Ben Affleck Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

Ben Affleck breaks down his most iconic characters, including his roles in 'Good Will Hunting,' 'School Ties,' 'Dazed and Confused,' 'Chasing Amy,' 'Armageddon,' 'Pearl Harbor,' 'The Town,' 'Argo,' 'Batman Vs.

Superman,' 'Justice League' and 'The Way Back.'

The Way Back is out today!

- And they yelled atus, and they called usby our character names, and likethe guys were really scary.And it was exhausting physically.And to this day, it's the hardest thingI've ever done.[upbeat music]School Ties.I was playing like thisanti-semitic bully,and it seemed like those were the rolesI was kinda getting cast as,was like bad guys all the time.- It's so hard to finddecent help these days.[laughing]- Can't you move any faster, please?- If you care to step outside,I'll show you how fast I can move.[yelling]- Come on!- Obviously I knew Matt, and that was fun.And I got to know AnthonyRapp and Chris O'Donnelland Randall Batinkoff and Brendan Fraserand those guys really well.And it was definitely likea sort of thrilling momentbecause it was the first real movie,like I knew it wasactually gonna come out,you know that I was gonna be in.It was a little frustratingto have such a small roleand for it to be sorelentlessly unpleasant,but you take what you can get, I guess.Dazed and Confused.- And you, get the hell off my property.- I'm sorry, ma'am, I was justescorting your fine youngson home from school.There were some ruffians about.Oh and Mitch, Carl,we'll be seeing other again.- [Interviewer] What were you channelingfor the O'Bannion character?I remember reading at one time that youwrote "Fah-Q" on the paddle yourself.- Oh, I don't know if that was meor if that was Rick's idea.I can't remember, butRick encouraged everyoneto like write theirown stuff, to you know,try their own scenes, whichis kind of amazing to methat he gave us all that much freedom.It was a little bit disappointing to belike the only unlikablecharacter in a moviefull of incredibly likable people,but it was kind of a lot likewhat it looked like, you know.Sort of like a bunch ofyoung people having fun,mostly workin' nights,sort of running around.I feel like we were sort ofmaking it up as we went along,and as I look back, I'm amazed that Rickwas so comfortable with that,given like how much youneed to schedule moviesand plan them out and knowwhere you're gonna shoot.But he was really fluid,and he created a greatcreative environment.It was definitely themovie where I got the sensethat like, this is somethin', you know,it kind of was de-mystified.Like I could do this,you know what I mean?Maybe we could make our own movie.And he was very inspiring in that regard.Chasing Amy.- Alyssa, there isn't another soulon this [beep] planet who has ever made mehalf the person I am when I'm with you.And I would risk this friendshipfor the chance to takeit to the next plateaubecause it is there between you and me.You can't deny that.- That was the first time that I was likegot to play a full sortof developed leading roleand also got to play kindof a range of emotionsand express myself emotionallyand had this speech aboutbeing in love with her.And it was really aninteresting experiencebecause we had so little timethat we had to kind ofrehearse like a play.So we rehearsed the wholething all the way througha bunch of times,so we just knew the thing back to front.And when we shot, it went by really fast,you know what I mean?And we shot on 16 andI don't even remember,20 days or something like that.And I guess I kindathought maybe there wouldbe that much rehearsal on most movies.You know, I didn't realizethat was a totally unique experience.I slept on Kevin's couch.We all soft of bunked together,and you know we all wore our own clothes.And it was definitely that sortof Indie era feel, you know.And he had made Clerks, sohe was already kind of famousin the Indie world, you know.And Rick had already madeSlacker when I worked with him,so both those guys I kindalooked up to and admiredas sort of DIY filmmaker models.- What did you say?[spits]- You're chasing Amy.- What do you look so shocked for, man?Fat bastard does this all the time.He thinks just becauseyou don't say anything,it'll have some huge impactwhen he does open his fucking mouth.- Jesus Christ, why don't you shut up.