Actor and filmmaker Matt Damon will be 2016 Commencement speaker
Actor, filmmaker, social activist, and Cambridge native Matt Damon — who shot to prominence with his portrayal of a mathematically gifted MIT janitor in the 1997 film “Good Will Hunting” — will “return” to the Institute to deliver the address at MIT’s 2016 Commencement exercises on Friday, June 3. Damon, who won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for co-writing the screenplay of “Good Will Hunting” with Ben Affleck, went on from his breakout role as Will Hunting to become one of the most versatile and popular actors of our time. He has portrayed an astronaut stranded on Mars in this fall’s critically acclaimed hit “The Martian,” a World War II soldier trapped in France in “Saving Private Ryan” (1998), and a deranged liar in the 1999 psychological thriller “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” Almost a decade ago, Damon’s passion for finding practical paths to social and environmental justice led him...