Hollywood celebrity Ben Affleck by no means looks like he’s getting any older.
“I look within the mirror and I carry on considering there’s going to be any person who’s 30 years previous there,” he advised AFP.
“And you understand what? There by no means is.”
It has been greater than twenty years since Affleck shot to fame with Good Will Hunting, by which veteran comic Robin Williams performed the mentor to Matt Damon’s younger prodigy.
Affleck co-starred within the film and wrote the screenplay along with his childhood good friend Damon. The pair gained an Oscar.
“I’m now near or older than Robin (Williams) was when he performed that half, which is surprising,” Affleck, now 49, advised AFP.
But there are advantages lately to taking part in characters who’ve “been down the street of life,” such because the streetwise uncle he portrays in The Tender Bar, hitting US theatres Friday.
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“They don’t essentially are typically the protagonist, and that’s additionally usually a superb factor,” mentioned Affleck.
Heroes “principally need to hew to a sure set of virtues for the viewers to establish with them, which inherently uncomplicates them in a approach that makes it just a little tougher to play in a practical approach,” he defined.
“The extra flawed persons are, in a approach, I discover them extra fascinating.”
Of course, it has solely been 4 years since Affleck performed the largest hero of all, Batman, in Justice League – a stint because the Caped Crusader that was not precisely embraced by followers.
In that point, he has additionally endured one other bout of his battle with alcoholism, and the top of his marriage to actress Jennifer Garner, which – like most of Affleck’s life – was intently scrutinized by the tabloid press.
But since then, Affleck has skilled a profession renaissance of kinds due to extra nuanced roles, comparable to an alcoholic basketball coach grieving the lack of his younger son in final 12 months’s The Way Back.
And his private life appears to be on monitor, as he has rekindled his romance with Jennifer Lopez, 17 years after they initially cut up.
This 12 months, he has taken two supporting roles – in The Tender Bar, and as a medieval aristocrat with a keenness for wine-soaked orgies in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel.
“I don’t assume you can middle a film round my character in The Last Duel as a result of he’s simply so odious,” Affleck mentioned.
“But nonetheless, it’s a actually good appearing problem to attempt to discover a character like that, and convey humanity to it.”
‘Chasing the dragon’
In The Tender Bar, which streams on Amazon Prime from January 7, Affleck’s bartender steps in to assist elevate his fiercely clever nephew after the boy is deserted by his well-known radio DJ dad.
Self-educated Uncle Charlie imparts worldly and proudly working-class values to younger “JR,” from seeing by way of the snobbery of what George Orwell known as the “decrease higher center class,” to respecting girls and – once more – the hazards of alcohol.
In a latest interview, director George Clooney described his delight in seeing Affleck “getting his enamel into a extremely good half, as a result of it doesn’t occur usually.”
While the film itself has had blended evaluations, Affleck’s efficiency has been extensively praised, incomes a Golden Globe nomination this week.
But these issues are “not essential to me in a approach it was once,” mentioned Affleck, who gained his second Oscar because the producer of the most effective picture-winning Argo, which he directed and starred in.
There is an inclination in Hollywood “to be form of compulsively chasing the dragon, the following job, without regard to anything.”
But there may be “no permanency to it, there’s no tenure, there’s no seniority – the telephone can cease ringing,” he mentioned.
While the explosion of expertise and social media has created a “a number of cacophony” with “so many voices,” Affleck mentioned he has discovered to show inward, to create his personal “criterion of success.”
Part of that’s doing work that “comes from a private place” and utilizing life expertise – optimistic or destructive – to “truly make you a extra fascinating performer and a director.”
“Once I discovered the flexibility to try this with myself, I lastly obtained higher, after which I wanted much less of the opposite, exterior factor.
“Some folks simply fall into craving that and needing that, and it leaves them, I feel, empty.”
