From actor to auteur: Ben Affleck's career trajectory
updated 3:29 PM EST, Fri March 1, 2013
Even though he wasn't nominated
for a best director Oscar, it was comeback kid Ben Affleck's big night
at the 85th Academy Awards. His film "Argo" took home top honors as the
year's best picture. From child actor to Hollywood heavyweight, see
Affleck's road to gold:
HIDE CAPTION
Ben Affleck through the years
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- "Argo's" Oscar proves that Ben Affleck has reinvented himself as a great director
- His circuitous route through Hollywood had him starting out as a child actor on PBS
- Despite winning an Oscar for writing "Good Will Hunting," he was typecast as his role
- "Naturally, my family's the most important thing in my life," Affleck has said
He hit the top at 25 winning an Oscar
...only to stumble hard 5 years later. But he fought his way back. How
did the boy from Beantown remake himself into a Hollywood heavyweight?
"Ben Affleck: Back On Top" will air on CNN Saturday, March 2 at 10 p.m.
ET.
(CNN) -- No best director nomination? So what? Ben
Affleck's best picture win at the Oscars only serves to prove the actor
has reinvented himself as one of the finest directors of his generation.
"I was here 15 years ago, and I was just a kid. I never thought I would
be back here, and I am," he said during his speech. "And it doesn't
matter how you get knocked down in life. All that matters is that you
get back up."
So how did Affleck manage
to get back up after pit stops as a Boston boy-made-good, Hollywood
sidekick, tabloid punch line and blockbuster hero? Here, we trace his
trajectory from actor to auteur, and find that Affleck may have been
directing his own career all along.
1980-1990 -- Child star
Affleck's circuitous route through Hollywood had him starting out as a child actor in a PBS educational series called "The Voyage of the Mimi,"
a hookup that happened because his mom knew the casting director. He
also became pals with a young Matt Damon -- Affleck was 8, Damon was 10
-- and they took drama classes together at Rindge & Latin School in
Cambridge, where Damon impressed upon the younger Affleck that acting
was to be taken seriously. The two took drama classes and did a few
plays together. After high school, Damon went on to Harvard and Affleck
tried a few colleges (majoring in Middle Eastern studies, which later
helped with "Argo") before dropping out to pursue acting full time.
1990-1997 -- "Good Will Hunting" buildup
Ben Affleck back in the Hollywood game
'Argo' producers joke during Oscar Q&A
Affleck on 'Argo' win: Is this a prank?
Affleck scored parts in
films such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "School Ties," and "Dazed and
Confused." He nearly lost that part to another tall, gangly actor of his
generation. "Vince Vaughn and Ben Affleck were up for the same role,
and they had similar physicality, but I had to pick one," director
Richard Linklater said. "I felt bad, because Vince was so funny."
Affleck started his
decades-long collaboration with Kevin Smith with "Mallrats" and his
first leading-man role in "Chasing Amy," but during the "Chasing Amy"
shoot, the actor got a look at Smith's script for "Dogma," and was
filled with envy. He, too, wanted to write films.
Luckily, Damon was writing a play for a class and wanted some help. The
two started to collaborate on "Good Will Hunting," completing a draft in
1994. A bidding war started and Castle Rock bought the film for
$600,000. When the question of who would direct came up, Affleck
volunteered that he and Damon should do it. Eventually, that killed the
deal at Castle Rock -- so-called "creative differences" -- and the
dynamic duo had to find not only a new studio to do the film (and buy
out Castle Rock) but also a director. (One of those meetings served as
inspiration for a scene in "Argo," in which someone takes a meeting only
to be able to say in person that they're going to pass.)
Affleck asked Smith to
direct, but Smith didn't dare: He thought it was "too beautiful." But
Smith did the two a favor and brought the script to Miramax's Harvey
Weinstein, who bought it for about $1 million in 1995. Mel Gibson
developed it for a while before Gus Van Sant came aboard. (He had a
connection with Casey Affleck, who had done Van Sant's "To Die For." It
helps to have an actor in the family.)
1997-2002 -- "Good Will Hunting" backlash
Affleck and Damon won an
Oscar for writing "Good Will Hunting," but the two actors began to be
typecast as their respective roles. Damon must have been the genius, not
Affleck, right? "Family Guy"
mocked Affleck's contribution, claiming he was smoking pot while Damon
toiled away, and a pre-"Office" Mindy Kaling wrote a loopy play called "Matt and Ben" positing that the screenplay had fallen out of the sky.
Either way, Affleck
wasn't getting much of the credit. He started a strategy for his acting
career. He would do "one for me, one for them:" an art film or something
he was really interested in, and then a blockbuster or rom-com. So, in
1998, he did "Armageddon," but also "Shakespeare in Love," a role he
almost turned down because he was going out with Gwyneth Paltrow (the
first of many high-profile romances). In 1999, he did "Forces of
Nature," but also "Dogma." In 2001, he did "Pearl Harbor," but also "Jay
and Silent Bob Strike Back."
Despite his movie star
status, he looked to help out aspiring actors and screenwriters with
Project Greenlight and on set. "I was in 'Changing Lanes' with Ben,"
Bradley Cooper said. "I had one scene that was cut out of the movie. But
it was huge to me. They were doing two cameras at once, and I had no
idea what was happening, and there was this guy, Ben, who made me feel
so comfortable with it all. I didn't mean anything to him -- I was a
nobody -- and he was so nice to me. And good things happen to good
people." Affleck also went to rehab in 2001 for a drinking problem.
2002-2003 -- Bennifer, the celebrity monster
The strategy didn't last long, as Affleck started chasing paychecks -- literally, in the case of the film "Paycheck."
