Ben Affleck is opening up about his love life, addiction and basketball as he promotes his new movie The Way Back.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, he spoke at lengthy about his relationships, but inevitably, quotes got cut. Reporter Brooks Barnes took to Twitter to share a few of her favorite outtakes: “On past flame Jennifer Lopez … ‘She should have been nominated for an Oscar. She's the real thing. I keep in touch periodically with her and have a lot of respect for her. How awesome is it that she had her biggest hit movie at 50? That's f—ing baller.”
ADDICTION VS. BASKETBALL
In The Way Back, Affleck plays Jack Cunningham, a former high school basketball star who is battling the alcohol addiction that ruined his marriage. And yes, director Gavin O’Connor saw the parallels between Affleck’s struggles and split from Jennifer Garner (which he told the Times was his “biggest regret”).
O’Connor told USA Today that wrapping Affleck’s mind around basketball was the hard part: “That was the harder part, because Ben understood the alcoholism. He’d never coached before. He’d never played basketball.”
Affleck concurs: “The greatest fiction of this movie is that at any time I was a great basketball star in high school. I am not a great athlete; never been my thing. I mean, I can hit a little bit; I can play a little baseball, but I’ve always been interested in acting and that’s kind of what I’ve dedicated my time to.”