Ben Affleck Told a ‘Complete Lie’ to Matt Damon’s Mom to Get Her to Support Her Son’s Acting Career
When Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were growing up, they knew they wanted to become actors. They said they took their pursuit of acting very seriously and hardly considered any other path. Their parents were nowhere near as sold on acting as they were, though. Damon’s mother tried to convince him that everyone in Hollywood was an unpleasant egomaniac. Affleck promised her this wasn’t the case, something he later said was a complete lie.
Ben Affleck tried to convince Matt Damon’s mom to let him be an actor
By the time Damon was in middle school, he knew he wanted to be an actor.
“I knew since I was 12 that I was going to be an actor,” he told Interview Magazine in 1997. “I was originally going to be a basketball player. Tiny Archibald was my favorite player — he’s called Tiny because he’s only six foot one. My father sat me down and said, ‘I’m the tallest Damon ever to evolve and I’m five-eleven. But I’m never going to play in the NBA.’ I gave up basketball at that moment and took up acting.”
His mother did not approve of this dream. She believed her son’s pursuit of acting was egotistical.
“So I was talking to my mother one day — this was when I was 16 or 17 — and she goes, ‘Matt, why are you so obsessed with acting?’ And I said, ‘Because someday I want to walk down the street and have people say, “There goes Matt Damon, the best there ever was.”’ And she said, ‘Did I raise you? That’s just an egomaniacal pipe dream. How does it help other people?’ Of course I hadn’t given much thought to that.”
Affleck tried to convince his friend’s mother that someone could be in Hollywood and still be a good person. He joked that he later realized this was a lie.
“In fact, in high school I can remember trying to convince Matt’s mother that not everybody in Hollywood was a total liar and scum,” he said. “I was saying that there are people in Hollywood who have a social conscience, too. I only repeat this years later now that I realize it was a complete lie. [laughs].”
Ben Affleck said he and Matt Damon were very serious about their goals
While Affleck’s father was involved in the Boston theater scene, his parents still weren’t sold on his dreams.
“I think our parents were concerned because everybody knows that acting is a difficult career,” Affleck said. “I don’t think they were that happy with the prospect of their kids facing a lifetime of rejection and scraping by for a sandwich and hoping we’d get free refills at the age of 45. But Matt and I were very straightforward about wanting to be actors. I really think that everybody would like to be an actor. Why wouldn’t they? It’s great work if you can get it. The one thing that prevents most people from saying, ‘I’m just gonna go to Hollywood!’ is that it seems unrealistic.”
Affleck and Damon did their best to make the career path realistic for them, though.
“We used to have what we called ‘business lunches’ in high school,” Damon said, “which meant we met at the smaller cafeteria and got a table —”
“—and worked out some business plans,” Affleck added. “We were really nerdy. So right now we’d like to skip ahead to these slightly cooler years. Otherwise this is going to get progressively embarrassing.”
Affleck did not want the fame that came with his chosen career
While Damon said he wanted people on the street to recognize him as a great actor, he didn’t consider himself more important because of his fame. Affleck, on the other hand, wasn’t particularly interested in being a celebrity at all.
“Making movies has become such a golden ring, and it’s all such a big business, that the rewards system has gotten totally out of whack,” he said. Suddenly, you’re treated in a manner befitting someone who is actually an important person … It’s difficult for me to see the benefits of fame, except that you get the chance to do the stuff you want to do. Aside from that, the only other good thing I can imagine from being famous is that when I introduce myself, I no longer have to go, ‘A-f-f…’ ‘A-s-s…?’ ‘No, A-f-f, like Frank.’”
This is an attitude Affleck has maintained for years.
