Ben Affleck’s Divorce From Jennifer Garner Helped Make Him A Better Actor
Ben Affleck is nominated for a Critic’s Choice Best Actor Award for his role in The Way Back as a “grieving alcoholic” and did a Hollywood Reporter roundtable with other actors whose names have popped up during awards season: Steven Yeun, Gary Oldman, Delroy Lindo, Sacha Baren Cohen, and John David Washington. They all talked about acting and the process and of course, they touched on coronavirus–everyone’s fucking talking about coronavirus, like duh. During their discussion, Ben said that his divorce from Jennifer Garner helped make him a better actor due to his “life experiences.”
Ben and Jennifer married in 2005 and had three kids together. They split in 2015 and she filed for divorce in 2017. Ben went through it and ended up in rehab a couple of times. The Way Back is about a former high school basketball player dealing with alcoholism and a break-up with his wife. Sound familiar? If the main character has a huge back tattoo and drinks Dunkin’ coffee like water, I would say this movie is near autobiographical. And Ben seems fine with it, as he explained that his portrayal of Jack Cunningham was aided by his own lived experiences. via Entertainment Tonight:
“For me the movie was much more about the fact that — whether it’s having lived enough years having seen enough ups and downs having had children and divorce having experienced a lot of different things — I’m at a point now in my life where I have sufficient life experience to bring to a role to make it really interesting for me. I’m not good enough to just invent it from whole cloth, you know?”
“Growing older and having had more intense and meaningful personal experiences has made acting much more interesting for me and in turn made me drawn to the kinds of movies that are about people who are flawed. I didn’t have to do research for the alcoholism aspect of the movie — that was covered.”
And Ben is doing fine since breaking up with Ana De Armas last month. We’ve heard that it was an amicable split and the two still talk all the time, and a source told ET that he’s doing well:
“Ben is happy, healthy and doing great since his breakup with Ana. Ben’s friends and Jen Garner are supportive of him moving on. Those close to Ben thought the relationship wasn’t working for either of them anymore… For now, he’s taking care of himself and focused on his kids.”
At least now we know why Ben was such a meh Batman. He’s never experienced the trauma of his wealthy parents getting shot behind a fancy theatre by a mugger, and thus just could not hack it. But if Ben really wants to get an acting Oscar, he needs star in a riveting drama about a man struggling to juggle life’s precious gifts (Amazon packages) while trying to save his soulmate (Dunkin’ coffee).
Pic: Wenn.com