From a meet cute worth of a rom-com to the most low-key wedding in Hollywood history, this is how Luciana Barroso's life has changed during her relationship with Matt Damon.
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00:00From a meet-cute to the most low-key wedding in Hollywood history,
00:04this is how Luciana Barroso's life has changed during her relationship with Matt Damon.
00:10Luciana Barroso and Matt Damon's first encounter reads like something straight out of a rom-com.
00:16It was 2003, and the actor was shooting Stuck on You in Miami, Florida. One Saturday night,
00:21he and some crew headed to South Beach for a drink and walked into the bar where Barroso
00:25happened to be bartending. As she later told Vogue Australia, they instantly hit it off.
00:31Even if Damon's version is a bit exaggerated, Barroso says,
00:35"[Matt's story is that he saw me across the room and there was a light on me.
00:39And I'm like, yeah, it was a nightclub. There were lights everywhere."
00:43In reality, patrons had started recognizing him and holding him for photos and autographs,
00:48so he sought solace behind the bar. Soon, she put him to work.
00:53Damon rose to the challenge, however, and started mixing drinks.
00:57Barroso remembered,
00:58"[He made me a ton of money and tips that night.]
01:01Whichever version you prefer, there's no denying the encounter was serendipitous.
01:06As Damon told Ellen DeGeneres, Stuck on You was supposed to shoot in Hawaii,
01:10but moved to Miami at the last minute. What's more, he initially declined the
01:15invite to go out that night, but the crew talked him into it. Damon recalled,
01:20I don't know how else our paths would have crossed, if all those things didn't happen."
01:25When Luciana Barroso met Matt Damon, she was still technically married to her first husband,
01:30Arbelo. The pair, who met in their native Argentina, were in the process of getting
01:35divorced at the time, although it wasn't finalized until December 2004. Even so,
01:40Luciana was already raising their daughter, Alexia Barroso, as a single mom.
01:45Despite her instant connection with Damon, Alexia was her top priority. She told Vogue Australia,
01:52It was so easy to talk to each other. We were very comfortable,
01:55and by the end of the night, he invited me to go out with his friends.
01:58I was like, I can't. I have a four-year-old daughter. I'm not going anywhere."
02:04Rather than seeing that as a problem,
02:06Damon was attracted to the fact that Luciana prioritized motherhood. She told the publication,
02:11Some guys might have been different. They might think it's complicated. But for him, it wasn't.
02:17Indeed, Damon himself told Hello Canada that he wasn't the least bit fazed. He said,
02:22There was never a choice. It was just the way it was, and I was happy for that."
02:27Even Luciana's ex praised Damon's relationship with his stepdaughter, telling Star,
02:32He treats Alexia like she is his own flesh and blood.
02:35Matt has been an absolute blessing for my daughter.
02:38If there's any secret, it's that. It's to feel lucky."
02:42He may be one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors,
02:45but Matt Damon has never been one to seek out the spotlight.
02:49Similarly, Luciana Barroso has kept away from the headlines, and so it should come as no surprise
02:54to learn that their wedding was about as low-key as weddings get. So much so, in fact, that even
03:00Damon's BFF Ben Affleck wasn't present, because he found out about it at the last minute.
03:06Rather than planning a lavish affair, the couple said,
03:08I do at New York City Hall in 2005, after two years of dating.
03:13The ceremony was only witnessed by then-Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the couple's daughter,
03:18Alexia. As soon as the vows were exchanged, Damon rushed back to shooting The Good Shepherd
03:23in Yonkers. The following day, he was off to London to continue filming. Because Barroso
03:29accompanied him, he joked that this would be their honeymoon. Notably, this wasn't
03:33actually the first time Barroso had accompanied her beau to work abroad.
03:37She previously followed Damon to Europe while he shot Ocean's Twelve,
03:41and she didn't seem to be swayed by the perks of the A-list life.
03:44As Ocean's Twelve producer Jerry Weintraub told People,
03:48She's not really interested in that stuff. She's interested in him.
03:53Just six months after they tied the knot, Luciana Barroso and Matt Damon welcomed
03:57their second daughter, Isabella. She was followed by Gia in 2008 and Stella in 2010.
04:05By then, Damon was already well-primed for being a girl dad. He told Parade,
04:10I jumped into the deep end with Luci.
04:13Calling himself an extra dad to Alexia, he compared becoming a father to the final scene
04:18of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, saying,
04:21You know how his heart grows, like, five times its size? Everything is full.
04:26It's just full all the time.
04:28My whole life opened up when I became a dad.
04:30In raising their family, the couple decided to keep their daughters away from the spotlight,
04:34and focus on giving them a normal upbringing. Meanwhile, Barroso told Vogue Australia how
04:40their goal is to raise strong, level-headed women. She explained,
04:44We try really hard to constantly talk about self-esteem and compassion,
04:49and hope that will carry on. I want them to feel like they can do anything and everything they want
04:54to do, but not at the cost of somebody else. Barroso never appeared interested in working
05:00in Hollywood, but in 2024, she received her first production credit on the Apple Plus TV film
05:06The Instigators. Damon told Entertainment Tonight,
05:09She was there every day. She was doing all this work on the script. And then she was like,
05:14Nah, I don't want to take the credit.
05:16The other co-producers, however, wouldn't let it slide. Damon said,
05:20They came of their own volition, and said,
05:23If you're not taking credit, we're not taking credit. She succumbed and took the credit.
05:28Interestingly, Barroso was the reason why Damon agreed to star in and co-produce the
05:33movie in the first place. When Casey Affleck initially approached him about the project,
05:37he turned it down, leading Affleck to show the script to Barroso instead.
05:42You do what you gotta do.
05:44She pushed Damon to take the gig, and that wasn't the first time she influenced one of
05:48her husband's career choices. Damon said,
05:51She's been reading every script and watching every cut of every movie for 21 years.
05:57This is the first time we ever kind of codified it.