|
Hot Videos
Female Celeb
Wallpapers
|
Benjamin Géza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is a Golden Globe Award-nominated American film actor, director, and Academy Award-winning and Golden Globe Award-winning screenwriter. He became known in the late 1990s, after his involvement in the film Good Will Hunting, and has since become a Hollywood leading man, having starred in several big budget films.
Early life
Affleck was born Benjamin Géza Affleck in Berkeley, California to father Timothy Affleck, a social worker and drug rehab counselor, and mother Chris Boldt, a school teacher. Affleck's ancestry is Irish and Scottish; his parents divorced in 1984. Affleck's younger brother is actor Casey Affleck. At the age of eight, Affleck met ten-year-old Matt Damon, who lived two blocks away in Cambridge. Through the encouragement of their parents, Affleck and Damon would later attend Cambridge Rindge and Latin School together, although they were in different year groups. Affleck grew up in the Cambridge, Massachusetts area and attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, as well as the University of Vermont.
Career
Affleck worked as a child actor, appearing on the PBS kids' series The Voyage of the Mimi and in several made-for-television movies. Throughout the 1990s, Affleck had a role in LifeStories:Families in Crisis as a steroid abusing athlete as well as several notable films, including 1992's School Ties (with Matt Damon), 1993's Dazed and Confused, 1995's Mallrats and 1997's Chasing Amy; "Mallrats" and "Amy" began his collaboration with writer/director Kevin Smith. Affleck has since appeared in every film Smith has made, except for his first film Clerks. Affleck had a one line speaking role as a high school basketball player in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. Affleck and fellow Boston Red Sox fanatic Matt Damon had roles as extras in the movie Field of Dreams when Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones go to Fenway Park.
Affleck came to national attention when he and best friend Matt Damon wrote the screenplay for and starred in Good Will Hunting (1997). They shared credit and both received the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Along with Damon and producers Chris Moore and Sean Bailey, Affleck founded the production company LivePlanet, through which the four created the documentary series Project Greenlight, as well as the failed mystery-hybrid series Push, Nevada amongst other projects.
Following Good Will Hunting, Affleck had starring roles in many successful movies, including Armageddon, Forces of Nature, Pearl Harbor, Changing Lanes, The Sum of All Fears and Daredevil, establishing himself as a Hollywood leading man throughout the early 2000s. However, after the release of several critically panned, box office flops, including Gigli (2003) and Surviving Christmas (2004), Affleck's career waned considerably. He did not appear in any films untill 2006 (Clerks II).
In addition to being a fan of the Daredevil comics (Frank Miller's run specifically), he wrote the introduction to the trade paperback Daredevil: Guardian Devil which reprints Daredevil (Volume 2) #1–8 (written by Kevin Smith).
Affleck made what can be considered a comeback with the September 2006 release of the critically acclaimed George Reeves biopic-noir Hollywoodland, directed by HBO TV-series veteran Allen Coulter. His performance was impressive enough that he was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival and has also won the Best Supporting Actor award at the Hollywood Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture. Affleck recently completed directing his third film, Gone, Baby, Gone, about two Boston area detectives investigating a little girl's kidnapping and how it affects their lives. It is in post-production and scheduled for a 2007 release. Affleck also appeared in Clerks II.
Personal life
Affleck had a high-profile romance with actress Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998, following her breakup with actor Brad Pitt. In 2002, he began dating actress/singer Jennifer Lopez, whom he met on the set of Gigli. The same year, his engagement to Lopez was announced, and the relationship between the two received a lot of attention by the entertainment media. Both subsequently lost fans and credibility, probably due in part to the saturation of Affleck/Lopez interviews and projects, and especially after the notorious failure of Gigli, which in part was due to the negative publicity which led to the couple being dubbed "Bennifer". The couple broke up in 2004, both blaming the media attention. This negative publicity and attention was also brought along to the 2004 Jersey Girl, which also was a box office failure.
Affleck subsequently dated his Daredevil co-star, actress Jennifer Garner, and the two were engaged after nine months of seeing each other. In May 2005, it was announced that Garner was pregnant and the couple were married on June 29, 2005 on the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos. Garner gave birth to a daughter, Violet Anne Affleck, on December 1, 2005. The couple currently lives in Santa Monica, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Affleck is an avid poker player, regularly entering local events. He has been tutored by poker professionals Amir Vahedi and Annie Duke, and won the California State Poker Championship on June 20, 2004, taking home the first prize of $356,000, which qualified him for the 2004 World Poker Tour final tournament. Affleck is a Boston Red Sox fan.
