relationship with the actor.
He is a mixed-media artist
Though he’s now a mixed media artist, Kyle originally started as a printmaker while studying at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for two years, before transferring to Tufts’ Museum of Fine Art. He turned to mixed media when he found himself in school and out of money.
“I lived in the warehouse district, and there was all this crap in the back alley. I would find old produce palettes, pull them apart, rearrange and screw them back together and paint on them,” he toldArt Works.
Now he’s built a full career out of the art, which he still does in Cambridge with his family in a studio attached to his house. In 2020, he had an art series on the American flag, for which he painted sculptural pieces with the stars and stripes.
He inspired a scene inGood Will Hunting
Matt Damon acting in ‘Good Will Hunting’.Miramax/Kobal/Shutterstock
Miramax/Kobal/Shutterstock
According to Matt, who told the story while giving the 2016 commencement address at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kyle was visiting a physicist friend at the school when he walked down the famous “Infinite Corridor,” a long hallway that links two halves of campus, and saw the blackboards lining the halls.
“So my brother, who is an artist,picked up some chalkand wrote an incredibly elaborate, totally fake version of an equation. And it was so cool and completely insane that no one erased it for months. This is a true story,” Matt said, according toVanity Fair.
This inspired the pivotal scene in the movie where Matt’s character Will, who works as a janitor at MIT, anonymously solves an impossible equation written on one of the boards while cleaning after hours.
He met his wife when she asked about one of his paintings
Matt Damon’s brother, Kyle Damon, and wife Lori in their kitchen.Tom Herde/The Boston Globe/Getty
Tom Herde/The Boston Globe/Getty
Kyle’s art was showing in a gallery when Lori, his future wife, inquired about buying one of his paintings. Unfortunately, he had already sold it — but he used the opportunity to see her again.
The pair started dating, and two years later, Kyle asked Lori to marry him with an elaborate proposal at an art gallery.
A few years after Kyle married Lori, the two became parents to son Jackson. Becoming a father changed everything for him, as he immediately realized he needed to slow down. They would later go on to welcome another son.
“Before kids, Lori and I worked all the time. I was driven, but as soon as we had kids it was this instant transformation,” Kyle recalled. “I remember lying down, holding Jackson on my chest, and feeling I’m in the right place. I just need to take care of this little dude."
“It changed the intensity of my work. I still love making art and I’m passionate about it, but all that energy and what it means to contribute to the world was transferred to my kids. Family is everything,” he added.
Matt and Kyle shared a laugh with their late dad in his final moments
Kyle Damon, Kent Damon and Matt Damon at the Miramax Pre-Oscar Party on March 22, 1998.Bei/Shutterstock
Bei/Shutterstock
Matt and Kyle’sdad Kent diedin 2017 from cancer. Matt recently spoke about the final moments the brothers spent with their dad — and the joke Kent made that amused them.
“[Steve’s character] realizes that these bandits are going to kill him, and he walks back over to the other guys, and he goes, ‘It’s real,’ “ Matt explained toNew York Live, mimicking the serious but funny tone of the line.
“My father, in 2017 when he was dying … we were sitting there, and he just turned to me and goes, ‘Matthew.’ And I go ‘Yeah?’ And he goes ‘It’s real,’ ” Matt said.
“And my brother and I were laughing with him, and we’re crying but we’re laughing,” he explained.
Matt and Kyle did a grueling tandem bike race together
Matt Damon and his brother Kyle Damon take part in the 2009 Cape Argus Cycling Tour on March 8, 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa.BEELD/Gallo Images/Getty
BEELD/Gallo Images/Getty
Kyle and his family often visit Matt on the set of his movies, traveling to international locations like South Africa, where he filmed the 2009 movieInvictus.
When Kyle realized he’d be visiting at the same time as a famous bike race — the Cape Town Cycle Tour — he convinced his brother to finally do a race with him, though the actual ride wouldn’t be as easy. Weather conditions were terrible on the day of the race, and the brothers went through a crazy ride, both physically and mentally.
“We were getting blown all over the road. The guy in front of us was blown dangerously close to a cliff. I’ve been trying to get my brother to do this stuff for years and now I’m thinking, ‘This sucks. The one time I get him on a bike and it’s awful,’ “ Kyle toldArt Works.
The 70-mile race is done on a tandem bike throughout the South African capital. While Kyle is used to races — he’s done a few Ironman triathlons — his brother had “never taken his physical self to this extreme."
Still, the brothers made it all the way through and got to celebrate together at the finish line. “It was genuinely hard. It was emotional when we finished,” Kyle said. “It was epic.”
source: people.com
