The worst audition of Ben Affleck’s career: “It was humiliating”
Ben Affleck has done many things in his career that could be considered embarrassing. He was in Gigli, widely regarded as one of the worst films of all time. His version of the superhero Daredevil is widely regarded as a flop, and there’s also his various personal missteps, which all sorts of tabloid newspapers have widely reported. However, there is one moment in his career that still gives him the shudders.
This humiliating incident comes from the early days of Affleck’s career. This was long before he broke through with Good Will Hunting, the Academy Award-winning drama which he appeared in and wrote the screenplay for. Before he was an Oscar winner, he was a teenage actor, appearing as an uncredited extra in Field of Dreams. This was when his moment of ignobility happened.
In a conversation with CBS, the Batman v. Superman star talked about his childhood growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “It was a good neighbourhood,” he said of the area. “It was a part of the city that was, you know, a lot of working people, a lot of sense of community.” One of those ‘working people’ would turn out to be a major asset to a young Affleck’s acting’s aspirations. “My mother’s best friend was a local casting director,” he revealed. “She and her partner actually cast me in a couple of little things when I was young.”
One of the gigs this unnamed woman got a teenage Ben was in the PBS show The Voyage of the Mimi. It was an educational programme that was set on a boat surveying the ocean. Affleck has also expressed regret over taking part in the series. That wasn’t what he was talking about here, though. That was an advert for a well-known fast food chain. “The Burger King commercial was, like, a big failure, too! I mean, how do you fail in a Burger King campaign?” Affleck opined. “Oh horrible – it was humiliating.”
This commercial, which aired in 1989, thankfully survives on the Internet. It stars a fresh-faced Affleck as a young man driving in his car when he gets a phone call from a smoky-voiced young woman. She mistakes him for a Burger King delivery boy, a ruse our hero is more than happy to go along with. He attempts to deliver her meal (did Ben Affleck invent Uber Eats?), only for his Dad to call him at the exact wrong moment, meaning he misses his rendezvous with the object of his affection. Oh Ben, what are you like?
He isn’t the only future A-lister to have begun his career with a slightly embarrassing advert. Brad Pitt was once the face of a Pringles campaign, whilst Jack Black appeared in a commercial for the video game Pitfall! when he was just a nipper. Everybody has to get their start somewhere and, to be honest, Affleck’s ad isn’t nearly as awful as it could have been. By the sounds of it, nobody saw it at the time, so he was probably spared any immediate shame.
Nobody gets into acting because they want to sell burgers, but sometimes, it’s a necessary step on the way to glory. These hidden gems in an actor’s past are a chance to reflect on how far they’ve come, although, if you’re Ben Affleck, you’ll be watching it back through your fingers.
