Ben Affleck’s Family Once Hated This Change He Made to His Looks for His Oscar-Winning Film
Ben Affleck made one significant change to his face that threw off his ex-wife Jennifer Garner and their children. And his family let Affleck know as much as they could how much they disapproved of his new look.
Ben Affleck’s family complained about his hated look for this film
Affleck decided to change his style a bit when he starred in his Oscar-winning film Argo. The movie saw the actor playing an experienced extractor trying to rescue refugees from Iran in the late 1970s. The actor ended up changing his hairdo to fit in with the film’s time period.
His hair was longer, and he sported a full beard, which audiences might not have been used to seeing. According to Us Weekly, Affleck wasn’t a fan of his new look. But felt it was important to further authenticate the story.
“I hated it,” Affleck said. “I had to grow out this Davy Jones/Barry Gibb thing I had on my head. I knew I was doing the movie far enough in advance that I knew I could grow it out.”
It turned out that his family wasn’t a fan of the change, either.
“My family [which includes wife Jennifer Garner and their three kids Violet, Seraphina, and Samuel] unanimously hated the look, for different reasons, I think,” Affleck once told Parade. “There was a united front. I kept trying to tell my littler kids, [they] kept asking why can’t I shave my prickles. I said, ‘Oh, I gotta wear this for work.’ And they said, ‘What kind of work would make you look like that?'”
Given his and his family’s reaction to Affleck’s hairstyle, it makes sense why it hasn’t been again since Argo.
Ben Affleck admitted he was the only actor who didn’t look like the person he was portraying
Argo was rounded out by an ensemble cast that included the likes of Bryan Cranston and John Goodman. His actors went above and beyond to physically resemble their onscreen counterparts. According to Affleck, they all cared more about their performances more than their appearances.
“Everybody went for it. There was no vanity among the actors,” he said. “[My costars] might have been, ‘No, I gotta look good in the movie.’ It was all ‘how much can I look like the real people?’”
Despite everyone’s willingness to transform, the Jersey Girl star agreed that he was probably the actor who looked least like his character.
“John Goodman looks just like the real guy [John Chambers], right? It’s incredible. And the houseguests, too. I’m the only guy who doesn’t look like the guy he’s playing, but you know, I wasn’t about to fire myself. But that’s why I did the hair and the beard. The hair wasn’t the worst; the beard was the worst,” Affleck said in a 2012 interview with Vulture.
Ben Affleck’s ‘Argo’ beard wasn’t the only change that Jennifer Garner might not have liked
Although Garner wasn’t a fan of Affleck’s beard, at least the facial hair was only temporary. However, the Batman v Superman actor was once seen sporting a back tattoo of a phoenix that very few knew he had. Including Garner, who hoped that the tattoo wasn’t some kind of subliminal message towards her.
“You know what we would say in my hometown about that? ‘Bless his heart,” Garner joked to Vanity Fair about the tattoo. “A phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario?”
Affleck quipped it wasn’t his only tattoo.
“I actually do have a number of tattoos but I try to have them in places where you don’t have to do a lot of cover up — they get sort of addictive, tattoos, after a while,” he once told Extra.
