Usually, when people think of Good Will Hunting they think of Robin Williams. After all, the film is easily one of the late actor's best. Specifically, Robin's performance in the movie is just outstanding and won him an Academy Award. Seriously, that monologue he gives on the park bench is just gutwrenching. But the 1997 film is really what launched the careers of both Ben Affleck and his best friend forever, Matt Damon. It's easy to forget some of the amazing details about Matt and Ben's epic friendship. And one of them is the fact that they not only co-starred in Good Will Hunting but they also co-wrote it.

While Ben Affleck no doubt helped bring the certifiably Boston aspect to Good Will Hunting, much of the film's core was actually based on Matt's experience at Harvard... Yep... Matt Damon went to freaking Harvard University. So, not only is he a talented actor, writer, and producer, but he's clearly fairly brainy as well. According to a fascinating article by Boston Magazine, Matt Damon even asked his professors to read the script for him. Let's find out exactly how he was inspired as well as how he and Ben brought this screenplay to life...

Matt Damon Good Will Hunting Robin Williams
Boss Hunting

Drawing Upon His Own Life Expereince

The truth is, Matt and Ben have known each other since high school. The two of them were raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is a suburb of Boston, and went to Rindge & Latin School together. This is where they ended up in the same drama class. They sparked a friendship and carried that on even after they graduated high school. However, distance split them up. Ben packed up his life and moved to Los Angeles to attend a college there while Matt was accepted to Harvard. While his father was a stockbroker and his mother was a professor, Harvard wasn't exactly destiny for Matt. But his grades and hard work got him there. Although, he never finished his time at Harvard or received a degree.

According to Matt's Harvard roommate, Jason Furman, he was already starting to book some decent roles while at school. Even when Matt wasn't shooting he was part of Harvard's drama scene but he didn't fancy himself a writer until he was forced to fill one of his electives in order to qualify for graduation.

Matt Damon Good Will Hunting Harvard code
IMDb

"I was in my fifth year at Harvard, and I had a few electives left," Matt Damon told Boston Magazine. "There was this playwriting class and the culmination of it was to write a one-act play, and I just started writing a movie."

Related: Matt Damon & 9 Other Celebrities Who Went To Harvard

However, Matt didn't end up finishing the script that he was writing... at least, not at first. But it was absolutely the beginning of Good Will Hunting. He based it on his own experience at the extremely prestigious school after growing up in a lower-middle-class suburb of Boston. After all, what else could he draw upon that was THAT authentic. While it wasn't a finished screenplay, which tends to be around 90 - 120 pages long, he had something.

"So I handed the professor at the end of the semester a 40-some-odd-page document, and said, 'Look, I might have failed your class, but it is the first act of something longer.''

Matt Damon's Harvard professor, Anthony Kubiak, remembered the document that he was handed when speaking to Boston Magazine:

"The thing that they always say when you submit a script to an agent is that they read the first page and they read the middle, and they can tell if they want to continue. They can see whether you can capture the human voice and dialogue. And that was all over this work. It was very authentic and real," Anthony Kubiak stated.

Taking The Script To Ben And Hollywood

Before Matt could do anything more with the document, he booked another gig.

"I was gonna be getting out of school in two or three months when I got a part in the movie Geronimo: An American Legend," Matt described. "I went out to Los Angeles and stayed with Ben. I slept on his floor. I brought my Act I of the Good Will Hunting script and gave it to him."

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck on Good Will Hunting
Via: Tumblr

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Soon after, the two started writing the script. They sent it back and forth until only one scene from the entire original document was the same... and that was the first time Matt's character met with Robin Williams'.

Soon they got the attention of producer Chris Moore who had known Matt from before.

"They wrote a great script," Chris Moore said. "I read it and was like, 'This is one of the best scripts I have ever read, and I would love to produce it.' The three of us agreed we would try to get it made."

By 1994, the script was completed and the ball was set in motion for it to become a major turning point in their careers. It wasn't exactly a Harvard graduation certificate, but perhaps it was even better.

Next: Matt Damon Says This Is "The Most Physically Challenging" Thing He's Ever Done