Ben Affleck (born
Benjamin Géza
Affleck-Boldt; August 15, 1972) is an American actor, film
director and screenwriter. He became known in the mid 1990s after
his involvement in the film
Mallrats (1995), and later played the lead
role in
Chasing Amy in 1997.
Affleck has since become an
Academy
Award winner for his screenplay in
Good Will Hunting in 1997. He has
established himself as a Hollywood leading man, having starred in
several big budget films, such as
Armageddon (1998),
Pearl Harbor (2001),
Changing Lanes (2002),
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
and
Daredevil
(2003).
After a high profile relationship with actress
Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998, his relationship
with actress/singer
Jennifer Lopez
attracted worldwide media attention in which Affleck and Lopez were
dubbed as "
Bennifer." Following their breakup in
2004, he began dating
Jennifer
Garner. The two married in June 2005 and have two daughters,
Violet, born December 2005 and Seraphina, born January 2009.
Affleck has been actively involved in politics, along with a
non-profit organization called the A-T Children's Project. Along
with childhood friend
Matt Damon, he
founded the production company
LivePlanet.
Early life
Affleck
was born in Berkeley
, California, the son of Christopher Anne "Chris"
(née Boldt), a school district employee and teacher, and Timothy
Byers Affleck, a drug counselor, social worker, janitor, auto
mechanic, bartender, and former actor with the Theater Company of
Boston. Affleck's mother attended Harvard
University
and currently teaches in Cambridge Public
Schools. His younger brother is actor
Casey Affleck. Affleck has Irish and Scottish
ancestry.
His family moved to Cambridge,
Massachusetts
when he was very young and his parents divorced in
1984. At the age of eight, Affleck met ten-year-old
Matt Damon, who lived two blocks away. The two
would later attend
Cambridge
Rindge and Latin School together, although they were in
different year groups.
Affleck attended Occidental
College
in Los Angeles, as well as the University of
Vermont
.
Career
Early work
Affleck worked as a child actor, appearing on the
PBS kids' series
The Voyage of the Mimi as well
as in several movies made for television. Throughout the 1990s, he
had roles in
Lifestories: Families in
Crisis as a steroid-abusing athlete, as well as in several
notable films, including 1992's
School
Ties (with Damon), the original
Buffy the Vampire
Slayer movie, 1993's
Dazed and Confused, 1995's
Mallrats and 1997's
Chasing Amy.
Mallrats and
Amy marked the beginning of his collaboration with
writer/director
Kevin
Smith. He had the starring role in Smith's
Jersey Girl and has appeared in
every
View Askewniverse-Jersey
film Smith has made to date, with the exception of the film
Clerks.
Critical success
He came to national attention working with Damon in
Good Will Hunting in 1997, for which
they shared credit and received the
Oscar for
Best Original
Screenplay. Along with Damon and producers
Chris Moore and Sean Bailey,
Affleck founded the production company
LivePlanet, through which the four created the
documentary series
Project
Greenlight, as well as the failed mystery-hybrid series
Push, Nevada amongst other
projects.
Project Greenlight was nominated for an Emmy for
Outstanding Reality Program in 2002, 2004 and 2005.
Following
Good Will Hunting, Affleck starred in
Armageddon (1998) as
A.J. Frost., opposite
Bruce Willis. The
film generated mostly critical reviews, but was a box office
success earning $553 million worldwide. In 1999, he starred in
the leading role of the romantic comedy
Forces of Nature. In 2001, Affleck
collaborated with
Armageddon director
Michael Bay in the war film
Pearl Harbor. The film generated
mixed reception, but was a box office success, earning
$449 million worldwide.
In 2002 he was cast as
Jack Ryan in the
action film
The Sum of
All Fears. The movie also starred
Morgan Freeman.
The Sum of All Fears
is based on the
book of the same
name by
Tom Clancy. Ann Hornaday of
The Washington Post
wrote, Affleck and Freeman "create a believable chemistry". In the
same year, Affleck starred opposite
Samuel L. Jackson in the thriller
Changing Lanes.
