Who is Matt Damon’s wife? What to know about Luciana Barroso and their swoon-worthy first meeting

Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana Barroso, have been married since 2005, but they largely keep their relationship out of the spotlight.

As they grew their family, Damon has said he appreciated that Barroso wasn't so keen on being in the public eye.

“I got lucky, I fell in love with a civilian," Damon told Esquire in 2013. "Not an actress and not a famous actress at that. Because then the attention doesn’t double — it grows exponentially. Because then suddenly everybody wants to be in your bedroom."

“They can try to stake me out, but they’re always going to get the same story — middle-aged married guy with four kids. So as long as that narrative doesn’t change too much, there’s no appetite for it," Damon added.

The couple's children — Alexia, born in 1999, Isabella, 17, Gia, 14, and Stella, 12 — rarely make public appearances with the actor, but he’s open about his love for them, and in 2019, he got their names tattooed on his arm next to one of “Lucy,” in honor of his wife.

Here’s everything to know about Barroso, Matt Damon’s wife.

Barroso is from Argentina

In January 2018, Chris Hemsworth's wife, Elsa Pataky, told People that Barroso is Argentinian and speaks fluent Spanish.

"For me it’s a relief, yes, somebody I can speak Spanish with! We’ve become very good friends," she said at the time.

Barroso met Damon at a bar

In a 2018 interview with Vogue Australia, Barroso said she met Damon at a Miami bar while he was working on his 2003 comedy "Stuck on You."

“I was working as a bartender in South Beach (Miami) and he was shooting a movie there and the crew ended up in the bar one Saturday night… Matt’s story is that he saw me across the room and there was a light on me. And I’m like: ‘Yeah it was a nightclub — there were lights everywhere!’” she laughed.

“But he had started getting recognized and asked for pictures and autographs, and then it got kind of aggressive because people are drinking and stuff, and so he came and hid behind my bar," she continued.

Barroso said that once he was behind the bar, he started flirting with her, so she told him that if he wanted to stay behind the counter then he had to help her make drinks for the customers — and he did.

"He had trained as a bartender for a film years before, so he started making drinks. And he made me a ton of money in tips that night, because of course, everyone wanted to go and see him," she said. "So it turned into a really fun night and then 15 years later here we are!”

Damon loved that Barroso was a single mom

In her 2018 interview with Vogue Australia, Barroso said she told Damon that she was a single mom on the first night they met. Alexia is Barroso’s daughter from a previous marriage.

“We definitely had a connection right away, it was so easy to talk to each other we were very comfortable [with each other], and by the end of the night, he invited me to go out with his friends. But I was like: ‘I can’t, I have a four-year-old daughter, I’m not going anywhere’… and that was one of the things he loved, that I had a daughter," she said.

"He said: ‘I love that you’re a mum and that’s your priority,'" Barroso quoted. "Some guys might have been different, they might think it’s complicated, but for him, it wasn’t. When you meet somebody that you have a connection with, that’s just the person that you have a connection with, all the other stuff — the movie-star part — wasn’t really a factor. It was just Matt, to me he’s just Matt.”

Before Barroso, Damon thought he would never get married

In a 2015 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Damon talked about his marriage to Barroso.

“I remember thinking, in my early 30s, that I wouldn’t [get married], you know?” he reflected.

When comparing himself to his brother, who got married at 26, Damon said he "didn't think it was going to happen for me."

"He’d been married for 10 years by the time I even met my wife, and I looked at this really happy, wonderful marriage and kind of went, ‘I guess that’s not going to happen for me.’ And then it did,” Damon said.

Barroso and Chris Hemsworth’s wife have matching tattoos

While speaking with People in 2018, Pataky said that she is a “big fan of Matt Damon” and his wife.

“They are such amazing people. We have three kids, they have four kids, so we ended up making the same plans because everything we do we do with the kids, so it’s easier to do things with people that understand you,” she said at the time.

Pataky then talked about an outing she had with the couple and how the night ended with them getting tattoos.

“The [Damons] came here for Christmas and we were all together and it was a really inspirational time,” she said. “We created a lot of things and a lot of ideas. A few friends, we got together and we felt like we had to have something to remind us of those great moments we stayed together, and we decided to get a little tattoo [of three dots on their pinkies] all together and we say ‘We’ll have to do one every year.’”

Barroso’s advice helped Damon through a depression

Damon credits his wife with pulling him out of a depression after he was working on an unnamed film that was not going well.

“She just said, ‘We’re here now,’” Damon said in a July interview with entertainment reporter Jake Hamilton on “Jake’s Takes.” “I do pride myself, in a large part because of her, at being a professional actor. And what being a professional actor means is you go and you do the 15-hour day and give it absolutely everything, even in what you know is going to be a losing effort.”

“If you can do that with the best possible attitude, then you’re a pro, and she really helped me with that,” he added.

Barroso and Damon have a two-week rule

In an interview with YourTango published in 2021, Damon explained how he and Barroso keep the romance alive.

“We have a two week rule," he said. "I’m not away for more than two weeks. I think you need to be with the person you love as much as possible. My wife is my soul mate. I don’t like being apart from her.”

Barroso has previously said that the secret to marriage is just to love the person you’re with.

“I just know I think we both feel, really, really lucky to have met each other so we don’t take that for granted,” she told Vogue Australia in 2018. “It’s life and marriage, so there’s ups and downs you know, but overall it’s easy and it’s fun. And he’s such a good dad.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com