Batman star Ben Affleck has shaped his career as an actor and a director with astounding fame and success. The actor has several prominent projects to his resume both as an actor and director, even sometimes as a producer.
In his decade-spanning career, the Air star has appeared in movies across genres but his transition to action movies was not easy and straightforward as the actor revealed that it can be extreme pressure to jump into these movies full of stunts and action.
Ben Affleck Had a Hard Time Doing a Sci-Fi Action Thriller
Ben Affleck appeared in the 2003 John Woo-directed sci-fi movie Paycheck. At the time sci-fi action movies were dominated by the industry’s frontline stars Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise. Ford has made his career as a versatile actor but often appeared in action movies, most prominently, Blade Runner, Star Wars, and the Indiana Jones franchise. Cruise, now one of the best action stars, also dominated the genre after appearing in Minority Report and a few other sci-fi action thrillers. For Affleck, it was intimidating to jump into the genre and create a legacy following the footsteps of the previous action stars.
“You feel like they’ve worked really well for these other movies, but it’s also scary because it’s a high bar. And there’s been like big giganto stars that have played these roles before, and so that’s scary – Harrison, I’m constantly following Harrison! And Arnold and Tom Cruise, so that’s big shoes to fill, but by the same token, it’s worth the risk because you’ve got great material to work with,” Affleck once said.
Adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s book of the same name, the movie took a toll on the actor as he felt extreme pressure to continue the legacy of the actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger who has lived his career as one of the greatest action stars in history alongside Ford and Cruise.
Ben Affleck Said He Is Tired Of Action Movies
Affleck has been often in disregard for starring in action movies even though he has appeared in several action-packed thrillers including, Armageddon, The Accountant, and The Sum of All Fears. The actor also appeared in a few superhero flicks such as MCU’s Daredevil and played Batman in several movies of DCEU. Affleck also directed a few thrillers including the $154 million 2010 movie The Town also starred in a prominent role. His Oscar-winning 2012 movie Argo was also a nail bitting thriller. Despite a remarkable number of action and thriller movies under his belt, the actor often struggles to do action scenes. “It was stressful. It gave me a lot of anxiety, more than anything else,” Affleck said of The Town action scenes.
Seeing himself in an action scene does not excite the actor. “I don’t want to do any action movies, I’m tired of it. They’re boring and they’re exhausting and they suck,” Affleck told Dark Horizons. The actor further revealed that comedy is his go-to genre, “I want to do comedies, do you know what I mean?” he said.
“I would like to do comedies or else do tough roles, like – I’d rather do roles smaller and more interesting roles like the stuff I did in Boiler Room or Dogma or Good Will Hunting.”
Despite his conundrum with action movies, he never stopped appearing in the movies of the genre. Following his statement when he boldly said of his departure from the action genre, Affleck appeared in Triple Frontier, The Last Duel, and most recently Hypnotic.
Source: Dark Horizons.
