NEW YORK ā Of the many stories that have stuck with Ben Affleck from his Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, one has especially resonated for the actor. Recovery is often described as a process of removing a damaging habit from your life. One man articulated it in a more positive way. He said he quit drinking so he could be a free man.
āThatās one of the most moving things thatās stayed with me,ā says Affleck. āThe desire for that freedom, and so I can be accountable to my kids.ā
After a turbulent few years, Affleck, 47, is trying to reclaim his life and reorder his career. In Affleckās new film, āThe Way Back,ā both missions converge powerfully. He plays a former high-school basketball star brought back to coach his alma mater's team in Gavin OāConnor's movie, which opens March 6. The film has obvious similarities to Affleckās life. Itās about a man struggling with alcoholism, divorce and midlife disappointment. It's about the hard road to recovery, a path that Affleck has been walking, with a few stumbles along the way, the last three years.
āI donāt know all the answers. Iām only an expert in my own failings,ā Affleck says. āBut the more expert you become in your own failings, interestingly, the less likely you are to repeat them, Iāve found. That is how my life has been getting better. I have a better relationship with my kids today than I did three years ago. I have a better relationship with my ex-wife, I think, than I did three years ago. I think Iām a better actor. I think Iām a more interesting person because most of the growth that Iāve had has come from pain.ā
Affleck smiles. āYou notice how you never succeed and all your wildest dreams come true and you go: āI got to change something!ā Itās when you hit a stumbling block that you say: āOK, letās be really honest.āā
And honesty is what Affleck is now practicing, to a degree rarely seen in Hollywood, let alone for someone whose personal ups and downs have been such regular fodder for tabloids. In an interview early last week, Affleck was candid and clear-eyed about his battle for sobriety and the roots of his drinking. He met with The Associated Press at a New York high school after taping a special with Diane Sawyer and shortly before The New York Times published an intimate profile on him. Occasionally his voice quavered but mostly Affleck spoke earnestly and straightforwardly. He seemed freshly unburdened. Making āThe Way Back,ā he said, helped him.
āSometimes just feeling those feelings again purges them a little bit and frees you a little bit,ā says Affleck. āThis movie was hard to make. Sometimes it was painful. And sometimes I was embarrassed. And sometimes I couldnāt believe my life had any similarity to this.ā
When Brad Ingelsbyās script came to Ben Affleck, it was titled āThe Has-Been.ā Affleck was being pitched to direct. Coming off the best picture-winning āArgo,ā he last helmed the Prohibition-era crime thriller āLive by Night,ā an ambitious gangster film that made a modest impression at the box office. Affleck immediately connected with the character: Jack Cunningham, a former star athlete whose alcoholism, isolation and grief is lifted by a reluctant return to basketball.
If he made it, Affleck knew he'd get questions about parallels between the film and his life. āBut, frankly, I get asked about that stuff, anyway,ā he shrugs.
āUnfortunately, I had actually lived that life and done the research. I brought a certain perverse expertise because I knew what it was like to feel in thrall to a compulsion that wasnāt good for me," Affleck says. āI knew how hopeless that can feel. And I knew how enormously frustrating it is. But I also knew something really important which is: People get better. You can get better.ā
Affleck appealed to OāConnor to direct. The two previously collaborated on the 2016 thriller āThe Accountant,ā and OāConnor ("Warrior," āMiracleā) has proven adept at channeling larger themes through sports dramas. But until they began working on āThe Way Back,ā OāConnor didnāt know the extent of Affleckās problem.
āOnce we started to prep the movie, he went into rehab. He sort of fell off the wagon. So now we were prepping the movie while he was in rehab and we thought it was going to fall apart,ā said OāConnor. āBut he still wanted to do it. When he got out, he was incredibly raw and vulnerable and I think a little lost just in regard to having to confront the demons.ā
Affleck says his drinking worsened around the time his marriage to Jennifer Garner was falling apart. Garner and Affleck, who have three children together, separated in 2015 and divorced in 2018. In those years, Affleck has made several tripsto rehab. Last October, he was captured drunk on camera, which he then granted was āa slip.ā
āThe times that Iāve relapsed, personally, have been not been because Iāve had some bad thing happen. Itās been when I thought I had it licked,ā Affleck says. āIām fixed! Iāve been fine! Itās been a year and a half, who cares! I can have a glass of wine! And the next thing, youāre on TMZ and itās a disaster. That teaches me that itās just not something I can do.ā
Coming to terms with that has been a humbling journey for Affleck. His track record, he grants, hasn't been perfect. āBut for the last three years, 99% of my life I've spent sober,ā he says.
