Actor, director, screenwriter, Ben Affleck occupies a place of choice at Hollywood since the end of the 90s. Ex of Jennifer Garner, mother of his three children, he managed to win back the heart of Jennifer Lopez after a hiatus of 20 years. But who is Ben really?
1. Born on August 15, 1972 in Berkeley, California, he grew up in Cambridge, near Boston, Massachusetts. Ben Affleck. From his full name Benjamin Geza Affleck-Boldt. He is the eldest son of Timothy Byers Affleck and Christine Anne Boldt, divorced in 1984. He has a younger brother, Casey, just three years younger, also an actor. His middle name, Geza, was given to him in honor of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, a friend of the family.
2. Ben has been an actor since he was young. He was only 8 years old when he did his first steps in front of a camera. In 1981, he made an appearance in the film The Dark End of the Street, a drama directed by Jan Egleson. Three years later, he is one of the young protagonists of The Voyage of the Mimi, an educational series (13 episodes) broadcast on PBS. In 1990, he shot in a pub for Burger King.
3. In 1992, just arrived in Los Angeles, Ben made a short passage (uncredited) in the film Buffy, vampire slayer (which of course inspired the series a few years later). He plays a high school/basketball player and only has a single replica. But when he goes to the cinema to discover the film with friends, amazement, “my voice was different, I was so bad that I was dubbed”.
4. Let’s talk about sex. In 1990, he took part in a guide sex aimed at teenagers. Titled Risky Times : How to be AIDS Smart and Stay Healthy, it is written by Jeanne Blake – who is Matt Damon’s stepmother at the time. Tells him about the first time, embarrassing, where he bought condoms!
5. Matt Damon is his best friend since childhood. They meet when Ben is 8 and Matt is 10. They live two blocks from each other and go to the same schools. It was thanks to Ben – already an old hand – that Matt got into comedy. He introduces him to his agent, who agrees to take him under his wing. As teenagers, they place all the money they earned in a joint account in order to finance their expeditions to New York where they run the castings. “We had to help and support each other. We didn’t want to succeed without each other. We were like, ‘You won’t be alone. I will not be alone. Let’s go and do it together'”, they told in the podcast of Bill Simmons. In 1998, they won an Oscar for Best Screenplay for Will Hunting that they wrote together.
6. Ben and Matt did a lot of figuration together. In 1988 in The Price of Passionby Leonard Nimoy, a drama carried by Diane Keaton and Liam Neeson, but also in the film with a baseball background Until the end of the dream, by Phil Alden Robinson, with Kevin Costner, Ray Liotta and James Earl Jones. A few years later, Ben Affleck will be directed by the same director in The sum of All Fears.
7. Of the baseball and having grown up in Boston, Ben Affleck is an avid Red Sox fan. Also, when on the set of Gone Girl, David Fincher asks him to wear a Yankees cap, the New York team, their lifelong rivals, the actor politely refuses. It’s like asking a PSG supporter to wear an OM or Lyon de Saint-Étienne cap. “I said, ‘David, I love you, I would do anything for you. But I won’t wear a Yankees cap. I can’t. I can’t wear it because we’re gonna make a big deal out of it, David. We haven’t finished hearing about it. I can not do it’ “Ben told the New York Times in 2014. Filming was suspended for four days. The time that the two men find a compromise: Ben will therefore wear a Mets cap, the other New York baseball team, but the Yankees’ historic rival.
8. In the late 90s, Ben Affleck was in a relationship with Gwyneth Paltrowmet on the set of Shakespeare in love. A rocky relationship that ended for good in 2000, right at the time of the release of their film An endless love. Who is misnamed. What separated them? Their ways of life. Incompatible. At the time, the actress was already connected boho, organic and well-being, him, not really. “Sprouting grass and meditation… Not my thing, confessed the actor shortly after their separation. I would say that we are no longer together because Gwyneth is much more evolved than me. She is closer to inner peace, whereas I find it very difficult to remain calm”.
9. This is called a beauty declaration of love. In March 2002, Ben Affleck offered himself a full page ad in the Hollywood Reporter to congratulate Jennifer Lopez on being named ShoWest’s Female Star of the Year. He just played with her in Lilies (troubled loves in VF), she is still married (to Cris Judd)… “You have shown kindness, devotion, diligence, humility, gracious spirit, beauty in courage, great empathy, amazing talent, real balance and true gracewrites Ben. I would so love to have the chance to play in all your films…” And to conclude, “With love, respect and gratitude, Ben Affleck”. A sweet note worth several thousand dollars… and paying off. At the end of the same year, J.Lo is divorced and Ben asks for her hand (the ring on her finger, they will do without it twenty years later).
10. Ben Affleck has a song dedicated to him. Dear Ben. And it’s the work of J.Lo, it’s one of the songs from his album This Is Me… Thenreleased in 2002. “I love you, you are perfect; A manifestation of my dreams; You make my body feel a million different things”, then sings the star. A breakup and nearly twenty years later, together again, she wrote a new ode to him, Dear Ben Pt. IIwhich will appear on his ninth album, This Is Me… Nowexpected in November 2023.
2023-09-01 18:48:31
#J.Los #Actor #Director #Husband #Grazia
