Ben Affleck reflects on his “worst experience” in the movie industry
Alongside his childhood friend and early career partner Matt Damon, Ben Affleck became a Hollywood icon in 1997 following the success of his debut movie, Good Will Hunting. Damon and Affleck co-wrote and starred in the classic Gus Van Sant direction, earning them the Academy Award for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ for their efforts.
Although their paths have parted and converged several times over the past 25 years, Damon and Affleck have maintained a steady personal and professional relationship. Notably, the pair reunited in 2022 to collaborate on Air, an Affleck direction following the basketball player Michael Jordan and his groundbreaking association with Nike.
In his fruitful career outside of the partnership with Damon, Affleck has achieved warm critical and commercial receptions for several prominent directions, including 2008’s Gone Baby Gone and 2010’s The Town. The star named these two titles alongside Good Will Hunting as his proudest moments in a 2021 episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast.
However, Affleck has suffered several low points personally and creatively over the past 20 years. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in March 2023, Affleck noted his involvement with DC Comics’ Batman as his “worst experience”.
Affleck debuted as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Zach Snyder’s divisive movie Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016. Despite ongoing scepticism, he persevered, appearing in four further movies: Suicide Squad, Justice League, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and The Flash.
While working on 2017’s Justice League, Affleck found himself in the midst of a battle with alcoholism compounded by his dissatisfaction with the project. “[Justice League] made me go, ‘I’m out. I never want to do any of this again. I’m not suited,'” Affleck told The Hollywood Reporter. “That was the worst experience I’ve ever seen in a business which is full of some shitty experiences. It broke my heart.”
“I started to drink too much,” he explained, adding, “I was back at the hotel in London, it was either that or jump out the window. And I just thought, ‘This isn’t the life I want. My kids aren’t here. I’m miserable.’ You want to go to work and find something interesting to hang on to, rather than just wearing a rubber suit, and most of it you’re just standing against the computer screen going, ‘If this nuclear waste gets loose, we’ll…’ That’s fine. I don’t condescend to that or put it down, but I got to a point where I found it creatively not satisfying.”
In 2019, Affleck was earmarked for a solo Batman movie. “I showed somebody [The Batman] script,” Affleck told The New York Times in 2020. “They said, ‘I think the script is good. I also think you’ll drink yourself to death if you go through what you just went through again.'”
Ultimately, Affleck ducked out of the project, which would become Matt Reeves’ 2022 movie The Batman, starring Robert Patterson in the titular role. Despite missing this one out, Affleck has reprised his Batman role in bitesize portions, most recently in The Flash. “I did finally figure out how to play that character, and I nailed it in The Flash,” Affleck said in 2023. “For the five minutes I’m there, it’s really great.”
Watch Ben Affleck’s scene in The Flash below.