Matt Damon's friendship with Ben Affleck has survived "different phases" in their lives.

The 55-year-old actor has been friends with Ben, 53, since childhood, and Matt admits that their relationship has evolved over the decades.

Matt - who has been married to his wife Luciana since 2005 - told People: "The circumstances of our lives have changed a lot and obviously we've gone through different phases of life, having kids, so those things are vastly different but I feel like who we are as people was kind of established together a long time ago in our adolescence and teens and those things have been pretty consistent."

Matt and Ben recently confirmed that they've struck a deal with Netflix to boost pay for all crew members on The Rip.

The Hollywood duo star in and produce the Netflix film, and they struck a first-of-its-kind deal with the streaming platform to ensure that the behind-the-scenes team profit from the movie's potential success.

Ben told Variety: "In our experience, every single person that works on this movie -- it's the most collaborative of all art forms. Everybody is vital to it."

Under the terms of their deal, all 1,200 people involved in the production will receive a bonus if the film performs well on Netflix.

Matt said: "Every single person who worked on it should benefit from it."

Prior to that, Matt claimed that cinemagoers aren't aware "of how much power they have".

The actor and Ben helped to finance the drama movie, Small Things Like These, through their Artists Equity company, and Matt suggested that it represented a sea change in the context of modern cinema.

Matt told Extra in 2024: "In the '90s there would've been a number of films of this scale. There would've been a number of these every year, and they've been decreasing, obviously, over the years.

"The only way to remedy that is to make these films and to put them in theatres and for moviegoers to go support them. I think people might not be aware of how much power they have as moviegoers. If people go and see it, we can make more of them."