Ben Affleck Once Shared Why He Shrugged Off Critics’ Opinions
Ben Affleck hasn’t always had the best relationship with critics in the past. Still, over time, the actor has learned not to let their opinions affect his work.
How Ben Affleck responded to critics
For actors, criticism is usually par for the course. Affleck is no exception. Journalists have critically praised and derided his movies. There are times, however, when Affleck has listened and given honest assessments to his own critics. Even when the majority of them might not have enjoyed a particular film. For instance, he understood why certain film reviewers weren’t too happy with his superhero blockbuster Batman v Superman, which earned a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes.
“I can understand people saying [Batman v Superman] was too dark, or this was outside the tone of what I’m used to seeing with a Batman story, and I think that’s a fair criticism,” Affleck once told Empire (via Esquire).
Still, Affleck took critics’ opinions with a grain of salt when his movies received favorable ratings, too. His directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, is one of the most acclaimed features in Affleck’s filmography. It enjoyed a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and marked his career comeback after taking a much-needed hiatus from Hollywood. However, Affleck admitted he didn’t care so much that he won over so many critics with the film.
“I’m a great believer in the need for and value of honest critics,” he once told Rotten Tomatoes. “And I think some are good and honest and some are, you know, less so. But I also think that no matter what it is that you do for a job — whether you’re a writer, or you work in any kind of capacity whatsoever — you know when you’ve done something well and when you’ve done it poorly.”
“You don’t need someone else to tell you,” Affleck added. “You know if you’ve accomplished it. And sometimes if you know you’ve done it poorly and someone else tells you you’ve done it well, you go, ‘Oh, that’s good!’ But you know deep down. Conversely, it’s aggravating, because you think, ‘No, you’re wrong because this is actually this or that.’”
Ben Affleck says there’s a difference between being criticized as an actor vs. a director
As a filmmaker and an actor, Affleck has experienced two different types of feedback from critics. The Oscar winner feels critics should judge the filmmaker more than the actor regarding reviews. After all, a director has far more control over the quality of a movie than the actor.
“It’s very hard because movies are really a director’s medium,” he said. “I mean, in a lot of ways you should mostly be criticizing the director. Obviously, there’s great acting, and everyone knows it, and there is bad acting. But also, you make choices, you get put in a certain context through editing or writing — a lot of stuff gets sort of mushed in together, and ultimately it’s sometimes hard to know. Well, where were you as the director? You hired the person! The director is, to me, the person with whom the buck should stop.”
Affleck also admitted that, when acting in a movie, he sometimes felt he received the lion’s share of the blame if his film did poorly. Meanwhile, he took full accountability for a film’s potential performance if he directed it.
“Talking about critics at the end of the day, if I’m in a movie as an actor and I say, ‘Look, I thought we were doing one movie, but it turns out we were doing a different movie,’ it’s frustrating when somebody says, ‘Well, I don’t like this movie and it’s your movie.’ You know? Well, it’s not my movie! But now with this movie, this is my movie,” he said.
