“His movies just kept getting better and better”: the director Ben Affleck called the gold standard
Back in the days when he was starring in a string of terrible movies and gaining more attention for his status as tabloid fodder than his on-camera efforts, it was impossible to imagine Ben Affleck reinventing himself as an acclaimed and award-winning filmmaker.
Of course, it was his off-screen efforts that helped make him a star in the first place when he shared an Academy Award for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ with Matt Damon when they wrote Good Will Hunting, but that would be the last time he was credited as anything other than an actor or producer for ten years.
In between, his star rose and then fell, leaving him on the outside of the A-list looking in by the mid-2000s. If something had to change, then Affleck would need to change it himself, which he did when he made an impressive directorial debut on the slow-burning crime thriller Gone Baby Gone.
He followed it up with the bruising Boston-set tale The Town and the ‘Best Picture’-winning Argo, and he was suddenly back on top of the world and being spoken about as one of the most promising actors-turned-directors of his generation.
Affleck has worked with an eclectic list of auteurs that includes Gus Van Sant, Michael Bay, John Woo, David Fincher, Zack Snyder, Ridley Scott, and Robert Rodriguez. Still, in his mind, there’s only one director who deserves to be called the benchmark for any thespian seeking to carve out a secondary career for themselves wielding the megaphone.
“Clint is the gold standard, for sure,” Affleck told The Inquirer. “I think he may have directed 30 films now, and he didn’t start directing until he was older than 40. And his movies just kept getting better and better. You know, life is confusing, this business is confusing, and at a certain point, it’s very helpful to try to calibrate your compass and pick your north. And he’s a pretty good north.”
That’s an understatement, seeing as Eastwood was already a household name before he helmed his first feature, and it was directing that brought him his greatest successes by far. The highest-earning movie of his career is American Sniper, and he didn’t even act in it. All four of his Oscars have come for his filmmaking efforts after Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby each nabbed statues for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’.
Affleck called him “one of the people that I fix my compass to and just admire,” which is perfectly reasonable for a fellow multi-hyphenate. “There are others, and not all of them are actor-directors, but it’s kind of obvious. It’s not like I’m picking some obscure guy. He’s one of the greats. I feel lucky to have met him.” Matt Damon is in the exact same boat, which is just one more thing the lifelong best friends have in common.
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