Affleck Quotes & Sayings

I've consciously taken on material that's a bit too much for me but not an overreach. The first movie, just about performances. 'The Town,' I learned how to work broader material, develop tension, direct bigger scenes, action sequences. 'Argo,' I experimented with film stock, widened the scope of my geography. — Ben Affleck

The one benefit of having done all kinds of movies as an actor is, you learn the pros and cons of being tempted to do a really big movie because it costs a lot of money. — Ben Affleck

In my movies, there has been little to do in the way of animal rights. I have never worked in a movie with animals. No horse-riding, no trained dogs, lions, bears. A few actors, but what could I do? We had to have them. — Casey Affleck

I'm like the Ben Affleck of crowd surfing. — Alex Turner

Well I've never used that phrase before, but yes she is bootylicious. — Ben Affleck

They say money can't buy happiness? Look at the smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby! — Ben Affleck

Studios are used to have an investment in you, an actual, literal investment in an actor. You paid them some money, you had a contract with them and you were almost like a commodity. — Ben Affleck

Never has a man been so obsessed with his own nipples as Ben Affleck. — Dan McQuinn

Ben Affleck (who plays A.J. Frost) and I got to actually go into the neutral buoyancy tank in actual $10 million spacesuits the astronauts wear in outer space, and that was pretty interesting — Bruce Willis

I've learned to think, I may succeed or fail, but I'm going to do so on the merit of my own instincts. — Ben Affleck

Marriage hasn't been my thing. But gay people, knock yourselves out! — Ben Affleck

In these fast and fickle times, it's nice to know that there are some things you can always count on: the enduring brilliance of the last page of The Great Gatsby; the near-religious harmonies of the Beach Boys' "California Girls"; and the lifelong friendship of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. — Sarah Vowell

I want Obama to have to weigh in on Ben Affleck as Batman. It's about time Obama went to work. — Rush Limbaugh

But when I felt like I had something to prove? Then I got up early every morning and worked all day long. I didn't know if I had any more talent than anyone else directing, but I knew I could work hard at it, and so I did. — Ben Affleck

You have to be kind to people. Treat them decently. There's no excuse for not. — Ben Affleck

Not that it entirely matters: There is a perception that all actors make their movies. A lot of people assume you're responsible. George Clooney told me actors get all of the blame and all the credit. — Ben Affleck

The thing about online gambling is that it's never away, it's always accessible. And so, if you have an issue with gambling, it's designed to take advantage of that. — Ben Affleck

There are two things for a marriage to be good. One is to work hard on it. The other one is to marry above you. And I succeeded at both of those. — Ben Affleck

One guy told me I was a great actor, I just would never be on the cover of a magazine. — Ben Affleck

The best cure for a hangover is something one straight man can't do for another straight man. — Ben Affleck

I want to thank my wife who I don't normally usually associate with Iran. I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It's good. It is work, but it's the best kind of work, and there's no one I'd rather work with! — Ben Affleck

Directing first film was terrified, it was really very scary because there is a lot of responsibility. I think I was terrified because I wanted it to work so much. A lot of actors direct movies but I thought the stakes were kind of higher for me because I really, really cared. I just worked as hard as I possibly could on every single thing, every single day. I said that if this failed it would not be because I didn't work as hard as I possibly could ... every day. — Ben Affleck

There's a lot of crazy, weird people out there. It's an ugly world. — Ben Affleck

When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression. — Casey Affleck

I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think ... let the character develop and grow inside me. — Casey Affleck

I never know what my next move will be in Hollywood. It's such an unpredictable town. People get jaded and lost and I've been able to stay a float. I think the next logical step in my career would be to start my own filmmaking empire like (Harvey Weinstein) and (Bob Weinstein) did so many years ago. I think if only the unions weren't so strict in Boston, I'd set up shop there and make films of a certain quality you don't see represented these days. I'm full of ideas and dreams. — Ben Affleck

That's you, drops of water and you're on top of the mountain of success. But one day you start sliding down the mountain and you think wait a minute; I'm a mountain top water drop. I don't belong in this valley, this river, this low dark ocean with all these drops of water. Then one day it gets hot and you slowly evaporate into air, way up, higher than any mountain top, all the way to the heavens. Then you understand that it was at your lowest that you were closest to God. Life's a journey that goes round and round and the end is closest to the beginning. So if it's change you need, relish the journey. — Casey Affleck