Affleck supports a non-profit organization called the A-T Childrens Project. He started supporting the A-TCP after meeting Joe Kindregan when filming Forces of Nature. Kindregan, who was then 9 years old, has a rare disease called ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). Affleck has attended benefits and spoken to Congress to advocate for the A-T Childrens Project. The disease, described as like having muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, immune deficiency and cancer all at once, is progressive; children with A-T usually don't live beyond their late teens.
Political activism
In the final weeks of the 2000 Presidential campaign, Affleck promoted the Democratic ticket, supporting Al Gore and repeatedly delivering a get-out-the-vote plea: "It's very important to vote. The president will appoint three or four Supreme Court justices."
During the final week of the race, Affleck spoke on behalf of Gore in California, Florida, and Pennsylvania. During a stop in Pittsburgh, the star—along with Helen Hunt, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner and other actors—spent an hour at a phone bank calling registered Democrats. "People in my generation have a low voter turnout. One of the reasons that I'm here is to demonstrate that no matter who you are going to vote for... I think it's important to get involved and get out and vote," Affleck told reporters. "But I'm going to tell people to vote for Gore."
On October 28, 2000, Affleck flew with Hillary Clinton, who was running for a Senate seat, to Ithaca, New York, where he introduced her at a Cornell University rally. Affleck told the college crowd that Clinton had been advocating for women and working families since "Rick Lazio was running around the frat house in his underwear". Lazio, then a Long Island congressman, was Clinton's Republican opponent.
On November 6, 2000, the final day of the campaign, Affleck was one of several high-profile celebrities summoned to Miami Beach by Miramax Films boss Harvey Weinstein for a late-night Gore rally, just hours before polls opened nationwide. The Gore campaign's last event, a final effort to energize South Beach voters, did not end until about 1:00AM, but Affleck flew back to New York that morning and made a surprise live appearance on The Rosie O'Donnell Show. It was 10:15AM when he made his final public pitch from a Rockefeller Center studio, noting that he was "a little bit tired... I've been out getting involved, doing stuff and trying to get people to vote. And that's why I came by here". Also, "Today is the get-out-the-vote day and...I think this is the time to get involved, especially the young folks who are here ... I'm about to go vote," He then said, "I am personally gonna vote for Al Gore".
As votes were tallied that night, Affleck told Salon.com's Amy Reiter, "I'm nervous this evening, but one of the things that's exciting to me is the amount of people who voted. No matter who wins, I think it's a healthy thing for our country that so many voters have come out and participated in the process. Either way, I think the most important number will be the turnout". However, as The Smoking Gun later discovered, Affleck himself did not vote that day.
In the May 2001 issue of GQ, Affleck said, "My fantasy is that someday I'm independently wealthy enough that I'm not beholden to anybody, so I can run for Congress on the grounds that everyday people — be they singers or poets or bankers or lawyers or teachers — should be in government". In the March 2003 issue of Vanity Fair, Affleck again proposes the possibility of a future run for Congress. "I think there's a real nobility to public service... It would be fun to run on a platform I really believed in, without being beholden to the win-at-all-costs mentality".
In 2004, Affleck actively campaigned for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. During the first day of the Democratic Convention, Affleck was featured on Larry King Live with Tucker Carlson and Al Sharpton. Larry King asked Affleck if he would consider running for office, and Affleck admitted to contemplating the proposition. Specific attention focused on whether he would run for Kerry's open Senate seat (as Affleck was from Massachusetts). He noted that the line between politics and entertainment is becoming increasingly blurred, as political figures Ronald Reagan, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, all came from the entertainment business, although all were/are members of the Republican Party.
He appeared in a print ad with his openly gay cousin, Jason, in support of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. He once said, "Everyone has the capacity for being bisexual." He has, however, never suggested that he himself is bisexual.
As a Democrat, Affleck has spoken diplomatically of George W. Bush as a person in an interview with Bill O'Reilly (July 27, 2004), saying, "I had the pleasure of and the honor of meeting the President of the United States at the Daytona 500. I found him to be a collegial, affable, kind guy." He went on to say Bush "is a patriot and he’s a man who believes in the country. He's trying to further an agenda he believes in. I happen to disagree with most of his policies, but I respect the man."
Affleck in popular culture
Affleck was mentioned in "I'll Sue Ya" in "Weird Al" Yankovic's CD, Straight Outta Lynwood: "I sued Ben Affleck...... aw, do I even need a reason?"
Affleck has been prominent in two South Park episodes. In How to Eat with Your Butt, Affleck was found to be the missing child of a couple suffering from a facial deformity in which their heads were encased in buttocks. In Fat Butt and Pancake Head, Affleck was portrayed as Jennifer Lopez's boyfriend, until he left her for Eric Cartman's hand puppet, also named Jennifer Lopez.