āIt takes time to learn all the things you need to learn. And it also takes time to suffer enough until at some point thereās something inside you that says, āNo mas. I give,āā says Affleck. āWhat it really is, personally in me and what Iāve seen in others that I want for myself, is a profound sense of humility. You are not stronger than the thing youāre addicted to. It is stronger than you. It will always be stronger than you."
All of that pain, and then some, went into āThe Way Back.ā For a scene in which Jack makes amends to his wife, OāConnor told Affleck he was just going let the camera roll.
āIt was probably the second take, Ben just had a breakdown. Iām getting chills thinking about it. It was like the dam broke and everything came out,ā says OāConnor. āI just remember the crew, everyone was frozen, watching him bear his soul. It was obviously real. A lot of things that he probably had to say in his own life, or maybe he had said, I donāt know.ā
The scene remains in the movie but OāConnor didnāt keep it all. It was too raw. āIt would be too hard for an audience to watch, too personal,ā says OāConnor.
For Affleck, making āThe Way Backā wasnāt just about dealing with his own alcoholism, but also his fatherās. He got sober when Affleck was 19, but that childhood experience had ever since colored Affleckās impression of his dad. Affleck realized that he had been carrying a big chip on his shoulder from that time. āAnd it wasnāt doing me any good," he says. "It was doing me harm.ā
āHe was what you call a very low-bottom drunk. He needed to get really, really far down before he could get sober,ā says Affleck. āUnfortunately, those were really formative years for me. So I know how important these years are right now for my kids. These are the absolute most critical, vital years. I want to be there for absolutely as much of it as I possibly can.ā
Affleck has come to realize his father was just doing his best. His grandmother, too, he says, killed herself with barbiturates and alcohol in a hotel on Sunset Boulevard. His uncle, his fatherās brother, was an addict who shot himself in the chest. āLess and less do I see any real distinction between what the substance is that youāre using to medicate but just the fact that youāre medicating,ā says Affleck.
OāConnor credits Warner Bros. Chairman Toby Emmerich with green-lighting āThe Way Back,ā a rarely seen thing in todayās Hollywood: an intensely personal, adult-driven studio-made drama. It was made relatively inexpensively, with a budget of $25 million, and it marks a clear pivot for Affleck. About a year ago, Affleck left behind Batman after several āJustice Leagueā films. The standalone Batman film, once to star and be directed by Affleck, is instead being made by Matt Reeves with Robert Pattinson in the role.
āWhen I had the opportunity to direct and star in the Batman stand-alone movie, I realized I wasnāt passionate about it. And, A, if youāre not passionate about it, youāre probably not going to make a good movie. And, B, that movie absolutely deserves to be made by someone for whom itās their lifelong passion and dream,ā says Affleck. āMy tastes have changed. Iām interested in different kinds of movies.ā
His new course, which he jokes is āobviously not the most profitable path you can possibly be on,ā is making human stories with pain and redemption. Heās been busy. Affleckās brief stop in New York followed shooting āDeep Water,ā a Patricia Highsmith adaptation co-starring Ana de Armas, and preceded production on āThe Last Duel,ā a medieval revenge drama directed by Ridley Scott. Affleck wrote it with Matt Damon (their first script together since āGood Will Huntingā) and Nicole Holofcener.
Battles with alcoholism are never over, but they can get gradually easier to win. For now, at least, Affleck feels like he's grown. He's humbler. More honest. And closer to feeling free.
āI would not wish it on myself principally because of my children and because it has caused them pain, which I would give anything to change,ā says Affleck. āBut I canāt change the past. I can go from today. I can make sure today Iām good. Thatās what Iāve got. Iām a guy doing good today.ā
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
