Matt Damon Called Ben Affleck ‘One of the Great Loves of His Life’

Welcome back to another installment of Keeping Up with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Epic Life-Long Love Story, where I am currently sorting the The Odyssey press materials just to see if Odysseus (Matt Damon) says anything about his Penelope (Ben Affleck), so that you don’t have to. 

While I don’t particularly love sitting through press videos of celebrities eating hot wings or playing with puppies or whatever the hell they are subjecting Oscar winners to these days, I’ll do it to bear witness to Matt and Ben’s beautiful kinship. Lucky for me, the Odyssey press tour has provided ample Matt/Ben material, even though Ben is not a part of the film whatsoever. While doing promo for MTV UK, the cast of the film played a guessing game in which Ben’s name came up (because obviously), and Matt had this to say about his BFF:

“45-year friendship. We’ve been through a whole hell of a lot together,” adding, “He’s one of the great loves of my life—I will say that about Ben.” Awww. Even Ben’s reaction to The Odyssey was his favorite: “I got a phone call from him that I think I’ve been waiting 45 years to get,” Matt said. “He didn’t stop talking for an hour. It was like he’d seen the movie 20 times. He got absolutely everything. Every detail, somehow soaked in after one viewing.” I could cry. (And Zendaya could too.) May this love find us all. 

Here’s more recent Matt/Ben material to warm your heart:

• Thanks to Andy Cohen, we learned that Matt and Ben nearly adapted the 1992 novel The Dreyfuss Affair for the screen, in which two baseball players fall in love. Unfortunately, the script never made it to development (but there’s still time).
• On an episode of The Tonight Show, Ben revealed that he was the only non-family member to visit the Odyssey’s set during the grueling shoot, because neither the Gods nor Christopher Nolan could keep Ben away from Matt for more than 6 months.
• Matt let slip on Subway Takes that Ben is the pinned contact on his phone, which surprised no one.

These two are modeling healthy, emotionally open male friendship in a way that youths need now more than ever. To 45 more years of their love (and 45 more years of OK Netflix movies). 

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