“In Gone Girl there’s a smile the guy has to give when the local press asks him to stand next to a poster of his missing wife,” Fincher said to Playboy. “I flipped through Google Images and found about 50 shots of Affleck giving that kind of smile in public situations. You look at them and know he’s trying to make people comfortable in the moment, but by doing that he’s making himself vulnerable to people having other perceptions about him.”
Affleck knows how he comes across. Promoting Batman vs. Superman, he contrasted himself with Denzel Washington, whom audiences adore no matter what role he is playing. For Affleck, that relationship was different, he acknowledged. People have made up their minds about him. There isn’t a lot he can do about it
“Denzel Washington can play almost anybody – mass murderers – and you go, ‘But he’s all right!’ he said. “There’s something so appealing about him, and I don’t think I have that. You have these qualities that you’re born with. Some of them are good, some of them people don’t like. And you just have to live with it.”
Unfortunately for Affleck one of his defining qualities has been his lurid love life. Might divorce mark a new chapter? Might Batfleck fly again? He had an endearingly goofy quality playing Nike founder Phil Knight in 2023 retro drama Air – he also directed, and many thought he was robbed of an Oscar. He’s currently working in an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution, in which he will direct and star, as well as a political thriller. And he has many in Hollywood on his side, who would get behind a second redemption story to go with his Argo comeback. Don’t bet against Sad Ben getting his smile back.