“I had my own failings” — Ben Affleck opens up about his experience as DC’s Batman
Actor Ben Affleck opened up about the personal struggles he went through while playing DC's Batman in Justice League, which was released in theatres in 2017. On March 25, the actor sat down for an interview with GQ Magazine to discuss his acting career.
According to Harper's Bazaar's report, Ben Affleck had publically struggled with alcohol addiction, and had went into rehab three times in 2001, 2017, and 2018.
In the GQ interview, when asked about his struggle with alcoholism during the shooting of Justice League, Affleck stated that he had no plans to work on superhero movies again. He claimed he had personal failings at the time due to a conflict between his "agendas, understandings, and expectations." He said:
"I certainly wouldn’t want to replicate an experience like that. A lot of it was misalignment of agendas, understandings, expectations. And also by the way, I wasn’t bringing anything particularly wonderful to that equation at the time, either. I had my own failings, significant failings, in that process and at that time."
Ben Affleck clarified by saying, while acting as DC's Batman, he seemingly failed as an actor, not as a person, as he brought his unhappiness and negative energy to the set. He said:
"I mean, my failings as an actor, you can watch the various movies and judge. But more of my failings of, in terms of why I had a bad experience, part of it is that what I was bringing to work every day was a lot of unhappiness. So I wasn’t bringing a lot of positive energy to the equation. I didn’t cause problems, but I came in and I did my job and I went home."
What did Ben Affleck say about his alcoholism in the past?
In February 2020, Affleck gave an interview with The New York Times, where he stated that alcoholism and mental illness run in his family. The media outlet reported that his younger brother, Casey, had an alcohol addiction, too. Their paternal grandmother and uncle had taken their lives due to mental struggles. Affleck said,
"My dad didn’t really get sober until I was 19. The older I’ve gotten, the more I recognize that my dad did the best he could. There’s a lot of alcoholism and mental illness in my family."
The 52-year-old actor then shared that the history of alcohol addiction and mental illness in his family has been hard to shake off, and he struggled to admit for a long time that he had an alcohol addiction.
"The legacy of that is quite powerful and sometimes hard to shake. It took me a long time to fundamentally, deeply, without a hint of doubt, admit to myself that I am an alcoholic," he said.
According to Ben Affleck's GQ Magazine interview, he has been sober for more than five years. His upcoming action thriller, The Accountant 2, directed by Gavin O'Connor, will be released in theatres on April 25.