Ben Affleck names the greatest acting performance in cinema history: “At the next level”
Even though it definitely can’t be ruled out when he’s been nominated for two Academy Awards and won them both, it seems very unlikely that if Ben Affleck does eventually claim a third Oscar, it won’t be for acting. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he went through the rest of his career without being nominated.
It’s not that he’s terrible, despite what the naysayers think. Admittedly, he went through a sticky patch where his work wasn’t exactly of the highest standard, and he remains capable of the occasional clunker every now and then, but Affleck has improved massively as he’s gotten older and reinvented himself.
History will always remember that he’s been shortlisted for 11 Razzies, including ‘Worst Actor of the Decade’ for everything he did between 2000 and 2009, some of which was entirely deserved, especially his ‘Worst Actor’ prize for a truly horrendous 2003 that saw his career come almost completely off the rails following the diabolical trifecta of Daredevil, Gigli, and Paycheck.
While it wasn’t untrue once upon a time that Affleck’s fame and stardom weren’t exactly in line with his dramatic capabilities, he’s much better in his 50s than he was in his 30s. That said, his choice for the single greatest performance in cinema history exists in the unusual middle ground between predictable and outlandish.
Jaws shouldn’t be left on the floor when an actor singles out Marlon Brando as having given the best turn ever captured on film, because that’s what most of them have been saying for years. The usual suspects are typically On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, or The Godfather, but Affleck disagrees.
“Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty,” he told Jon Bernthal during an appearance on GOAT Talk. He didn’t think it was fair to call one performer the best there’s ever been, so he decided to twist the question and focus on a performance instead. “You can see all the other actors are doing what they had done up until that time,” Affleck explained.
“And Brando is doing the whole contemporary thing, and it’s a really good example of where you can see a guy is actually at the next level, and the rest of them don’t know what to do with it,” he concluded. Not many would call Mutiny on the Bounty Brando’s finest hour in front of the camera, especially those who worked with him on the picture.
The method man’s unprofessionalism saw the production go massively behind schedule and cost a lot more than initially agreed, with the actor often refusing to turn up on set and generally causing havoc for the duration of the shoot, so much so that co-star Richard Harris developed an intense hatred for his opposite number.
Turbulent shoots have a funny way of bringing out the best in people, though, and for Affleck’s money, he doesn’t think any performance has ever come close to capturing the essence of an actor reinventing the medium right in front of the audience’s eyes better than Brando’s Fletcher Christian.