The following year he starred as the titular character
Matt Murdock/Daredevil in
Mark Steven Johnson's
Daredevil (2003). Affleck said
Daredevil was his favorite comic book as a kid, and explained why
he took the role by saying "Everybody has that one thing from
childhood that they remember and that sticks with them. This story
was that for me." He also stated another reason, being "I didn't
want someone else to do it, because I was afraid that they would go
out and do it different from the comic and screw it up."
Roger Ebert, in review of
Daredevil,
wrote that both Affleck and co-star
Jennifer Garner, were suitable for their
roles.
Daredevil grossed over $179 million worldwide.
Following
Daredevil, Affleck starred in several critically
panned box office flops, including
Gigli (2003) and
Surviving Christmas (2004), his
career waned considerably. He did not appear in any films until
2006 when he had a
cameo in
Clerks II.
Hollywoodland and after
Affleck made what could be considered a comeback with the September
2006 release of the critically acclaimed
George Reeves noir
biopic Hollywoodland, directed by
HBO TV-series veteran Allen Coulter. His performance was
well-received;
Peter Travers of
Rolling Stone, in review of
the film, wrote: "The irony is that Affleck's battering at the
hands of fame has prepped him beautifully to play Reeves. He knows
this character from the inside: the surface charm, the hidden
vulnerability, the ache of watching a career become a joke and
being helpless to stop it." Claudia Puig of
USA Today wrote that Affleck gives a "strong
performance". For his performance, he was awarded the
Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the
Venice Film Festival and won the
Supporting Actor of the Year award at the Hollywood Film Festival,
and was nominated for a
Golden Globe
for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion
Picture.
Following the success of
Hollywoodland, he appeared in the
2007 action film
Smokin' Aces.
In the film, Affleck plays Jack Dupree, a bounty hunter.
Smokin' Aces received mixed reviews from critics, and was
a box office failure. Also in 2007, Affleck made his directorial
debut, which starred his brother Casey, with
Gone, Baby, Gone, for which he also
co-wrote the screenplay, about two Boston area detectives
investigating a little girl's kidnapping and how it affects their
lives. Based on the book by Dennis Lehane, it opened to rave
reviews in October 2007. When asked why he decided to direct the
film, Affleck said: "Directing a movie was really instructive for
me. I think I learned a lot about writing, and a lot about acting,
and I learned how all the pieces fit together from the inside. That
was really valuable. It was a good thing." The film received
favorable reviews. Lisa Schwarzbaum of
Entertainment Weekly noted that
Affleck "shows excellent instincts" as a director. Stephanie
Zacharek of
Salon.com wrote, "As a
director, Ben Affleck may turn out to be quite good with actors
[...] But he may need to work harder at shaping material, and at
making his characters emerge as rounded, believable people."
Affleck starred in the 2009 romantic comedy
He's Just Not That into
You, part of an ensemble cast that included
Jennifer Aniston,
Drew Barrymore,
Scarlett Johansson,
Justin Long, and
Jennifer Connelly. The film generated
mostly mixed reviews, but was a box office success, earning
$165 million worldwide. In this same year, he played
Congressman Stephen Collins in
State of Play, an adaptation of
the British television serial
State of Play. The film is a
political thriller which raises questions about the relationship
between politicians and the media.
Other projects
Affleck's support of the
non-profit
organization, the A-T Children's Project, began after meeting Joe
Kindregan while filming
Forces of Nature. Kindregan, who
was then 9 years old, has the rare disease called
ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). Affleck
attends benefits and spoke to Congress to advocate for the A-T
Children's Project. The disease, described as like having
muscular dystrophy,
cystic fibrosis,
immune deficiency and
cancer all at once, is progressive; children with A-T
usually do not live beyond their late teens. In 2007, Affleck was
the keynote speaker at the graduation ceremony of Falls Church High
School in Fairfax, Virginia, from which Kindregan was
graduating.
On June 23, 2008, he appeared in an ABC News exclusive exploring
the humanitarian crisis in Congo. Affleck travelled to Congo and
interviewed refugees, warlords, and members of parliament. "I think
the more painful something is, the more you want to distance
yourself from it," Affleck said. "I think the hard part is actually
to let some of that go and to realize that when you see some of
these images of people suffering in some way or another, to kind of
remember that these are people who are in fact just in different
circumstance than you are, but that are kind of dealing with [those
circumstances] in a pretty brave and enduring way."