- Kevin was a big inspiration to meboth like because he wasable to do all this stuffand he also was veryspecific about his writing.He was very text oriented.You know, it was not, likehe was opposite of Rickin a sense of like there was no improv,no changing anything.He wanted the writing to be exactlyas he kind of laid it out.And not only that, butin some cases he had likethe inflection in mindthat he wanted you to use.And I didn't know any better.I didn't know you weren'tsupposed to give actorsline readings, so I was just like,"Okay, I'll say it like that."We ended up just becoming friends.And I think I did end updoing like six movies with himor something like that.And you know, he's my friend today,and I really love him.And he really wore hisheart on his sleeve,He was caring andthoughtful and empathetic.And it was really like a,made a big impression on me,that this was a guy who was making filmswhen I thought you had to be much olderand much more experienced andmuch more I don't know what.You know, have moregray hair or something.I thought, well youknow, if Kevin can do it.Again, that was right around the timewhen we were working on,start trying to getGood Will Hunting made.And he was a big inspiration,and he helped us with that.So that was a big part of that.Good Will Hunting.Most of the writing for Good Will Huntingwas done improv style.We knew we wanted to do this sort ofReservoir Dogs, Slacker,Clerks version of a movie.And the way you did thatwas to do it inexpensively.So we deliberately wrote a moviethat was mostly people talking in rooms.And we wrote a part for, you know,what we knew would be the personthat would get the movie financedbecause we knew that wasn't us.And so we tried to write some monologuesthat would appeal to somebody famous.We didn't even knowanybody famous at the time,so it was all sort of guesswork.And mostly it was done becausewe had nothing else to do.You know, we lived together.We were goin' on auditions.And a lot of days would go byand we just were hangin' out.So we would talk about it,and you know, it evolved quite a bitand changed quite a bit.But some of it is likestill those early improvsthat we did and we would tape recordand then re go over the tapeand pick out the good parts.- So, when are ya donewith those meetings?- I think the week after I'm 21.- Yeah, they gonna hookyou up with a job or what?- Yeah, fuckin' sit in aroom and do long divisionfor the next 50 years.- Probably make some nice bank though.- It was odd that we eventhought that we could do this,That it was something that was possibleor that would ever happen.I think we were youngenough to be just sort ofand inexperienced enoughto just sort of think,"Maybe it'll work."You know, instead of realizinghow stacked against usthe odds were.It was definitely like, youknow, some of those earlyIndie movie experiencesthat made me feel likemaybe with the rightluck, this could happen.And it did, mostly due toour agent, Patrick Whitesell,who kind of made people believe in itand got people the script.That was the biggest hurdlethat movie had to get over,was kind of, you know, to get in the handsof somebody who actuallycould make a movie.And he was a young agent at the time,he's still our agent, andkind of made his boneson selling Good Will Hunting.I guess we all sort of did.Gus definitely lent amaturity to the movie.It was a little bit adolescent,a little big naive, you know,in it's original sort of form.And because Gus was much older than usand much more matureand more sophisticatedand kind of had a better senseof when we were pushing too far, you know,for sentiment or reaching for something.He definitely has made those real.- You don't know about real lossbecause it only occurswhen you love somethingmore than you love yourself.I doubt you've ever daredto love anybody that much.- Robin was just like thebiggest star in the world.You know, we just couldn't believe thatwe were working with Robin Williams.It was like the fact that he was doing it,the fact that we wouldget to hang out with himand like ride in the van with himand listen to him like tell jokes.We went up and watchedhim do stand-up once.It was like, you know, thebeginning of a very sort ofdream-like fantasy sequence or something,where I was doing all these things.All these things were happening in my lifethat I thought I wanted to do,but never actually really believedwould quite come true, you know.And yet, there we werewith Robin Williams.And I think he was just coming off likethis great run of movies, you know,Awakenings and Good Morning, Vietnam,and he was like such a big star.And I hadn't even been around somebodywho was famous before.And we would walk down the street and likepeople in Boston wouldbe like, "Mork from Ork".And I was like, "Wow," all those moviesand that's what youremember, "Mork from Ork".It was a fantasy, I mean heonly worked for three weeks,and it was like Iremember every single day,every bit of daily, every bit of dialogue.It was literally a dream come true.Armageddon.Doing Armageddon was so alien to me,It was like I had doneChasing Amy so recently,and we did that for $250,000.And I remember thinking like,we could make 400 Chasing Amy'sfor what we're making this movie for.