Ben Affleck says he and Matt Damon blew through the $110,000 they'd each made selling 'Good Will Hunting' and went 'broke in 6 months'
- Ben Affleck said that he and Matt Damon blew all their "Good Will Hunting" money in six months.
- The pair sold the 1997 film for $600,000, Affleck said, and it went on to win them an Oscar.
Ben Affleck said that he and his longtime best friend, Matt Damon, blew all of the money that they had made from their film "Good Will Hunting" within six months, buying Jeeps and renting a "party house" in Los Angeles.
Affleck appeared on Friday's episode of "The Drew Barrymore Show," speaking about his new film "Air" and his career. That included some reflection on his early days when he and Matt Damon shared a bank account to get their start as actors. Affleck told Barrymore that when the pair sold their breakthrough 1997 Oscar-winning film, "Good Will Hunting," he felt like he would "never have to work again." That is until he and Damon spent all their money.
"We sold it for $600,000, we split that, $300,000 each, and then the agents got $30,000 so we had $270,000 and we paid about $160,000 in taxes so we had $110,000, each bought $55,000 Jeep Cherokees and then had $55,000 left," Affleck said. "Naturally we decided to rent a $5,000-a-month party house on Glencoe Way by the Hollywood Bowl and we were broke in six months."
Damon recalled sharing a bank account with Affleck during a joint interview on "The Bill Simmons Podcast" in March, saying that they used it to fund trips for auditions in New York. Affleck later said on "The Late Late Show" that Damon was so bad at cleaning in their shared Los Angeles apartment with his brother Casey Affleck that he once returned home to maggots in the unit.
While they may have had to do a coin toss to determine who got which color of their post-"Good Will Hunting" Jeeps, as Damon told IMDb, Affleck told Barrymore that being able to support each other during their early career was "really valuable."
"We were friends, and we wanted each other to succeed, and we love each other, so it seemed clear like, let's do this together," Affleck said.