Affleck is a favorite target of Mike Nelson's RiffTrax.
Selected filmography
Year Title Role Notes
1993 Dazed and Confused Fred O'Bannion
1995 Mallrats Shannon Hamilton
1996 Glory Daze Jack
1997 Good Will Hunting Chuckie Sullivan also writer
Chasing Amy Holden McNeil
Going All the Way Tom "Gunner" Casselman
1998 Shakespeare in Love Ned Alleyn
Armageddon A.J. Frost
Phantoms Sheriff Bryce Hammond
1999 Dogma Bartleby
Forces of Nature Ben Holmes
200 Cigarettes Bartender
2000 Bounce Buddy Amaral
Reindeer Games Rudy Duncan
Boiler Room Jim Young
2001 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Holden McNeil/Himself
Pearl Harbor Captain Rafe McCawley
2002 The Sum of All Fears Jack Ryan
Changing Lanes Gavin Banek
2003 Paycheck Michael Jennings
Gigli Larry Gigli
Daredevil Matt Murdock/Daredevil
2004 Surviving Christmas Drew Latham
Jersey Girl Ollie Trinke
2005 Elektra Matt Murdock Scene cut
2006 Clerks II Gawking Guy
Hollywoodland George Reeves
Man About Town The Camel
2007 Gone, Baby, Gone Director Post-production
Smokin' Aces Jack Dupree
| Latest news about Ben Affleck |
In Case You Didn't Know » Blog Archive » Ben Affleck and my man ...This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 8:47 am and is filed under Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. ... Continue reading
Ben Affleck's Keith Olbermann Imitation - Video - YouThink.comBen Affleck does an excellent Olbermann. Link. ... Bottom, Last Post. Electric Offline. Male, 18-29. Western US Joined: 8 yrs, 3 mos ago 83119 Posts. Tuesday 11/17/09 - 6:18:10 PM. quote message. Ben Affleck does an excellent Olbermann. ... Continue reading
Curb Your Enthusiasm Pegs Ben Affleck as a Banana Republic Fan ...Why, stop us if you've heard this before, but is that Ben Affleck shopping at Banana Republic on Curb Your Enthusiasm? CURB-BEN-AFFLECK. Indeed. It is. We're kind of liking the Nicholson neck beard he's rocking. ... Continue reading
HANNAH MONTANA KILLED BEN AFFLECK'S MISTRESSIt stars Russell Crowe Ben Affleck and Rachel MacAdams and is directed by LAST KING OF SCOTLANDs Kevin Macdonald. nbsp nbsp The moment youve all been waiting for - HANNAH MONTANA THE MOVIE You all know Hannah Montana shes the rock star ... Continue reading
Loaded Gun: Ben Affleck's 'The Town' film hitting Mohegan SunBen Affleck's blue-collar heist flick "The Town" is crossing state lines on Monday, Nov. 16 to film a casino scene at Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. For the currently in production flick based on Chuck Hogan's "Prince of ... Continue reading
Ben Affleck records a PSA for a charity thats been exposed as a ...When I read that Ben Affleck had recorded a PSA for the Paralyzed Veterans of America I went to google the organization and the first ghosted selection that came up was “Paralyzed Veterans of America scam.” Continue reading
Freelance Genius: CDC: Ben Affleck and Patton Oswalt Cross the LineJones and I are sitting in the break room and watching today's advertisements, which apparently consist entirely of trailers for the new Ben Affleck movie in which he plays some sort of villain. The Marketing Wars of the Early 21st ... Continue reading
Chris Pine Attached To Ben Affleck's The Blade ItselfChris Pine Attached To Ben Affleck's The Blade Itself It's been over a year since we heard that Ben Affleck and his Gone Baby Gone writing/producing partner, Sean Bailey, nabbed the rights to bring the novel The Blade Itself to the big ... Continue reading
Ed Westwick and Ben Affleck on setSteffi sent us these pictures she took of Ben Affleck on the set of The Town in Boston two weeks ago and a couple of Ed Westwick on the set of the Gossip Girl in NYC last Monday. Ben and Ed have a co-star in common. ... Continue reading
Chris Pine Still Attached to Ben Affleck Scripted The Blade Itself ...Now we're getting wind of a project that Pine apparently joined just days before Star Trek even hit theaters as Pajiba says that he is attached to the Ben Affleck scripted crime-drama The Blade Itself based on Marcus Sakey's novel of ... Continue reading
Hollywood Actors Jessica alba Ben Affleck pictures and Ben Affleck biography
|
|
|