- [Man] Those 14 brave soulstraveling into the heaven.- That man's no salesman,that's your daddy.- It was a really goodexperience because it was withall these actors I really respected,like Billy Bob Thornton andSteve Buscemi and Owen Wilson.And there were all these coolpeople that were doing it.Liv, who was so great.And Bruce was such a like iconic figureand such a nice guy.And he was so generous and kind and fun,and he was kinda the leaderof the gang, you know.And Micheal had a totallydifferent attitudeabout filmmaking from anyoneI had ever met before.It was so visual, and he obviously hasa very distinctive iconic kind of stylethat is like a Micheal Baymovie that you can recognize.[explosions and screaming]- Whoa!- I learned a ton aboutwhat filmmaking was likeon a big scale, and you know,it was a 120 days or something.And you know, I had just neverseen anything that massive.Plus we had cooperation from NASA,and there we were on the space shuttle.It was like, it was anincredible experience.[dramatic music]I really learned a lot aboutthe sort of professionalism,and you know from thecrew was really excellent.They were really talented.It was a lot of fun.I wasn't expecting that wewere making an art movie,I mean I knew enough to know,this isn't really an Oscar-type movie.This is a, you know, a fun movie,where like for some reason it's easierto send, like to teach oildrillers to be astronautsthan it would be to teach astronautsto drill a hole in the ground.I have some greatmemories from that movie.Pearl Harbor.The prep for the movie wassome of the most intenselyinteresting and powerful stuffI ever did.- After two years of training,you believe that a $45,000 airplaneis there for your amusement?- I was doin' it to tryto inspire the men, sir,in the way that you've inspired me.I believe the French evenhave a word for that,when the men get togetherto honor their leaders,they call it an homage, sir.- A what?- An homage, sir.- That's bullshit, McCawley.- I took flying lessons.So I basically learned how to fly,and that was really interesting and fun.You know flying like a littleMcCarley aerobatic airplaneout of Santa Monica Airport.And I had been kind of afraidto fly up to that point,and it really helped my fear of flyingto realize the sort ofphysics behind flightand how it worked.- Bombers, dead ahead.- Let's drop in on 'emand give 'em a reception.[airplane engines]- I don't know how theygot permission to do this,but they put us in a bootcamp in the actual U.S. Army.So we did this, I thinkit was Fort Lightningwas the name of it, and itwas pre-Ranger Training Coursethat basically you did beforeyou went to Ranger Schoolto sort of prepare youfor the rigors of that.And they somehow got us all in it.And it was horrible.It was an incredibly agonizing,painful, miserable experience,and I would have definitelyquit like the first dayif I had just wouldn'thave been too embarrassedlike to have it get outthat I quit the training.You know, and they yelledat us and they called usby our character names and likethe guys were really scary.And it was exhausting physically,and to this day, it's thehardest thing I've ever done.It was really personallysatisfying to get through itand to like, after it wasover, have the drill sergeantslike treat me like a normal human beingand to sleep in a nice bed.Like I just appreciatedeverything so much more.It's hard to think about that moviewithout like thinkin' abouthow like slammed we got for it.You know what I mean?Because I really thoughtwe were gonna do somethingkind of different, and it ended up sort ofbeing Armageddon in World War II.But it wasn't as bad as itwas like made out to be.And it also wasn't a bomb.People always say, "Oh,Pearl Harbor bombed."We did half a billion dollars.It turns out, that's the way it goes.Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose,sometimes you kind of win,but they say you lost.The Town.- [Interviewer] Let's fastforward to 2010, The Town.This is coming off of Gone Baby Gone,which was the firstmovie that you directed,but this is your first time,I believe, directing yourself.What was that experience like?