After the success of Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck is back with The Town, another crime drama set among the Irish Americans of south Boston, which he co-wrote, directed and stars in. On his first visit to Ireland, he talks Celtic pride and happy families with TARA BRADY
NEAT YET unshaven, jet-lagged but cheery, Ben Affleck leaps to his feet with an outstretched hand. A properly tall chap, he seems to stand up. And up. And up. “Hi, I’m Ben,” he beams.
I know that already. There are many in his profession who, in the flesh, appear shorter or daintier or odder than their on-screen selves. But Affleck’s stature and chiselled matinee features make for an unmistakable presence. In a bygone age he might have graced the cover of a dime-store novel or a pack of cigarettes aimed squarely at the hard-boiled gentleman. At any rate, when you meet him it’s hard to picture Ben Affleck being anything other than a movie star.
It was his second choice, he tells me later. “When I was a kid all I wanted to be was a Major League Baseball star,” he says. “I changed my mind when I was nine years old. Just around the time I realised I was the guy who was fifth or sixth pick for the team.”
If he's in chipper form, he ought to be. Having just rolled into Dublin for the Irish premiere, news breaks that The Town– a film he co-wrote, directed and stars in – is No 1 at the US box office.
“I was hoping for third place,” he says. “A strong third place, but third. I had an incredible bunch of actors and a crew of 300, so you feel a lot of responsibility for all their hard work. Then to have the film come out the way it did and get the reviews that it did is incredible. I can honestly say this is the best moment of my career.”
A fine crime thriller pitched somewhere between Martin Scorsese's The Departedand Michael Mann's Heat, The Townis Affleck's third screenplay to draw inspiration from his hometown of Boston. Set in Charlestown, a tough borough famed for bank robbers and extortion, the action is entirely framed by a boisterous sense of Irish-Americanism.
“It’s a big part of being from Boston,” says Affleck. “Everybody in Boston is Irish, and the Irish have run the city for a long time. Around south Boston, in neighbourhoods like Charlestown, you see Irish flags and bumper stickers everywhere. I grew up in the neighbourhood next door, and we were all very aware of our Irishness. In the ’80s, to be perfectly frank, there was a lot of IRA fundraising around. I remember lots of kids at school walking around with IRA T-shirts and badges.”
He remembers the Charlestown kids in particular: “A lot of kids I went to school with played hockey with Charlestown kids, so I knew they were tough. They had a reputation for being serious guys, and they had a thing called the code of silence. In the ’80s and ’90s, it was enormously vexing for the police, who solved maybe only 25 per cent of 50 or 60 murders. There were drive-by shootings and retaliation shootings happening out on the streets in broad daylight, and no one would testify.”
Down the road, young Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt grew up surrounded by “run-of-the-mill folks: administrators, firemen, policemen, that sort of thing.”
In this down-home spirit, mom, a Harvard graduate, worked as a school administrator. Dad earned his keep as a bartender. The family’s neighbourhood, was not, Affleck says “hardcore”, but it did share Charlestown’s Celtic pride.
“I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never been here before,” he says, gesturing to an ancestral homeland through the window of his hotel suite. “I’m O’Brien on my mother’s side, so I don’t even have a good excuse. My mother’s grandfather and grandmother both came from Ireland but I don’t know if I have any relatives here. I think most of them made their way to America. But you know how it is. In Boston we’ve probably got more people walking around who think they’re Irish than you do.”
A bright kid, Affleck soon found his way into an acting programme alongside brother Casey and lifelong pal Matt Damon. “For some reason, the kids in the arts programmes never seemed to get beat up – I still can’t explain it.” The gang remain tight to this day.
"We still have a production company together," he says. "Matt gave me great notes on The Townin the editing suite. And I'm writing my next film with Casey. In my head we're still these obnoxious kids crashing around into things and not listening to anyone. It's great to have those guys with me. Most actors don't have those links to the past. It's a very competitive business, and they don't have people to share with. We're all different but we come from somewhere. It matters."
Affleck had already made an impact with such hip indie titles as Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confusedand Kevin Smith's Mallratswhen Good Will Huntingcatapulted him into stardom proper. The film, which starred the actor and his old chum Matt Damon, would earn both an Academy Award for the best original screenplay of 1998. They even appeared on stage with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau for an unofficial passing of the baton.
“At a certain point I realised I really wanted to be an actor,” says Affleck. “I almost took it for granted that that was what I’d do. So the goal for me was doing it full time. It was really a question of whether I could do that or if I’d need to supplement with another income. It was only later I started thinking about writing and directing. It was just a logical progression. It was incredible when that took off in the way it did. I thought I’d have to be a bartender to keep doing this.”
After the Oscar, Damon went on to successfully juggle smaller independent projects and blockbuster turns as Jason Bourne. Meanwhile, his sometime screenwriting partner established himself as a credible leading man across various genres – Shakespeare in Love, Armageddon, The Sum of All Fears– but was rather less fortunate at the box office. Daredevilunderperformed. Pearl Harborbombed outright. Giglimade grown men weep.
It did not help that Affleck’s off-screen relationships had started to overshadow his work as an actor. High- profile romances with Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez sent the tabloids into a feeding frenzy. Suddenly Ben Affleck was no longer Ben Affleck, the hot new Hollywood player. He was part of a curious two-headed beast known only as Bennifer. Could he possibly find his way back to the top of the dog pile?
“I had a lot of success very early,” says Affleck. “And I ended up on some movies that were frustrating. But the ups and downs are part of the job. I never really view them as a reflection on me. I know I haven’t always made the best choices. But I’m older and wiser. I have a little salt and pepper in my hair. I’m just happy to keep working and take opportunities as they come.”
If American lives have no second acts, nobody seems to have told Ben Affleck. Having already played out one Hollywood ending as the Boston kid made good, the actor mustered a second Cinderella act with a remarkable turn as 1950s idol George Reeves, TV’s original Superman.
“I’ve been through enough of those highs and lows to really appreciate what I have now,” says Affleck. “My wife keeps saying to me ‘Just be happy’. And you know what? I am.”
These days, we're just as likely to know this new happier Affleck as the screenwriter and director behind the wildly acclaimed Gone Baby Gone– a film that played for months here in Ireland – than view him as the gadabout star of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
“I did not know that,” cries Affleck excitedly. “I wish I could have watched it here. I’d love to see how the Boston thing plays with you guys.” He punches the air: “My people!”
When he isn’t off making robust, masculine crime dramas, the once laddish Affleck resides in a very girlie household with coltish beauty Jennifer Garner and their daughters Violet Anne and Seraphina Rose Elizabeth.
“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t gone soft,” he says. “When you’re surrounded by girls you learn humility quickly. You get used to being wrong all the time. ‘Okay. No problem. My mistake.’ The last few films I’ve worked on have all done well, but the big difference is that they’re no longer all that important to me. I still work hard but work will never give me the lovely feeling I have when I go home. I’m happy with my girls every single day. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
So he’s a changed man? “Absolutely,” he says. “I feel so much more for the world now. I used to be extremely cavalier. I was a rebel. There was nothing I wouldn’t do. Now, I’m this old conservative guy.” He laughs.
“I’m just dreading the teenage years. I know I’m going to be the guy locking the doors and scaring off boyfriends. I’m already waiting for them.”