The way people appear in the gossip papers, as they're depicted as celebrities, it's not often much like who they are. The more people I meet, the more that's true. Sometimes, they're worse. — Casey Affleck

After 2000 or so, I started to realize I wanted to be doing something else. I didn't want to be in front of a camera. I was frustrated. I didn't think I would stop acting, but I didn't want to be seen. — Ben Affleck

Sometimes the people we meet change us forever. — Ben Affleck

I don't know that a movie like 'Daredevil' did better for having Ben Affleck then 'Spider-Man' did having Tobey Maguire, who was a relative unknown at the time. — Jon Favreau

The first thing that I really understood politically and was old enough to get was the failed assassination attempt on Reagan. — Ben Affleck

People ascribe a certain kind of silliness to the movie business. Everybody feels like, "In the movies, they do crazy stuff." — Ben Affleck

All cultures are different. Some commit genocide. Some are uniquely peaceful. Some frequent bathhouses in groups. Some don't show each other the soles of their shoes or like pictures taken of them. Some have enormous hunting festivals or annual stretches when nobody speaks. Some don't use electricity. — Casey Affleck

Making movies has become such a golden ring, and it's all such a big business, that the rewards system has gotten totally out of whack. Suddenly, you're treated in a manner befitting someone who is actually an important person. — Ben Affleck

No actor forgets the times he couldn't get a job. I think everyone doing this operates from that fear. You don't want that momentum to stop when you get it — Ben Affleck

I have a good relationship with the world. But I don't know what the trick is to maintaining it. — Ben Affleck

I've seen high and lows. When things go well that doesn't make me feel like some genius. Nor will I allow the next disappointment to make me feel like a complete failure. — Ben Affleck

Family is a wonderful thing, but it doesn't mean you can't do other stuff in your life. In fact, having a family makes whatever other thing you have that much richer. If it was just me, I'd be home alone and think, 'Well, something good happened at work,' but it's nicer to share it with people you love. — Ben Affleck

You have to look also to the media, where you have a vast majority of the loudest and most influential political voices in America media from people who came from the entertainment world. — Ben Affleck

There's a lot of noise in the world, and the Internet magnifies that energy. — Ben Affleck

What happens is this sort of bleed-over from the tabloids across your movie work. You go to a movie, you only go once. But the tabloids and Internet are everywhere. You can really subsume the public image of somebody. — Ben Affleck

You can say what you want about me. You can yell at me with a video camera and be TMZ. You can follow me around and take pictures all you want. I don't care. — Ben Affleck

Some actors really like to do only a few, some like Casey [Affleck] will do as many takes as there is electrical power. At some point, you'll say, "Listen, I think it's really good." And he'll say, "You sure? You sure? There's not some other way we should try it?" — Kenneth Lonergan

When you consider the many ways in which people have to make a living every day when they wake up, I figure that eating 20 eggs isn't that bad. — Casey Affleck

On playing Batman and his daughter: If I was doing the sequel to Frozen I would be a hero. My two older daughters could give a sh-t about Batman and they've now passed that affection onto my son. He's always like, 'Papa, can I watch Frozen?' And I'm like, 'No, dude, it's not on again!'. — Ben Affleck

I didn't do anything for two years but work on 'Gone Baby Gone,' and it was miserable and hard, but at the end? It is a good movie. I liked it very much. If it had been dismissed and deemed worthless, it would been definitely devastating. But that didn't happen. — Ben Affleck

I'm much more interested in what an actor has to say about something substantial and important than who they're dating or what clothes they're wearing or some other asinine, insignificant aspect of their life. — Ben Affleck

One, I had never worked with John Woo before and I wanted to see what that was like, and two, Ben Affleck is a friend, so it would be fun to work with him again. — Joe Morton

I really think that everybody would like to be an actor. Why wouldn't they? It's great work if you can get it. The one thing that prevents most people from saying, 'I'm just gonna go to Hollywood!' is that it seems unrealistic. — Ben Affleck

Batman is not a very interesting character. For any actor. There is simply not much to play. I think Michael Keaton did it the best, and I wish good luck to Ben Affleck. But, you know who would have made a great Batman? Alec Baldwin in the '80s. — Quentin Tarantino

I went to the University of Vermont because I had a kind of unrequited love for this high school girlfriend. She wasn't even at the University but at another school nearby. But I thought if went to a school near her, just maybe ... I was really remedial about girls in so many ways. — Ben Affleck

