The personal, seemingly, has never been so professional for Ben Affleck. The actor-writer-director has (pretty publicly) struggled in the last several years, with alcoholism; with depression; with a well-documented affair that preceded his divorce from actor Jennifer Garner.
But Affleck has gone and done what so many emotionally distraught artists before him have and turned his pain into, well, onscreen pain. Specifically, his upcoming film “The Way Back” will mark his biggest role in four years and will see him play, yes, an alcoholic who’s just gone through a divorce.
“I’ve never been very risk-averse—for better or worse, obviously,” he tells the New York Times. “Regarding ‘The Way Back,’ the benefits, to me, far outweighed the risks. I found it very therapeutic.... People with compulsive behavior, and I am one, have this kind of basic discomfort all the time that they’re trying to make go away. You’re trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or sex or gambling or shopping or whatever. But that ends up making your life worse. Then you do more of it to make that discomfort go away. Then the real pain starts. It becomes a vicious cycle you can’t break. That’s at least what happened to me.”
Did You Know Ben Affleck Got His Start in Commercials for Burger King? The film, written and directed by Gavin O’Connor and in theaters March 8, features one scene that was particularly raw for Affleck and he allowed himself to feel every bit of his emotions—so much so that he whacked a beer can in an unscripted moment that apparently made its way into the final cut.
“[My character’s sister is] pressing to see if he’s OK, and I know how uncomfortable that can be for an alcoholic—when you have that nagging, irritating, suspicious feeling that the person is right, but you don’t want to admit it,” he says, recalling the shoot. “Smacking the can was my version of backed-into-a-corner, primal level of denial, the way our minds hold onto these addictions in a reptilian way.”
“I think that Ben, in an artistic way, in a deeply human way, wanted to confront his own issues through this character and heal,” director O’Connor added.
Affleck admits he is still on the mend (he calls his divorce “the biggest regret of my life”) but he also isn’t dwelling in remorse. In fact, “The Way Back” is one of four movies he has coming out this year, and he plans to simply carry on—in his career, or otherwise. “I have certainly made mistakes. I have certainly done things that I regret,” he says. “But you’ve got to pick yourself up, learn from it, learn some more, try to move forward.”
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