ACTOR Matt Damon may be this year's contender for the title of Hollywood's favourite son. Not many 27-year-olds can boast two Oscar nominations for the same movie - one for Best Actor and the other for co-writing the screenplay for Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting. Damon's most recent role was as a heroin-addicted army medic in Courage Under Fire. But also in the can is Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker.

Damon, who stars opposite Robin Williams in the new film (released March 6 in the UK) has a reputation for pushing himself to the limits to secure a role. He rehearsed all night before auditioning for Francis Ford Coppola for his adaptation of John Grisham's novel The Rainmaker. The effort paid off - he landed the part of the idealistic young lawyer.

For Good Will Hunting, he and good friend Ben Affleck wrote the screenplay themselves. "We felt like we had all this energy and nobody would give us a chance to do anything, so we wrote ourselves these parts," says Matt Damon.

"We had to have a director..."

Damon plays Will Hunting, a working-class boy in denial about his mathematical genius. With their script, he and Affleck struck gold.

They were offered a million dollars not to be in the movie, but director Gus Van Sant stood by them and was delighted even to cast the young co-writers in their own movie.

"We had to have a director who was going to heighten the movie and make it better, otherwise the film would have been a total failure for us," says Damon.

Since Hunting, Damon has filmed three movies back to back, and hasn't had any time to think about his success. He and co-writer Ben Affleck plan to co-script their next movie by fax because of all their acting commitments.

In addition, they also have a two-picture Miramax deal that includes writing and starring in a buddy comedy.

Later this year, you can see