Through The Wringer
An Interview With Ben Affleck, from the set of JERSEY GIRL
By Antony Teofilo

AT: Kevin wrote the beginning of the script for JERSEY GIRL, and he told me that you sent him an immediate response telling him to finish it. What was it that brought such a strong reaction from you, as far as this story is concerned?

BA: The first time he sent me something, it was not dissimilar to when he sent me CHASING AMY. He sent me the first forty or fifty pages, taken up through the beginning of the second act. Kevin’s trademarks were obviously there. It’s smart and interesting and unusual in a way that was appealing to me. It also had some events that were very unexpected story-wise, which I thought was great. It grabbed me and surprised me when I read it. I was really invested in the characters in the story after forty pages or so. I wanted to know how it turned out. I figured if I had that feeling as a reader, that might translate to a viewer who’s seeing the movie. It had a heartfelt quality, and it was similar with what we tried to do with CHASING AMY, a movie that head a lot of heart to it. It wasn’t just about trying to be funny. I felt that it was definitely time for me to do something like that. I had a suspicion that it might dovetail nicely with where Kevin was. Kevin was ready to go and take another step, and make a different kind of movie.

AT: Did he write the script with you in mind, specifically?

BA: I suppose he had me in mind because I initially urged him and cajoled him to do it, to write something more like CHASING AMY. But Kevin’s protagonists are all Kevin. For me, they have so much of Kevin in them, the hard part is finding ways that the characters are different from Kevin so I can keep them distinct from one another. One thing that helps between Kevin and I is that we have a very similar sense of humor that has evolved through the course of our friendship so that I can’t tell where mine begins and his ends. That makes it really easy to work with him.

AT: I was surprised to see how often the two of you collaborate while you’re working on set. Kevin jokes that he doesn’t allow you to improvise, he just tells you to take direction. But I’ve watched you hold your own quite a bit on sightline arguments and the interpretation of your character. Has making a lot of movies helped educate you to the point where you can stand your ground against a director?

BA: If movies are something you find interesting, then you can’t help but learn things, particularly if you want to be a director, which I do. If you pay close attention, you learn a lot. It’s like any film school. The vast amount of the learning is done when you actually get an opportunity to go and make a film. This isn’t only a job. It’s a continuous learning experience.

AT: In speaking with Matt Damon a few days ago, he mentioned that you and he were planning on working together again, possibly writing. Do you think that will happen?

BA: Both of us feel like we would like to be writing again. There’s a part of the brain that’s satisfied by writing that isn’t satisfied by anything else. That’s gone a little hungry in the last few years. There’s also a desire to have more control over the stuff we work on as actors. There was a kind of satisfaction that came with making GOOD WILL HUNTING that you just can’t have as an actor with something you don’t have authorship with. The truth is that it would just be really fun to do. That’s the main driving factor. We’ve got several ideas. We’re also going to work on something with my brother [Casey Affleck] as well, so hopefully it will turn out. Certainly we enjoyed writing GOOD WILL HUNTING so much, the process. I think that’s part of the motivation, too.

AT: When you and Matt were young and penniless, you used to make time to go out and have "business lunches" and talk about your possible futures. Do you think that attitude had something to do with your success?

BA: In any pursuit like this, where the odds are very long, and it takes a lot of determination, part of the process of getting there is brainwashing yourself into believing that what you want to do is in fact possible. We also just sort of used that as an outlet for all the fantasies that we had for so many years. There were so many years of struggle with no reward, nobody listening, nobody caring. The only alternative to believing in yourself is facing the fact that you almost certainly will fail. There’s a lot of psychological exercises we undertook in order to stave off the depressing realism of our situation, to indulge in a kind of Pollyanna optimism about it.

AT: So you would tell an up-and-comer to be mindful of their belief in themselves?

BA: I think so. That belief in yourself, whatever form it takes to commit to yourself in a place where many others have failed, but you will find a way to be successful, is important. I see that in a lot of people who have become successful, so I think that some element of that mindset helps to bolster your confidence, particularly when you’re there starting out. Everyone else will be saying you don’t have a chance, so you need to have someone in your corner, even if it’s only you.

AT: You get a lot of media attention because of your relationship. Does that affect your abilities as a performer?

