Luciana Barroso and Matt Damon arrive at the World Premiere of ‘Air’ Image Press Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
Matt Damon opened up about how his wife, Luciana Barroso, helped him with his mental health as he struggled with a film project that didn’t perform as planned.
“Without naming any particular movies … sometimes you find yourself in a movie that you know, perhaps, might not be what you had hoped it would be, and you’re still making it,” Damon, 52, said during a July 8 appearance on Jake’s Takes. “And I remember halfway through production and you’ve still got months to go and you’ve taken your family somewhere, you know, and you’ve inconvenienced them, and I remember my wife pulling me up because I fell into a depression about like, what have I done?”
While Damon didn’t call out which film didn’t pan out as he expected, he shared the words of wisdom Barroso, 46, had for her husband.
“She just said, ‘We’re here now,’” he recalled. “It was like … I do pride myself, in a large part because of her, at being a professional actor and what being a professional actor means is you go and you do the 15-hour day and give it absolutely everything, even in what you know is going to be a losing effort. And if you can do that with the best possible attitude, then you’re a pro, and she really helped me with that.”
Damon and Barroso tied the knot in 2005 after two years of dating. Earlier this year, the Oppenheimer actor and his wife celebrated the 20th anniversary of when they first met. The pair first crossed paths in 2003 while Barroso was working as a bartender in Miami. Damon stumbled upon the bar while he was filming in the area. He was recognized by fans in the establishment and Barroso hid him behind the bar when the crowd got aggressive.
“He says, ‘Oh I saw you and I really wanted to talk to you,’” she said to Vogue in 2018 of her first encounter with Damon. “So I put him to work with me! I said, ‘You know, if you’re going to be back here, you can’t just be standing there!’ He had trained as a bartender for a film years before, so he started making drinks. And he made me a ton of money in tips that night because of course everyone wanted to go and see him. It turned into a really fun night and then 15 years later here we are!”
The couple share three daughters: Isabella, 17, Gia, 14, and Stella, 12. Damon is also the stepfather of Alexia, 24, whom Barroso welcomed before she met the Oscar winner.
Ahead of the release of Oppenheimer, Damon brought Alexia, Gia, Stella and some of their friends to the Paris film premiere on Tuesday, July 11. The group walked the red carpet and posed for photos alongside the rest of the cast. While Barroso was not present for the premiere, she did join Damon and their girls for the Air premiere in March.
