TV & Beyond on 2025-07-24 11:45:00

by | Jul 24, 2025 | TV & Beyond Articles | 0 comments

TV & Beyond on 2025-07-24 11:45:00

their best and worst films and helped cement Damon as one of Hollywood’s most reliable leading men.

While Matt Damon is often cast as a noble hero, most notably in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Greek epic “The Odyssey,” the handful of times he’s played against his good boy persona to be the villain have produced some of his best performances. It would be hard to make a list of his best roles without including the jealous con artist in “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” the duplicitous mafia rat in “The Departed,” or the ultimate coward in “Interstellar.”

But as bad as these characters might be, they don’t hold a candle to the greatest villain Damon has played across the 101 credits on his IMDb page: Matt Damon. Virtually every time Matt Damon has played himself on TV, he’s played off his wholesome image to comedic effect, playing everything from a jerk to an absolute monster. 

And so, without further ado, here are the five TV shows where Matt Damon played himself.

Entourage

Matt Damon yells into his cellphone while wearing sunglasses and a grey polo in "Entourage"

HBO

Matt Damon has made a name for himself over the years for his support of charitable causes, like his pioneering work for Water.org, which he co-founded to provide safe drinking water and sanitation to developing countries. And so when Damon plays himself on TV, it’s often poking fun at the humanitarian image he’s crafted through his charity work, and perhaps the funniest example of this is his appearance on the Hollywood satire “Entourage.”

Damon shows up in the season 6 finale “Give a Little Bit,” in which he crosses paths with up-and-coming movie star Vincent “Vinny” Chase and his significantly less famous brother Johnny “Drama.” They’ve barely finished saying their hellos before Damon makes the ask for Vincent to donate to his latest charitable foundation. Vinny plays dumb and promises to give it a look, but Damon calls his bluff, calling their house and “Jason Bourne’s” Drama into putting Vincent on the phone so Damon can ask Vinny to join him on a trip to scenic Cleveland, Ohio, to help distribute food to hungry kids. Vinny politely declines because they have a trip to Italy planned, only for Damon to reveal that he’s on speaker phone with fellow charity superstar Bono. In lieu of joining the trip, Damon says Vinny can donate some of the payday from his latest project to the foundation, but conveniently leaves out exactly how much he should give. “Don’t be a cheapskate,” chides Bono before they hang up.

Later in the episode, the gang crosses paths with Damon on the airport tarmac. Damon snaps at Vinny for donating a paltry $10,000 of his hefty pay day, and this time he has Lakers superstar LeBron James as backup to put the squeeze on him. LeBron’s donating a million dollars, cash, and together they agree $150,000 is an appropriate sum. That sounds like it’s the end of the story, until a post-credits scene shows Damon trying and failing to get Vinny on the phone from Haiti because his check has failed to arrive. Damon gets angrier and angrier that the Academy Award winner has to leave a voicemail for a nobody like Vinny, tearing him a new one before ultimately breaking down into tears.

House of Lies

Matt Damon poses with a group of African children wearing shirts that read "Damon's Children" in "House of Lies"

Showtime

Damon reprised his satirical self-portrait for the Showtime comedy “House of Lies.” The series stars Don Cheadle as Marty Kaan, the manipulative leader of a management consulting company that provides questionable business advice to its clients, always eager to serve himself over everyone around him.

In the fourth episode of season 2, Matt Damon approaches the company to help him find his next charitable venture, and the team scrambles to put together their pitch. Everyone fawns over Damon’s nice guy persona, but he quickly reveals to Marty a darker side. During the team’s pitch, Damon pushes Marty to give him some “free sh**” because he’s a “swag whore,” makes lewd comments about Kristen Bell, and reveals he’s only interested in finding a charity so he can one-up his “Ocean’s 11” co-star and real-world rival George Clooney:

“I just basically need a cause that’s the size of Clooney’s cause, only with bigger t*ts. I mean, that guy, he puts on a Hawaiian shirt and they hand him a f****** Oscar, right? I mean, ’cause everybody thinks he’s so deep, you know? ‘Cause they see him on TV going ‘Grr, Darfur, bad!’ … F*** him.”

Giving Matt Damon what he wants isn’t easy, but Marty gets it done thanks to a handful of Vicodin and one lewd sex act to create a new charity for Damon simply titled Damon’s Children. Who are these kids? What circumstances led them to need Damon’s help? And why exactly is Matt Damon their doctor? None of that matters. All that is important is that Damon gets to shed a tear in a beautiful close-up. Now, be sure to tell your friends and family to donate!