BA: No. In fact, I think the attention sort of inures me to criticism. On some levels, it takes away self-consciousness and anxiety. The problem that it can cause is that it brings an association into the audience’s mind when they see you as a performer. They imagine all this other stuff, which creates higher hurdles that you have to get over for the audience to suspend their disbelief and go along with you in the course of a story. [Media attention] seems to be an increasingly prevalent part of being an actor these days. You have Access Hollywood, or tabloid stories, or newspapers, or magazine stories…and you sort of can’t have one without the other. It’s hard, because people want you to help promote their movie, but then once you promote the movie, you’re inviting an investigation of yourself as a person, not as a role, at which point people begin to associate you with something different than what you’re trying to show them as an actor. It’s a little bit of a catch-22.

AT: Speaking of perceptions, we’ve seen you play the hero for quite some time now, but it’s also in you to play rather vile villains, as you did in DAZED AND CONFUSED, and MALLRATS. Any chance we could see you as a bad guy anytime soon?

BA: Yeah. There are some great villain parts. Colin Farrell did a great job as Bullseye in DAREDEVIL. I would have easily taken that part if they’d wanted me to because it’s a great role. As a kid, I always liked Bullseye better than Daredevil anyway. Bullseye had more fun, you know what I mean? Daredevil was always brooding around with this enormous cross he had to bear: his over-arching sense of justice. After awhile, you just thought, "lighten up, man!" There’s a lot of fun to be had in playing those kinds of roles, and yeah, I would definitely look forward to doing something like that.

AT: You’ve had some great success with LivePlanet [Affleck’s production company with Matt Damon and Chris Moore, responsible for PROJECT GREENLIGHT] but it hasn’t all been gravy. PUSH, NEVADA seemed to have some real potential, and it didn’t take with audiences.

BA: On the one hand, I can say [the show not doing well] was something that I knew was a very distinct possibility, particularly given the most traditional element of it: old-fashioned network timeslot. We were up against the great juggernaut goliaths of network TV, so it was almost a foregone conclusion in some ways. [The network] decided to take their riskiest show and put it in their riskiest slot. They tried to hit the triple seven, you know, jackpot. The thing about just going for it all is that you have a much higher chance of failure. I’m not uncomfortable with that. When we were on on Tuesdays, we had twelve or thirteen million people watch the show. When we went into Thursday, we got killed. You could make the argument that the timeslot did it to us. I can understand the rationale that because there was this experimental game element to it, [the show] was a less well-known quantity and they didn’t really know what to do with it.

The network supported it through the pilot and getting it on the air and all the other hurdles that we crossed, and we had our shot. It’s too bad that it was cancelled, but I’m glad that they went ahead and said ‘We’re not going to do this anymore’, instead of making us slog through it, and put a ton of time and energy into it, only to cancel it anyway.

I think the bottom line is that everything that I’ve ever done was really successful has been critically panned, and everything I’ve done that’s been critically embraced has been a failure. When the New York Times said it was the best new show of the season, I knew it was doomed right from that moment. [Laughs] I’m not one to stew too much. We had our shot. I wish we could have at least gotten to the thirteenth episode, but I wasn’t naïve to what sort of business I was getting into. It’s about selling soap. If a bunch of people don’t tune in, then the soap guys don’t feel like they get enough bang for their buck, and that’s it, which is why I think it seems that there’s so much of the lowest common denominator out there. But sometimes really inventive stuff does stick and work. You never know. You’ve just got to keep trying.

AT: Your character in JERSEY GIRL, Ollie Trinke, struggles with balancing his job and his family. Like him, your career continues to evolve, to grow, no matter what happens in when you go home at night. How do you balance your heavy personal life with your heavy career?

BA: I end up choosing projects based on stuff that I think will keep me interested. One of the goals that I have as an actor is to try and do as many different genres of movie as I can. I get a real sense of achievement from being not so much prolific but diverse in that sense. That’s really fun and exciting, and it helps me achieve that sense of balance. Other than that, I struggle with balancing my life and my work and my personal life in the same way that everyone else does. But I have no complaints, certainly. I feel very fortunate, and I’m having a good time. I’m further lucky to be able to do what I love for a living, and I’m further lucky to be able to work with people I really love, so I’m in a great spot right now.

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