In December 2008, he teamed-up with the United Nations releasing a
short film highlighting the plight of refugees in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
In the media
Affleck appeared in
Jimmy Kimmel's
video 'I'm Fucking Ben Affleck'; a response to Kimmel's then
girlfriend,
Sarah Silverman's, video
'I'm Fucking Matt Damon'. Many other celebrities appeared in the
video including
Good Charlotte's
Joel and
Benji
Madden,
Macy Gray,
Dominic Monaghan,
Lance Bass,
Josh
Groban,
Don Cheadle,
Brad Pitt,
Cameron
Diaz,
Robin Williams,
Harrison Ford,
Huey
Lewis,
Joan Jett,
Pete Wentz,
Christopher Mintz-Plasse,
Meat Loaf,
Dicky
Barrett and many more.
Affleck was not in favor of President
George W. Bush's stance against gay marriage. In
discussion of this, he said: "I don't think the government should
be involved in any way in people's bedrooms or lives. With so much
hatred and unpleasantness in the world, why would you want to get
in the way of people who love each other marrying each other?
Anybody who wants to be able to get married to anybody else should
be able to. It's not my business." He also appeared in a print ad
with his openly
gay cousin in support of
Parents and
Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Though usually associated with
the Democratic Party, Affleck dissents with the party line on
regulation of firearms and does not support increased
gun control.
Affleck spoke diplomatically of George W. Bush as a person in an
interview with Bill O'Reilly on July 27, 2004, saying, "I had the
pleasure of and the honor of meeting the President of the United
States at the Daytona 500. I found him to be a collegial, affable,
kind guy." He went on to say Bush "is a patriot and he’s a man who
believes in the country. He's trying to further an agenda he
believes in. I happen to disagree with most of his policies, but I
respect the man."
Personal life
Affleck had a high-profile romance with actress
Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998, following her
breakup with actor
Brad Pitt. In 2002, he
began dating actress/singer
Jennifer
Lopez, whom he had met prior to filming
Gigli. The
same year, his engagement to Lopez was announced, and the
relationship between the two received much attention from the
entertainment media, who dubbed the couple "
Bennifer." Despite a wedding planned for September
14, the couple broke up in 2004, both blaming the media attention -
including an alleged incident in which Affleck partied with
Christian Slater and some
lap dancers in Vancouver. The negative publicity
and media attention carried over to the 2003 film
Gigli,
which also was a box office failure.
He subsequently began seeing his
Daredevil co-star, actress
Jennifer Garner, and the two were engaged
after nine months of dating.
Affleck and Garner were married on June 29,
2005 in Turks and Caicos,
located in the Caribbean
. They have two daughters, Violet Anne, born
on December 1, 2005 and Seraphina Rose Elizabeth, born on January
6, 2009.
He has a holiday home in Savannah,
Georgia
, and the family was in Cambridge for the summer in
2006 while Affleck was directing Gone, Baby, Gone.
Affleck entered
alcohol rehab in 2001, with a
spokesman for the actor saying that "Ben is a self-aware and smart
man who had decided that a fuller life awaits him without
alcohol."
An avid poker player, Affleck has regularly entered local events.
He has been tutored by poker professionals
Amir Vahedi and
Annie
Duke, and won the California State Poker Championship on June
20, 2004, taking home the first prize of $356,000, which qualified
him for the 2004
World Poker Tour
final tournament. He is a fan of the
Boston Red Sox,
New England Patriots and
Boston Celtics.
Affleck got his first tattoo when he was sixteen. He now has about
a half-dozen including a tattoo of a dolphin that was used to cover
up a tattoo of his high school sweetheart's name. The tattoos have
been done by numerous artists including
Paul
Timman. He quit
smoking after
starring in the
2007 film Smokin' Aces, in which he was required to
smoke heavily, and lost his taste for it after a week of
chain-smoking for his role.
Political activism
In the final weeks of the
2000 Presidential
campaign, Affleck promoted the
Democratic ticket,
supporting
Al Gore and repeatedly delivering
a get-out-the-vote plea: "It's very important to vote.