I'm not known for having great relationships with ex-girlfriends, but I've been able to continue one with (Gwyneth Paltrow) that's really valuable. — Ben Affleck

I have friends who remember seeing fish hauled onto a boat's deck and beaten to death. — Casey Affleck

When it was announced that Michael Keaton was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. When they announced that Val Kilmer was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. When it was announced that George Clooney was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. When it was announced that Christian Bale was going to be Batman, everyone was mad. And everyone was mad about Ben Affleck. So every single incarnation, people are going to be mad; you just can't do anything about it. — Baron Vaughn

Anxiety is a kind of fuel that activates the fight-or-flight part of the brain in me. It makes sure that a velociraptor isn't around the corner and that you do as much as you possibly can to survive. Because Hollywood has a lot in common with 'Jurassic Park' and its primeval-dinosaur universe. — Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck exec-produced a documentary for HBO called 'Reporter' about my 2007 win-a-trip journey. I take the trip each year partly to encourage young people to think about global humanitarian issues: I think blogs by a student may be more compelling for that audience than my own work. — Nicholas Kristof

I thought I could rely on the plot in the novel and fill in the colour between the lines, but I made a mistake with that assumption. It was really, really hard because you pull a few things apart and then you realise how everything relies on everything else and it can all fall apart. — Ben Affleck

I feel like fame is wasted on me. — Ben Affleck

People decided that I was the frat guy, even though I've never been inside a fraternity, or the guy who beat them up at school, even though that wasn't me at all. — Ben Affleck

I am in the process of starting a nonprofit organization that gives rescued animals a home in a simulated wild environment and, for those who have been tested on, who are disabled, aggressive, etc., their own space to live out their days. — Casey Affleck

I feel things more deeply ... anything to do with kids. It just makes a big difference in my life ... Having a child is like taking the deepest core vulnerable aspect of myself, reaching in and taking it outside of my body. — Ben Affleck

You know George M. Steinbrenner III is the center of all evil in the universe. — Ben Affleck

I really feel that's part of why audiences go to movies now is to take you to a world you have no access to, whether it's the world of Avengers or Middle-earth or bars in Boston you would be afraid to go into. You see characters there - they aren't hobbits but they're close. — Ben Affleck

It seems like they never say anything bad about actors, they just pump them up. — Casey Affleck

A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can't. Either way a sale is made, the only question is: Who is gonna close? — Ben Affleck

I hate the whole reluctant sex-symbol thing. It's such bull. You see these dudes greased up, in their underwear, talking about how they don't want to be a sex symbol. — Ben Affleck

My mother taught public school, went to Harvard and then got her master's there and taught fifth and sixth grade in a public school. My dad had a more working-class lifestyle. He didn't go to college. He was an auto mechanic and a bartender and a janitor at Harvard. — Ben Affleck

I had a question. 'Why does the name Pearl Harbor sound so familiar?'
The lieutenant colonel's eyes narrowed. 'Pearl Harbor is the most famous U.S. military base in the world,' he said crisply. 'It's the only place on U.S. soil that has been attacked in a wars, since the Revolutionary War.'
None of this was ringing a bell, but you already know I'm totally uneducated.
Gazzy leaned over to whisper, 'It was a movie with Ben Affleck.'
Ah. Now I remembered. — James Patterson

The value of work, and of always learning something new, and what it takes to achieve excellence. I really believe in those things that you have to dedicate yourself and spend time, that excellence is elusive. It's a little maddening, to try to have that level of discipline in your life, and I don't succeed all the time. But I do try. — Ben Affleck

I looked up and saw the shape of a heart made by the silhouette of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon kissing. — Sarah Silverman

British diplomats who worked in Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis are deeply upset by Ben Affleck's Oscar-winning film 'Argo,' which suggests they refused shelter to the group who managed to get out of the U.S. embassy. — Simon Hoggart

I love Ben Affleck so much. He's an amazing director. — Taylor Schilling

Movies are collaborative, and that's part of what makes it a great experience. They're different from a lot of other art forms, but also it makes it seem like when you see the final product, you go, 'I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have done this.' — Casey Affleck

My mom has a good way of engaging me in a conversation about the choices I make, listening, being objective and open-minded, and respecting those choices so long as they don't put me in danger. — Casey Affleck

