Ben Affleck
- Category : Actor
- Type : MGP
- Profile : 5/1 - Heretical / Investigator
- Definition : Single
- Incarnation Cross : LAX Revolution 2
Biography
Benjamin Géza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is a Golden Globe Award-nominated American film actor, director, and Academy Award-winning and Golden Globe Award-winning screenwriter. He became known in the late 1990s, after his involvement in the film Good Will Hunting, and has since become a Hollywood leading man, having starred in several big budget films.
Affleck worked as a child actor, appearing on the PBS kids' series The Voyage of the Mimi and in several made-for-television movies. Throughout the 1990s, Affleck had a role in LifeStories:Families in Crisis as a steroid abusing athlete as well as several notable films, including 1992's School Ties (with Matt Damon and Brendan Frasier), 1993's Dazed and Confused, 1995's Mallrats and 1997's Chasing Amy; "Mallrats" and "Amy" began his collaboration with writer/director Kevin Smith. Affleck has since appeared in every film Smith has made, except for his first film Clerks. Affleck had a one line speaking role as a high school basketball player in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. Affleck and fellow Boston Red Sox fanatic Matt Damon had roles as extras in the movie Field of Dreams when Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones go to Fenway Park.
Affleck came to national attention working with his best friend Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting (1997). They shared credit and both received the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Along with Damon and producers Chris Moore and Sean Bailey, Affleck founded the production company LivePlanet, through which the four created the documentary series Project Greenlight, as well as the failed mystery-hybrid series Push, Nevada amongst other projects.
Following Good Will Hunting, Affleck had starring roles in many successful movies, including Armageddon, Forces of Nature, Pearl Harbor, Changing Lanes, The Sum of All Fears and Daredevil, establishing himself as a Hollywood leading man throughout the early 2000s. However, after the release of several critically panned, box office flops, including Gigli (2003) and Surviving Christmas (2004), Affleck's career waned considerably. He did not appear in any films until 2006 when he appeared in Clerks II.
In addition to being a fan of the Daredevil comics (Frank Miller's run specifically), he wrote the introduction to the trade paperback Daredevil: Guardian Devil which reprints Daredevil (Volume 2) #1–8 (written by Kevin Smith).
Affleck made what can be considered a comeback with the September 2006 release of the critically acclaimed George Reeves biopic-noir Hollywoodland, directed by HBO TV-series veteran Allen Coulter. His performance was impressive enough that he was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival and has also won the Best Supporting Actor award at the Hollywood Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture. Affleck recently completed directing his third film, Gone, Baby, Gone, about two Boston area detectives investigating a little girl's kidnapping and how it affects their lives. It is in post-production and scheduled for a 2007 release.