- I wasn't confidentenough to direct myselffor the first movie, and I really wantedto focus on directing.And I really wanted people to seehow talented my brother was.So there was definitelyan added level of pressurewith The Town in the sense thatI was gonna be in it as well.And I was really self-conscious abouthow many takes I did on myself.And one of the piecesof advice I got early onfrom an actor director was like,make sure you get enoughcoverage on yourselfbecause the tendency isto sort of like, you know,do a bunch of takes with you,and then just do like onequick take on yourselfand be like, "Okay, we can move on."And you just end up sortof screwing yourself.So I remember like purposelysaying ahead of time,"I'm gonna do extra takes on myself."Don't think it's, you know,"it's because someone told me to do it."It's not because I'm narcissistic."And being on set, I was usedto being on camera actually.That wasn't the stressful part.The stressful part was the directing,and the directing of other actors,and the directing ofaction, and the car chase,and that was the stuff that Ireally had no experience with.[car screeching][police sirens]You know, I often timesfelt like I was, you know,doin' on the fly and makingit up as we went along,and that was what I was really scared,it wasn't gonna work,that I would be revealed as a bad directorbecause, you know, the carchase wasn't tense enoughor the shootouts weren'trealistic feeling or whatever.- Here we go.- Heat loomed large overthat movie, you know,it was such an iconicmovie about bank robbery,and you know, it hadsuch great acting in it.And it felt like I definitelydid tip the hat to the moviebecause we had a clip ofthe movie in the movie,but I definitely rememberbeing intimidated by the factthat Heat had been sogood and thinking thatwe would be compared to thatand being really nervousabout the technical aspects of that movie.The truth is that movie was really madein the research of it.- Marty McGuire, Cummins Armored courier.Five ten, 220, 52-years-old.Picks up every Wednesdayand Friday at exactly 8:12.Makes $110 a day, carries a Sig Nine.- I spent a lot of timewith guys at the FBI.I went to a bunch of prisonsand talked to a bunch of guyswho had robbed armed trucksand got a lot of reallyinteresting stories from that.I spent a lot of time in Charlestown.Really it was more ofCharlestown of the late eighties,then it reflected the realityof Charlestown at that time.But there was a time whenit was really, you know,this sort of bank robberycapital of the world.Argo.Argo was written by aguy named Chris Terrio,produced by Smokehouse, andmade at Warner Brothers.And it got submitted to me.You know, I was like,because I had done The Townwith Warner Brothersand they said, you know,mid-level sort of drama seemedto be where I kind of fit in.And you know, they had this script.And as soon as I readit, I just thought like,this is, I have to make this movie.- Mary, who were the last threeprime ministers of Canada?- Trudeau, Pearson, and Diefenbaker.- What's your father's name?- Howard.- [Tony] What's his occupation?- [Cora] Fisherman.- [Tony] Where were you born?- Halifax, Nova Scotia.- What's your date of birth?- February 21st, 1952.- Good, what's your job on the movie?- Producer.- [Tony] Associate Producer.What was the last movie you produced?- High and Dry.- Who paid for that?- CFD.- [Tony] What's your middle name?What's your middle name?- Leon.- Shoot him, he's an American spy.- It touched on all thesedifferent parts of my lifethat I was interested in.You know, obviously there'sthe Hollywood aspect,but also the Middle Easternstudies major aspectof my life.And it was a part ofthe world that I thoughtwas really fascinating,and it was an eventthat I knew a little bit about,but didn't really know as much about.And I had done some research with the CIAaround the Sum of All Fears,and so I knew that it was a much moresort of bureaucratic place than it waslike a sexed-up headpiece and rifle,you know, like assassins den.And I thought that was really interesting.And I just thought Chris'sscript was so smartand so unique and it hadsuch great characters.You know, I thought like this is somethingwhere I could use a lot of theactors who I know out therewho are really good whoaren't necessarily stars,but who are just fabulous actors.I mean it just seemed obvious to me thatit was a really brilliantly written movie,and I could only screw it up.And all I had to do, I remember thinking,was just like deliver on each day,each moment, like reallyapproach it sort ofon a one day at a time basis because,you