Matt Damon came incredibly close to completing his studies at Harvard, but his acting career created a problem at the worst possible time. After years of balancing classes with work, he reached the final stretch only to discover that his movie schedule and university rules could no longer fit together.
While promoting ‘The Odyssey‘, the actor has now revealed just how close he was to finishing and why he ultimately walked away. With only two weeks left and his final exams still ahead, Damon faced a choice that would have required him to repeatedly step away from an active film production.
Matt Damon Was Just Two Weeks Away From Finishing Harvard
During a conversation with Amy Poehler, Damon opened up about leaving Harvard without completing his degree. Poehler asked, “And what did your mom think about you not finishing Harvard?”. Damon began his reply by explaining that he was already working by that point, saying, “Uh, well by then, I mean, I was working. They, they were”.
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Poehler then reminded him, “But you were really close to finishing!”. Damon agreed and explained that he had probably completed around five years of classes because he kept returning to university while also pursuing acting. His final semester was the breaking point, even though he had already completed the required work and had only the exams left.
The problem came down to Harvard’s rules at the time. Damon said students had to take their finals at the exact time they were offered in Cambridge. Ultimately, the schedule of ‘Geronimo: An American Legend‘ made that nearly impossible, especially because he was number five on the call sheet and the production depended on his availability.
In his view, asking a film shoot to stop for three hours on four separate occasions was simply not realistic. He therefore had to “eat the semester,” despite being only two weeks from the end. The actor ultimately walked away from Harvard with only 12 credits left to graduate.
Harvard Still Played A Major Role In Damon’s Hollywood Future
Although Damon never completed his degree, his years at Harvard still had a lasting effect on his career. Damon’s unfinished Harvard journey also had an unexpected connection to the film that later changed his career. As an English major, he began writing ‘Good Will Hunting‘ for a class and credited his professors for encouraging him.
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“I was an English major, and in fact I started writing Good Will Hunting for a class. I just had wonderful professors, and that professor really encouraged me to keep going with it,” he said.
The actual assignment was supposed to be a one-act play, but Damon went in a completely different direction and wrote the opening act of a three-act movie instead. He later recalled approaching his professor and admitting, “I think I failed your class, but this is the first act of a movie.”
Rather than marking him down for ignoring the assignment, the professor gave Damon an A and encouraged him to continue. Damon recalled, “He read it, gave me a straight A and just said, ‘Don’t stop. Keep going.’ That was when I took it out and showed it to Ben.”
The screenplay eventually became ‘Good Will Hunting‘, earned critical acclaim, became a box-office success, and won Damon and Ben Affleck the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Damon may have left Harvard without graduating, but his years there still helped spark the project that transformed his Hollywood career. Without that, Nolan would’ve never found his Odysseus!
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