Ben Affleck recently spoke candidly about his career, and fears of being blacklisted.
The actor, 52, has been working in the film industry for decades, but in an interview alongside friend and work partner Matt Damon, with whom he began his Artists Equity production company, Affleck shared that he is "one errant remark away from being canceled."
"We're all subject to this sort of insecurity in this business. Whether we're actors or directors or writers, the phone could stop ringing for us," Affleck said, according to OK Magazine.
"This is the only thing I can count on, this upfront money. I don't know when this might go away," he said about his joint venture with Damon, 54. "I'm one errant remark away from being canceled, or I'm one movie bomb away from never working again, and I've got a family and so forth."
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"I've been in movies like 'Gigli.' That's a famous example," Affleck said of the 2003 movie that starred Jennifer Lopez, which bombed.
"I got a big cash payday for that. Well, it doesn't feel right in retrospect because they [the studio] lost money," he noted. "It wasn't the biggest money-losing movie in history even though it was the most famous bomb in history, perhaps. Nonetheless, that doesn't sit right with me. But it also doesn't sit right with people when they go, 'Wait a minute, we all sacrificed to be committed to this.' And then the old story about the $10 million movie that's made $200 million and nobody's seen a nickel."
Last week, Affleck raised eyebrows when he praised his ex-wife Lopez for her work in a new movie he produced.
"Jennifer is spectacular," he told Entertainment Tonight about the actor's performance in the upcoming wrestling biopic "Unstoppable."
Affleck made the remarks while discussing the similarities between his film "Small Things Like These" and "Unstoppable," which both he and Damon worked on as producers.
"'Unstoppable' is a very different movie than this, but in a way it is similarly rooted in the passion of really talented artists, and [director] Billy Goldenberg and Jennifer and Don Cheadle and Jharrel [Jerome] and Bobby Cannavale, all of whom were really passionate about this film," Affleck added.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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