Ben Affleck Didn’t Have to Feel Embarrassed Anymore About His Career After This Film
Ben Affleck took a long hiatus from the spotlight following his relationship with Jennifer Lopez and a series of under-performing movies. When he came back, however, he credited this feature for putting his career goals into perspective.
Ben Affleck credited this film for putting him on the right track
Affleck wasn’t in a good professional place in the mid-to-late 2000s. His relationship with the public and the media took a sizable hit that hurt his image. The damage wasn’t irreversible, though, as all it took was Affleck taking a long break from acting to recharge. One of the movies he starred in during his comeback era was Hollywoodland. The movie was about late Superman actor George Reeves who died under mysterious circumstances in 1959. Affleck was more than excited about portraying Reeves when the opportunity came his way.
“I read the script, it had been out there for a long time. There were various people attached to it. Then I heard it was finally getting made and I leapt at the chance,” Affleck once told Female.
The movie garnered somewhat favorable reviews, but Affleck received the kind of critical praise he hadn’t enjoyed in a long time. He even won a few awards for his performance, indicating that his career was redeemable after all. In a 2007 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Affleck confided that doing the film provided a sense of much-needed relief. It helped him further move past his past career choices.
”In some ways, playing [Reeves] is a little like a catharsis,” he said. ”I don’t have to feel, like, embarrassed anymore. I think it’s helped me cross a considerable hurdle.”
Hollywoodland may have also given a path for Affleck to star in the types of films he wanted to do. Back in his younger years, the actor admitted to doing certain features strictly for the salary. But this led to him feeling unfulfilled in his career.
Why Ben Affleck could relate to ‘Hollywoodland’
Before playing Reeves, Affleck already knew what it was like to don a superhero costume. He starred in 2004’s Daredevil as the titular character, which was one of the many Affleck films that were critically panned. Playing an actor known for a famous superhero role reminded Affleck of the experience, which brought him closer to Reeves.
“Yeah, I definitely had a lot to draw from -in the sense that I knew how ridiculous you feel in a red suit,” Affleck said. “You feel – even if these movies work – very, very silly. It’s hard to ground what you’re doing in any sense of reality. You can’t sit there and say ‘Oh, I know how that feels’, when you are preparing for a scene in which you do something supernatural, wearing a rubber suit. When you are breaking tables, they are crappy fake tables – so the whole thing feels pathetic.”
Similarly, Reeves was also the focus of many tabloid headlines back in the day. Affleck found more common ground with the role knowing how too much media attention could potentially ruin a film career.
“Yeah that’s kind of the modern form of typecasting, you don’t get typecast as a certain character you get typecast as yourself and with George they couldn’t see past the Superman character. Nowadays the danger is that people don’t see past what they read in the tabloids and that can be as damaging if not more so than the other type of typecasting. I certainly can tell you from experience its bad. It’s bad psychologically, bad for your career,” he said.
