How Ben Affleck got his mojo back

Ben Affleck received a standing ovation when he took to the stage with co-producer George Clooney to collect his Oscar for Best Picture at the recent Academy Awards. Argo, a film based on the true story of a CIA operative who helped to rescue six American embassy employees during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, also won the Oscar for Best Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was Affleck’s second Oscar, having won for best original screenplay in 1998 with Good Will Hunting.

Movie-goers haven’t seen the last of Affleck in 2013 though. This month he appears alongside Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams and Olga Kurylenko in Terrence Malick’s new film, To The Wonder. Affleck, who plays a man torn between the two women he loves, has said it makes Malick’s previous film The Tree of Life, “look like Transformers.” Early screenings appear to have polarised audiences, who have either been baffled by its plotless story or entranced by its ethereal, beautiful cinematography.
 
Here, Affleck talks about his reaction to his Oscar glory, what the success of Argo means to him and how he felt about being left off the list of Oscar nominations for Best Director.

There were so many good movies nominated for Best Picture this year. When did you feel like you could win this?
When they gave us the trophies I was confident that we would win! I thought, ‘Is this a prank?’ Once Grant let me talk, I felt good. You know, I don’t get too much into the Oscarology and the pontificating. The guys who do that stuff and report on it… it’s great, and people like it and they’re interested in it. And I hope people are interested in the Oscars because it helps our industry and helps make better films. But it doesn’t help me to read up on that stuff. So I was thrilled for Billy [Goldenberg, editor], I was thrilled for Chris [Terrio, Argo’s screenwriter] and when it came along, I was thrilled for these two guys [George Clooney and Grant Heslov].

Hollywood was really rooting for you.
In some ways it’s about this town, it’s about storytelling, it’s about what we do here. Sometimes it’s pretty, sometimes it isn’t.

The success of Argo is such an incredible story.
It is. I’m old enough now to realise that no one’s going to put me on the World Series for baseball or put me on a football team, so this is the shot that I have to be part of a kind of a World Series-type of event on this big a scale. And getting a movie that was nominated is huge – it’s huge to me, it’s what I wanted to do.

You got emotional during your Oscar speech.
It was really, really moving and I was thinking, ‘Did anyone else ramble on up there?’ Like I was the only one. [laughs]

Throughout the awards season you’ve been very humble.
Yeah, forget that. No more humility. [laughs again]

You said at the Baftas that this was for those trying to get a second chance. Who has been your greatest supporter and given you a chance?
One of the best lessons I’ve learned is there are a lot of people out there who, if you reach out, if you want to work with them, they’ll help you and want to work with you. The thing is, you get caught up in all the negativity and you hold grudges and you kind of spin out. So once I let that go and started availing myself of all the incredible people in this business and outside – and there are a few who definitely stand out – it was OK. But it was just a wonderful thing, you know. You don’t always get there but if you keep trying, I think it will be OK.

How cool was it to have the First Lady announce that you had just won an Oscar?
I was sort of hallucinating when that was happening. But it’s natural because the whole thing is so unnatural. Honestly, I was just asking these two guys outside, was that Michelle Obama? The whole thing kind of alarmed me at the time, but in retrospect, the fact that it was the First Lady was an enormous honour and the fact that she surrounded herself with servicemen and women was special and, I thought, appropriate. Anyway, it was very cool.

How did it feel being left off the best director nominations list?
Naturally I was disappointed, and a lot of people said this is something that’s going to happen. But when I look at the directors who weren’t nominated as well, such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hooper and Quentin Tarantino, it’s amazing. These are all directors who I admire enormously. So it was a very tough year. You know what, you’re not entitled to anything. I’m honoured to be here, I’m honoured to be among these extraordinary movies and I’m really, really honoured to win an Academy Award.

Finally, we heard that your Oscar win wasn’t the biggest achievement in your family recently.
That’s true. My daughter told us she wanted to do a spelling bee, so we found this place at a rec centre in a park and we took her down there and she did it and she just was like into it and really studied and she won a trophy.