Illustration by Lusco y Fusco
Ben Affleck fell off the wagon. After 12 years of sobriety, the Batman actor decided to imbibe again for his role in Gone Girl, playing a character who is hungover all the time.
Affleck is an alcoholic. The Academy-Award-winning screenwriter — he scored an Oscar with Matt Damon for their Best Original Screenplay for 1997’s Good Will Hunting — entered rehab in 2001 at the age of 31.
At the time, his publicist said this:
“Ben is a self-aware and smart man who has decided that a fuller life awaits him without alcohol,” said David Pollick, in a statement in 2001. “He has chosen to seek out professional assistance and is committed to traveling a healthier road with the support of his family, friends and fans.”
Apparently that didn’t work out too well.
According to Affleck, alcoholism has strong roots in his family. Affleck battled alcoholism throughout the 1990s, culminating in his check-in to rehab at Promises, the same rehab that treated Robert Downey, Jr.
“Simple as this, I quit drinking,” he told The Mirror eight years ago. “It’s really not that big a deal. It has no real bearing on anything else in my life. Your lifestyle changes at a certain age. Like me, a lot of my friends are married with kids,” he said.
“When you are in your 20s and you’re not married with kids, you’re having fun,” Affleck continued. “But when you’re in your 30s and you’re not married and don’t have kids, you begin to develop a Peter Pan complex. As you grow older, you have more responsibilities and you have to step up to them.”
Affleck was married to fellow Hollywood star Jennifer Garner, but she pulled the plug on the relationship, fed up with Ben’s drinking and gambling.
Director David Fincher told Us Weekly that Affleck did indeed rely on method acting to portray the drunk protagonist in Gone Girl. “It was six months of real dedication to being hungover. It was extremely method, “he said.
Ben Affleck is the latest actor to portray Bruce Wayne/Batman, in the new action flick Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, out in theaters today. There’s a long line of A-list actors who have portrayed Bruce Wayne – Michael Keaton, George Clooney, Val Kilmer, Christian Bale and now Affleck.
Affleck also battles a gambling addiction, and was kicked out of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino for counting cards in May of 2014. It was the drinking and gambling that led to the end of Affleck’s marriage.
Ben Affleck, we want you back among the sober. Take a page from a fellow action hero and use the Force. The Dark Side is a foul, sordid, and wicked place. It’s sunnier on the sober side of the street.