The president will
appoint three or four Supreme Court
justices." During the final week of the
race, Affleck spoke on behalf of Gore in California, Florida, and
Pennsylvania.
During a stop in Pittsburgh
, he – along with Helen
Hunt, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner and other actors – spent an hour at a
phone bank calling registered Democrats. "People in my
generation have a low voter turnout. One of the reasons that I'm
here is to demonstrate that no matter who you are going to vote
for ... I think it's important to get involved and get out and
vote," he told reporters. "But I'm going to tell people to vote for
Gore."
On October
28, 2000, Affleck flew with Hillary
Clinton, who was running for a Senate seat, to Ithaca
, New York,
where he introduced her at a Cornell University
rally. He told the college crowd that
Clinton had been advocating for women and working families since
"
Rick Lazio was running around the frat
house in his underwear".
Lazio, then a Long Island
congressman, was Clinton's Republican
opponent.
On
November 6, 2000, the final day of the campaign, he was one of
several high-profile celebrities summoned to Miami
Beach
by Miramax Films boss
Harvey Weinstein for a late-night
Gore rally, just hours before polls opened nationwide. The
Gore campaign's last event, a final effort to energize
South Beach voters, did not end until about 1:00
a.m., but Affleck flew back to New York that morning and made a
surprise live appearance on
The Rosie O'Donnell Show.
It was
10:15 a.m. when he made his final public pitch from a Rockefeller
Center
studio, noting that he was "a little bit
tired... I've been out getting involved, doing stuff and
trying to get people to vote. And that's why I came by here". Also,
"Today is the get-out-the-vote day and...I think this is the time
to get involved, especially the young folks who are here ... I'm
about to go vote," He then said, "I am personally gonna vote for Al
Gore".
As votes were tallied that night, Affleck told
Salon.com's Amy Reiter, "I'm nervous this evening,
but one of the things that's exciting to me is the number of people
who voted. No matter who wins, I think it's a healthy thing for our
country that so many voters have come out and participated in the
process. Either way, I think the most important number will be the
turnout".
In the May 2001 issue of
GQ, Affleck
said, "My fantasy is that someday I'm independently wealthy enough
that I'm not beholden to anybody, so I can run for Congress on the
grounds that everyday people should be in government". However,
when he was asked about his political ambitions in an April 2009
interview to promote the 2009 film,
State of Play, Affleck said, "I
really like my job that I have now. Plus, unlike in Hollywood where
you need one director to hire you, in politics you have to have a
lot of people to vote for you. I think it's harder work. I really
am happy with what I'm doing now. In fact I've never been at a
place where I've felt better about going to work everyday. I'm more
engaged and very, very happy."
In 2004, Affleck actively campaigned for Democratic presidential
nominee
John Kerry. During the first day
of the
2004
Democratic National Convention, he was featured on
Larry King Live with
Tucker Carlson and
Al
Sharpton.
Larry King asked if he
would consider running for office, and Affleck admitted to
contemplating the proposition.
Specific attention focused on whether he
would run for Kerry's open Senate seat (as Affleck was from
Massachusetts
). He noted that the line between politics
and entertainment is becoming increasingly blurred, as political
figures
Ronald Reagan, and
Arnold Schwarzenegger, both came from
the entertainment business, although both were members of the
Republican
Party.
Filmography
References
- He is listed as "Benjamin G. Affleckbold"; born on August 15,
1972 in Alameda County according to the State of
California. California Birth Index, 1905–1995. Center
for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services,
Sacramento, California. Searchable at
http://www.familytreelegends.com/records/39461
- According to Harvard Reports of Christopher Anne Affleck,
Middlesex County Land Records, and the birth record of Casey
Affleck
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/entertainment/1475583.stm
- "Smokin' Aces convinces Affleck to quit cigarettes."
AT Pictures.com.
- .
Further reading
- Brashares, Ben. Ben Affleck. Aladdin Paperbacks
Publishing Staff, 1999. ISBN 0-689-82547-1
- Wellman, Sam. Ben Affleck. Facts on File, Inc., 1999.
ISBN 0-7910-5331-8
- Wukovits, John F. Ben Affleck. Lucent Books, 2004.
ISBN 1-59018-323-1
External links
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