Ben Affleck has a prolific career in Hollywood, but the star is now recounting one of his all-time career lows.
The actor spoke with Howard Stern on SiriusXM’s “The Howard Stern Show” about his low period in the early 2000s – when he starred in a number of box office bombs including “Gigli”, “Surviving Christmas” and “Jersey Girl”.
Toofab reports it became so bad at one point, that the star says a studio shut down a production despite incurring costs as they preferred to “pay money to not make a movie with [him].”
He told close pal and frequent collaborator Matt Damon, “Everything was going great and I don’t know what I did but somehow I ended up in the worst of both worlds – where I can’t sell movie tickets, but I can sell tabloid f**king magazines.”
As his career took a downward turn, Affleck said he suddenly wasn’t hearing from people and his reputation was in the dumps.
“For a time I got disillusioned, it f**king hurt, angry, disappointed and I felt like a fool. I was like, I thought those people liked me. They didn’t like me,” he told Stern. “Then I thought, I know who my friends are. Because there were people who were good to me, helped me, gave me a crack. I had a few relationships that were good and had some friends who were like, ‘This sucks, I’m sorry man.'”
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When his career began to recover with his directorial debut in “Gone Baby Gone” and then the critically acclaimed “The Town”, Affleck said he started getting calls again.
The “Tender Bar” actor wanted to ignore all the people he felt abandoned him before, but his agent convinced him to give them another chance.
“We’re going to welcome all our old friends back,'” he recalled and said it was “better than what I would have done.”
During his low period, Affleck also had a “Saturday Night Live” actor who he heard hated him.
The next time he hosted the show, the star said he went up to the cast member and told him he really appreciated his work.
“Turns out, a lot of that s**t … it’s not personal, he doesn’t know me. He’s unhappy, he’s resentful, bitter, I don’t know what his issues are,” he added, “but it’s not about me, because all I gotta do is go up to him, tell him he’s a great guy and all of a sudden I’m not that bad. So I took that approach and it worked.”
“Saturday Night Live” airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET, 8:30 p.m. PT on Global.
