Matt Damon recalls hard truths he dropped on Ben Affleck in high school: 'You won't get by on your looks'

Matt Damon wasn't afraid to give Ben Affleck the hard truth about high school theater.

The actor, who's been friends with Affleck since they were kids, revealed on a recent SmartLess: On the Road episode that he once warned the future Justice League star about the harsh reality of their high school theater program after Affleck joined the department as a freshman.

"When he arrived at the high school, I had to set him straight 'cause I was the lord of that theater department," Damon told hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett. "And I went up to him, like, first day and pulled him up and was like, 'Hey, you know it's different here in the theater.'"

Bateman joked, "You went straight douche right away."

"'You're not gonna get by on your looks,'" Damon recalled telling Affleck at the time, jokingly adding, "And we were both like, 5 foot 2."

Earlier, Damon admitted that Affleck had become a bit of a celebrity among their peers because he had recently starred in an after-school special. He added, "He was like the big star of our school."

The pair, eventually, went from duking it out for the spotlight in their high school theater program to sharing the screen in films like School Ties and Good Will Hunting, which scored the pair an Academy Award for Best Screenplay.

In addition to the silver screen, Affleck and Damon also shared a bank account and one very messy apartment in Los Angeles.

"I would not suggest living with [Damon]," Affleck said on The Late Late Show in April. He went on to explain that he and younger brother Casey Affleck once refused to clean their apartment for two weeks just to see if Damon would pick up after himself.

"Came home one day, me and [Casey]. Matt's there in his shorts and his T-shirt playing the '92 Sega hockey game in the middle of what was the living room, just surrounded by concentric circles of garbage," Affleck said.

SmartLess: On the Road is streaming on Max now.

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