The Bernie Mac Show

Bernie Mac, wearing a golf polo and hat, points a finger at Matt Damon, both holding golf clubs, in "The Bernie Mac Show"

Fox

“House of Lies” isn’t the only time Matt Damon faced off against one of his “Ocean’s 11” co-stars. Damon also teed off against legendary comedian Bernie Mac on the season 2 premiere of “The Bernie Mac Show.” In the episode, Matt Damon is hosting the Children’s Charity Golf Tournament and invites his supposed friend Bernie to participate. Bernie arrives ready to lock horns with Damon, who doesn’t seem to reciprocate the hostility.

Bernie is partnered with his wife Wanda, but he’s surprised to see Damon’s partner is none other than Xena Warrior Princess herself, Lucy Lawless. Bernie worries he’s going to lose to Damon and Lawless, but then something even worse happens: he gets upstaged by his wife. While he shanks the ball, Wanda is able to score a hole-in-one and win the tournament for them. But Bernie isn’t able to enjoy his wife’s success and storms off the green in anger.

If Damon seems like the good guy in all this, he reveals his ulterior motives to Lucy Lawless as they watch Bernie storm off, revealing his true intentions: “See that thing? That makes losing completely worthwhile.”

Bernie finds himself in the dog house with Wanda after his immature tantrum, and so he turns to heartthrob Damon for advice on what to do. Damon recognizes Wanda is a smart lady and not one who is “particularly impressed” with Bernie, and so he gives him the good advice to be sincere and apologize. Luckily for Bernie, his advice works out, although he’d be loath to give Damon the credit for it.

Law & Order: Criminal Intent

A hand holds up a film clapper on a blurry VHS tape in "Law & Order: Criminal Intent"

NBC

Pretty much every actor you can ever think of has made an appearance in the “Law & Order” universe at one point in their career, and Damon is no exception. Although in his case, he doesn’t actually appear on screen in the 21st episode of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” season 4. Titled “The Unblinking Eye,” the episode follows Detectives Robert Goren (Vincent D’Onofrio) and Alexandra Eames (Kathryn Erbe) as they investigate the death of a young actress who was shot by an unknown gunman. Their investigation leads them to a trio of potential suspects: an obsessive ex-girlfriend, the grieving boyfriend who might be hiding something, and his best friend who flubbed his big break and never recovered.

The detectives uncover the truth by pitting failed actor Ed Lang (Pablo Schreiber) against the deceased’s boyfriend, Michael Pike (Jeff Hephner). They uncover the tape of Lang’s disastrous performance on set with Matt Damon, who we can hear off-screen trying to coax Lang into reading his lines, but every time his mind goes blank and he can’t get the words out. It turns out that Pike was jealous of Lang’s big break and sabotaged him by preying on his friend’s generosity, faking an illness so Lang would stay up all night at the hospital and arrive on set too exhausted to perform. This revelation prompts Lang to tell the truth, that Pike manufactured the murder of his girlfriend to spin up a tabloid story about an obsessed ex-girlfriend that would rocket him to stardom.

Since this is basically a cameo, with Damon’s entire role recorded on a tape recorder from his home, his performance does provide a bit of verisimilitude to the episode that makes Lang’s stage fright feel all the more real. And while it doesn’t fit into our “Matt Damon is a jerk” angle that the other TV shows have, his fifth TV appearance is truly his most monstrous appearance of all time.

Arthur

Arthur the aardvark, dressed in a yellow seater, smiles at the camera with Matt Damon, drawn to look like an aardvark with brown skin and a tight t-shirt, in front of a van that reads "Postcards From You" in "Arthur"

PBS

Yes. Look at it. Really look at it. I am reluctant to call that horrifying thing that resembles the shape of Matt Damon an animal, for it is instead some kind of mutant abomination created in a freak accident like “The Fly,” fusing famous celebrity Matt Damon with what I think is supposed to be an aardvark like the titular Arthur.

This… thing appears in the sixth episode of season 11 of “Arthur,” called “The Making of Arthur.” Few clips of the episode are available online, but what I really want to see is “The Making of ‘The Making of Arthur'” because I need to know who approved of this abomination of a skin walker approximating the shape and likeness of Matt Damon.

The episode follows Arthur and his friends as they create one-minute videos of themselves to share with Matt Damon’s new show “Postcards from You.” Each kid makes their own spin on the prompt, but Damon takes a shine to Arthur and Buster’s ramshackle but handmade film and makes a surprise appearance at Arthur’s door. Arthur is shocked to see Matt Damon at his door, not because he’s an affront to god who shouldn’t exist, but because Matt is here to tell Arthur he loved his video so much he wants to turn it into a TV show of its own.

The episode ends with Matt Damon and his crew filming Arthur walking his dog Pal down the street, but the scars it leaves on the audience will never go away. Apologies for inflicting this abomination on you, dear reader, but you asked to see the five TV shows where Matt Damon played himself, and I am bound by the journalistic code to give you the truth.

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