Affleck also started
courting his "Gigli" co-star Jennifer Lopez while she was still married
to Cris Judd. Though they complained about the tabloid attention, the
two flaunted their relationship, which went public with Affleck rubbing
J.Lo's bum in her "Jenny From the Block" music
video. The pair got engaged. Affleck got a makeover and became People's
Sexiest Man Alive, as the couple played house in a "Dateline" appearance.
Affleck started getting
superhero roles ("Daredevil") and acting alongside Jennifer Garner, as
the two movies he did with Lopez -- "Gigli" and "Jersey Girl" --
suffered at the box office. "If you have a bad day at work, it's alive
forever," Damon said in his defense. "That part of the business is
always a little weird, because you don't always get the exact thing you
expect." Four days before the wedding, Affleck called it off, and
started questioning what he wanted in life.
"I had some stuff work,
and some stuff didn't, and I ran afoul of the press a little bit,"
Affleck admitted. "It caused me to question, 'What do I want to do in
this industry? Do I have anything to offer? What should I be doing? How
can I best express myself?'"
2004-2010 -- Recovery
J.Lo moved on to Marc Anthony, and blamed the media scrutiny
for the breakup. Affleck began his own reinvention by swapping one
Jennifer for another -- Lopez for Garner -- as he dated and then married
his "Daredevil"/"Elektra" co-star (after a brief bit of enjoying his single status). Now Affleck was a family man.
Even though his partner
was also a celebrity, she was a more respected one, and the two didn't
court tabloid attention in the same way, focusing on their family
instead. (This new side, however, didn't mean an end to comic
shenanigans. Remember the Jimmy Kimmel video, "I'm F---ing Ben Affleck"? But this time, he was in control of the punch line.)
"Naturally, my family's
the most important thing in my life," Affleck said. "It doesn't mean you
can't do other stuff in your life. In fact, having a family makes
whatever achievements you're able to have that much richer. If it was
just me, and I go home sort of alone, I'd think, 'Whoa! Whoa!' If
something good happened to me at work, it doesn't have the same
resonance it does when I'm able to share it with people I love. And any
time you become a richer person and have more substance, it makes you
better as a filmmaker."
In 2007, Affleck
leveraged his acting career into his directorial debut, "Gone Baby
Gone," which film critic Kurt Loder said was "a much more interesting
film than 'Argo' and really captured the working-class Dorchester
milieu. He drew a tough, tight performance from his brother Casey and
the rest of the cast is terrific. Dennis Lehane's novel is a great
story, and Affleck nailed it."
It won Amy Ryan an Oscar
nomination for best supporting actress and received a lot of critical
acclaim, but only earned $34 million at the box office. Both Loder and
Damon said it should have earned Affleck a best director nomination.
The box office showing
didn't deter Warner Bros. exec Jeff Robinov, who asked Affleck, "Do you
want to direct and star in movies?" Affleck said, "Well, I've directed
one movie and it was a bomb." But Robinov told him, "I really believe in
you," and offered him a deal. "I kind of thought I was being punked!"
Affleck said. "But Jeff seemed to believe it."
In 2010, Affleck
directed his second film, "The Town," which scored an Oscar nomination
for Jeremy Renner for best supporting actor and earned more than $154
million. This put Affleck back in the category of Hollywood heavyweight,
so even when he takes bit parts in ensemble pieces, his real work now
is as a filmmaker.
2011-2013 -- "Argo"
Affleck and Garner
worked out a system in which they would take turns making a film, which
mostly ends up with her being home with the kids, because they've had an
infant every time he has directed. But while he was visiting her on set
in Atlanta during the making of her film "The Odd Life of Timothy
Green," he came across the script for "Argo."
"I couldn't believe how
good it was," Affleck said. "I talked to Grant (Heslov) and George
(Clooney) -- and it's not name-dropping if they're your producers! --
and we took it to Warner Bros. And they went with me making this period
Iran drama where I was the youngest person in the movie. I felt so
flattered." (In turn, former CIA agent Tony Mendez was flattered that
Affleck would also be portraying him, "even though he's not good-looking
enough," he joked).
Affleck had to combine a
tense thriller with a comedy that takes place over the course of a very
unwieldy series of events with a lot of players, while also trying to
keep the essence of the story true. He was able to break out of his
pigeonhole with "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town" as a director of Boston
crime stories. He also poked fun at himself with John Goodman's line
about even a rhesus monkey being able to direct a film.
His actors called him
meticulous yet relaxed, which set a tone on set that allowed them to
feel like they could take chances without being judged. "We traded off
on being each other's bosses," Bryan Cranston said. "If he was being too
bossy directing me, I would come back at him hard when we were in
character: 'Get your ass in here!' A little Heisenberg. Drop my head a
little bit, do the eyebrows."
As a form of rehearsal,
Affleck had the six characters playing the houseguests live together for
a week before shooting. "He put together these boxes full of time
lines, down to who the shah is, what's going on with Carter, what were
the big movies of the time, what was in People magazine," Scoot McNairy
said. "Any question you had, Ben had the answer, or you went through the
box."
"What Ben has, like
George Clooney when he directs, is attention to reality and detail,"
producer Heslov said. "In that, they're very similar. They both know
what they want and how to get it done. But they're also very different.
Ben is much taller."
Affleck still doesn't
consider himself a real director -- "Capra is a real director,
Scorsese's a real director, Spielberg's a real director," he said. "I
want to keep refining myself, keep growing and pushing."
But even if he still is a
work in progress, his work isn't. "Have you met one person who didn't
like it?" asked Richard Kind, who plays the screenwriter in "Argo." "Did
it make a lot of money? Very pro-American? Very pro-Hollywood?
Beautifully done? In every aspect -- screenwriting, directing, acting?
That's why it should be best picture. This was the best 'Argo' it could
possibly be. It's the best movie, and it's fun!"
end quote from:
What a difference a decade makes.
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