Ben Affleck Was Once Fascinated by Another Dream Job That Wasn’t Acting
Even long before Ben Affleck became a famous actor, he had deep aspirations of making it in the film industry. But aside from acting, Affleck saw another profession as a dream job.
How Ben Affleck discovered he wanted to be an actor
Affleck caught the acting bug at a very early age. By his own admission, he lucked his way into the film industry by chance. He found himself starring in a PBS television series as a kid. Then Affleck kept working in the industry throughout his formative years. But it wasn’t until he matured a bit more that he realized acting was a career he wanted to pursue.
“As I got older and started working in a more professional capacity, I started thinking, ‘I love doing this, this is fun.’ And I started doing theater, and that’s when I really got exposed to acting and started developing an appetite for it,” he once said in an interview with Backstage.
He had so much resolve for acting at the time that he didn’t see himself in any other occupation.
“Then I sort of took it for granted, like, ‘Of course this is what I’m going to do!’ I never even considered getting another kind of job, except for the kind that gets you by,” he said.
Ben Affleck had another dream job aside from acting
His passion for acting paid off in the end. Affleck not only became one of the biggest names in Hollywood, but became a respectable filmmaker in his own right. But even after all of his success in the film industry, there was another job Affleck found interesting. In a resurfaced interview with CBR, the Gone Girl star shared why he was so fascinated by speechwriting.
“I think the coolest job to have, and I may be just influenced by watching The West Wing, but I think that being a speechwriter is a pretty cool job. I think it’s fun. It’s great. You get to try stuff. It’s all so substantive. You write a monologue or you write for a television show or something, it gets a laugh or it moves people, but it doesn’t move the engine of the world and government and all that,” Affleck said.
Affleck even quipped about being able to write for Martin Sheen’s famous West Wing character President Bartlet.
“I’m not so good with folksy, down-home anecdotes. It’s not my thing. They’d have to get a different guy. I mean I could, I just don’t think he’d ever deliver any of them,” he joked. “But I think that would be a fun job to have.”
Ben Affleck didn’t think he’d have a career as an actor if it wasn’t for Matt Damon
Affleck once asserted that his friend Matt Damon further helped him with his acting ambitions. Although Affleck was getting parts in television shows early on, Damon gave him some perspective on the art form.
“As a teenager, the natural thing is to have friends who have common interests and so you fit together seamlessly,” Affleck said in a 2007 Parade interview. “Before Matt, I was by myself. Acting was a solo activity where I’d just go off and do something, act in a little TV show or something, and no one understood it. None of the other kids knew what it was I did, how it worked, or anything. All of a sudden I had this friend, Matt, and he gets it and wants to do it and thinks it’s interesting and wants to talk about it. Soon both of us are doing it.”