They wanted me to do Scream 2, and I hate talking about movies I turned down, because it sounds judgmental. There's nothing wrong with horror movies. I enjoy watching them. The main reason I turn a part down is if I think I won't be good. — Casey Affleck

My father has positional vertigo, and if he flies he gets really dizzy, so he has to drive out to California, which he does a couple times a year. We talk, but we e-mail mostly. — Ben Affleck

A movie's very different from the book, and it's different from the script, and it's usually one person's vision. — Casey Affleck

I just feel like sometimes I'm a force to be dealt with. My talents are sometimes overused and also sometimes underused. It's not easy being me. — Ben Affleck

If you look at what Ben Affleck has gone on to do, as an actor and as a director, it's extraordinary. But if you look back at his career, I don't think it's surprising. From Good Will Hunting on down, the guy is a monster talent, and I think talent wins out, in the end. There's always the ebb and flow of any career, but I think talent wins out, in the end. — Joseph McGinty Nichol

I have a lot of influences. I like to sit down with the cinematographer a month before, and we'll watch pieces of 20 or 30 movies. You're basically the sum of all the experiences you've ever had, and they're sort of shaken up in you and reproduced in the things you create, and that includes seeing movies. — Ben Affleck

When I watch a guy I know is a big Republican, part of me thinks I probably wouldn't like this person if I met him, or we would have different opinions. — Ben Affleck

First of all, why in this free country of ours has "free speech" turned into "anything goes"? Why isn't it necessary to obtain permission from a child's parents to have a photo of that child published in a magazine, never mind the cover? We are used to seeing the adorable faces of celebrity babies on the covers of magazines, to see Suri Cruise and Violet Affleck and Preston and Jayden splashed all over the newsstand, but do we ever stop to wonder how those photos were obtained? — Lynne Spears

I tricked myself into doing this movie. — Casey Affleck

My mother went to Radcliffe, and rather than just trying to get rich, she wanted to be a teacher and taught for over 30 years in the public schools. She's definitely got some war stories. — Ben Affleck

I like to just keep the land within sight. Nowadays they can tell you if there's a storm three days out. So it's not much of a concern. But I've never been a big boat person. I don't spend a lot of time at sea. — Casey Affleck

It's important for me to try my hand at philanthropy because I want to leave behind a record of someone who did more than just gobble up stuff for themselves. I realized that a life lived for yourself is not much of a life, — Ben Affleck

Just because a lot of people know something nominal doesn't make it important. A lot of people know what a pencil sharpener is, but that doesn't make it the most important invention of the 20th century. — Ben Affleck

I think that the movies I do are the ones that I really like the least. I don't like watching them because of that problem. — Casey Affleck

I'm very insecure. I'm human, just like anybody else. — Ben Affleck

Does celebrity interest anyone? It's definitely not appealing to me. I think anyone who's had any real exposure to it would probably regret ever having even entertained the idea. — Casey Affleck

A friend of my mom's was a casting director so, really as kind of a lark, I had a couple of acting jobs that had just enough exposure to give me the option to continue if I wanted to. I followed through with it. — Ben Affleck

Jen came first, and then they wanted to cast somebody that would ... Kevin liked the idea of having a kind of The Ghost of That Character kind of haunt the movie in a way throughout, by having Raquel look so much like her. And also, it was sort of serendipity. I mean, she was also the best actress. I mean, as you can see Raquel has a pretty appealing, engaging kind of precocious, sparkly quality that's ... it was just luck really that she happened to the film. — Ben Affleck

My aim was not to fool. My aim was to provoke thought and stir emotion. — Casey Affleck

To answer the question, though: I didn't always want to direct. I just liked the idea of it. If a friend was making a short and needed someone who knew screen direction, I would jump in. It would be horrible, but it led to a short, then another, and another. It was like student films. — Ben Affleck

Anybody tells you that money is the root of all evil doesn't have any. — Ben Affleck

Why can't people just say they were moved? Why do they have to say it's sappy? — Casey Affleck

I don't really care that much about being a matinee idol. — Casey Affleck

I had a public school education - 3,000 kids when I was there. And there were a lot of teachers who would just sit there. You'd come in and sign your name and the teacher would just sit there at the head of the class and you would literally just have to stay in your seat for 40 minutes and that was the only thing you'd have to do in class. — Casey Affleck

I get offered a lot of the same type of thing ... The teenage slasher movies. — Casey Affleck