know, otherwise it was a little scary.You know, it was likethese two competing tones.You had a comedy, you had a thriller.You had Hollywood andyou had the Middle East,things that didn't necessarilyseem to go together.So I was nervous that it wouldn'tsort of all gel and work,and I just definitely approached itas just get this scene right.Just get that moment right.That was just a moviewhere I just got luckyevery step of the way.Lucky to get the script,got the best actors,ended up getting the locations we wanted.We shot at the CIA, we shotat the State Department.We had amazing technicalpeople workin' on itand an incredible cast and crew,and it was just like, I knowthat I was the beneficiaryof a lot of talented peopleand a lot of good luck.Batman Versus Superman.Justice League.I don't think I even realizedhow iconic the character wasuntil I took the job andlike that was a big story.And it happened at the timewhen Internet was expandinginto the movie business ina kind of a different way.And like, the fan sites andthe relationship with the fansand the studios and thecomic book creators and stuffwas changing and evolving.Zack told me he basicallywanted to do the toneof The Dark Knight, youknow, Frank Miller series,where he's older andhe's kinda broken downand more vulnerable.And I thought that wasa really interestingapproach to Batman.[sad music][bats screaming]The spirit of that, asa guy who's vulnerable,as a guy who aches whenhe gets up in the morning,as a guy who like feels a lot ofpsychological sort of torment,I thought was a reallyinteresting approachto playing a hero.And that was how, what we wanted to do,and you know, I really,I had a better timeon Batman versus Superman,which I really enjoyed doing.Justice League wasunfortunately like, you know,touched by you know some personal tragedy,a death in Zack's family, and it just,like I say, sometimesthings sort of work and geland sometimes it just,you know, you seem to bejust having one problemafter another, you know.I really loved Batman Versus Superman,and Chris wrote on it,and I really love Zac, and Iloved puttin' on the costume,and the idea of doingthe digital alterations,and the voice was reallyinteresting to me.And I had a good time, I loved Detroit.It was a really fun city,a really cool place.You know, my kids came out and visited meand saw me in the bat suit.And they let me borrow thesuit for my son's birthday,and so that was a lot of fun.I sort of had my fill of that.They said, "Do you want to direct and starin like a solo Batman movie?"I found that I had kindof at just some pointlost my enthusiasm or passion for it.You know, I was like thisshould really be madeby somebody for whom it'stheir wildest dream come true.And for me, it had becomelike something different,and it was clear to me thatit was time to move on.But I do have some really fond memories,particularly of Batman Versus Superman,and how exciting that wasand how energizing it wasand how much fun we had.The Way Back.The Way Back was a reallyinteresting movie for mebecause some of it was Icould really identify with.It was like, you know, I'ma recovering alcoholic.This guy's an alcoholic, and I understooda little bit of that andI kind of could understandwhat he was going through.And so it was likeinteresting to have suchan intimate relationship, on some level,with an emotional issuethe character had and also,you know, the main source of painobviously in his lifewas the death of his son,which I couldn't even imaginewhat that would be like.So it was kind of onthe one hand somethingI was really comfortable withand on the other hand it was,I had to totally sortof use my imaginationfor what it would be liketo feel that much painand to suffer that muchand to kind of carrythat much resentment, you know,against sort of the world.And also, you know, I hadnever been a coach before,so I had to develop thisrelationship with the guysplaying the players, whoare amazing, fantastic guys.And that one just turned outto be a little bit like Argo.Like I just felt like everythingwas sort of working welland the cast was great.You know, we got luckywith a bunch of stuff,and I felt really emotionally connectedand in tune with where Ineeded to be character-wise.It was really just fun every day.I know that's a weirdthing to say about a moviethat's got a lot of dark emotion in it,but ultimately it wasan inspirational movie.You know, it's kind of a movieabout overcoming adversityand had a message of hopethat really resonated with me.And it really still does now,and it's probably the performanceI'm the most proud of.