Ben Affleck is the award winning actor, screenwriter, director and producer who stars in the Netflix Original film *Triple Frontier*. While interviewing himself, we learn about everything from his Bitmoji origins, to his filmmaking influences, to the rabbit holes he dives down.
Ben Affleck is the award winning actor, screenwriter, director and producer who stars in the Netflix Original film Triple Frontier. While interviewing himself, we learn about everything from his Bitmoji origins, to his filmmaking influences, to the rabbit holes he dives down.
[Music]
Catherine: Hey. Welcome to I Hate Talking About Myself, the podcast where your favorite stars from Netflix series and films interview themselves. We write the questions and then our guests select them in the most scientific way possible – by pulling them out of a bowl, of course. In this episode, we have actor Ben Affleck. You might have heard of him from his Oscar-winning films Good Will Hunting and Argo, but he also stars in the Netflix original film Triple Frontier. And he found that to be very adventurous.
Ben: Hi. My name’s Ben Affleck. I play ‘Redfly’ in Triple Frontier. And I guess I’m going to interview myself. All right. I feel like I’m picking out a winning lottery number here.
First question is: What’s something you’ll say you’ll do but never will? I still tell myself that I will do the things I say I’m going to do at some point. Like, I’ve talked about skydiving. You know, periodically that comes up and I always am like, yeah, yeah. That’d be cool to do in the future. But I-, I can totally imagine like, living a whole life and then being like, you know, I never did get around to skydiving.
What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve done? The first thing that comes to mind is that I’ve had a chance to do a lot of really exciting kinds of research for roles, you know. For this movie Triple Frontier, you know, we worked with Special Forces Operators and learned to shoot and maneuver, and just did all kinds of training. And that felt pretty adventurous to me to be hanging out with these guys, to be using live ammunition. So, we listed to their stories. And to be being trained by them was pretty cool. I-, most of my adventuring tends to happen in the context of my work.
(Clip begins)
Ben: All right. From the first pop, you’d have 40 minutes to get in, get the job done, and get out before the family comes home from church. That’s a hard out. We need to breach the fence, sweep the premises, find and subdue the guards, scrub the hard drives in the security room, get rid of Lorea, find the money, pack the money into 18 hundred-pound bags, and then hoof it half a mile to the nearest vehicle. There’s only two ways out: The fence in the front, or over the mountain we came down and I’m too old for that.
(Clip ends)
Ben: When’s a time in your life you made a conscious decision not to play it safe? Well, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is when we were making Good Will Hunting, we were faced with the opportunity of making the movie in a way that we didn’t think it would work as well as it could. Or, kind of, getting chalked off the movie with a slim chance to try to sell it to somebody else. And we took the slim chance. And we got lucky. And we did end up selling it. I don’t think-, I think if that came up now, I’d be too scared to make that choice. But there’s something about like, being 24 and you don’t think anything bad could happen to you. So, you’re like, you know, willing to, sort of, jump off a proverbial ledge.
I’m just going to do this at home. I’m just going to go home with this bucket and interview myself all day long. Okay.
What are the most recently used emojis on your phone, and why? The true answer is definitely like, the heart/love emojis because I-, when I’m traveling, I use the phone to communicate to my kids. And I’m sure they’re sick of it. ‘Hey, it’s dad. I love you.’ They’re like, yeah. You said that 10 minutes ago. We know you’re still there, dad. And a heart, you know, I’m not like… I’m not super emoji fluent and proficient where I can like, whip out the exact right obscure emoji for any given conversation. I stick with, kind of, the basics, you know? But like, palm slap on the face, heart, poop emoji. You know, the essentials. My kids definitely set up the bitmoji on my phone. But like, so that’s fun for a few minutes but then it’s a little bit too much trouble. And I still don’t really think it looks like me. You know what I mean? So, it’s just, sort of like, who’s this weird bearded character that you’re sending me? I don’t use bitmoji as much. My kids use it obsessively.
What rabbit hole did you dive down most recently? I mean, I dive down the rabbit hole that all people dive down now which is called the internet hole.
[Music begins]
Which is just, you get on there for some particular reason. And then like, three hours later find yourself looking at like, one-legged bunnies for some reas-, you know what I mean? It just like, stuff just like, the most random weird like, you know, some guy like, shitting naked doing a flip into a, in a pond in reverse. It’s like, where is this stuff… Why do we seek it out? Where does it come from? I don’t know. But I, like everybody else, I find myself wasting my life with it.
[Music ends]
What TV series, movie, or play influenced to be an actor? I assume that means influenced you to be an actor. Gosh. You know, I was a big fan of seventies dramas. You know, movies like, The Verdict or The Godfather or The Parallax View. Definitely like, Chinatown and then, you know, moving further back, like, I think Triple Frontier owes a lot to Treasure of the Sierra Madre, for example. You know, I love David Lee movies, Lawrence of Arabia. I love William Wyler, Billy Wilder, Hitchcock, Kubrick. I’m kind of a movie nerd so the list kind of goes on and on. And in terms of contemporary film makers, you know, Caron is amazing and Urich was amazing. Terrence Malick. There are a lot of directors, Scorsese, you know, who are working now who I think I can just learn so much from. So, I definitely see myself as still learning and trying to gobble up as much as I can from walking-, watching other people’s work.
If you could instantly become an expert in something, what would it be? Wow. I mean, it’s-, you know, this movie, Triple Frontier really showed how incredibly hard it is to become expert in something working with the Special Forces Operators and training with them and trying to-, it was like, you know, walking out to a basketball court with LeBron James. And he says, ‘Okay, you’ve got two weeks and then you’ve got to play like me.’ You know? You have to spend a lifetime, you know, dedicating yourself to achieve excellence. And even then, there’s no guarantee that you will. Is that like, I could learn-, like, I could learn how to fly and then I could fly? There’s that, then I’d probably give myself some sort of superpowers. If it’s just getting like, a PhD in political science, I’d probably pick, you know, like, something like medicine probably. Like, instant doctor. That would be cool.
What’s the first food you hated, and why? I can remember hating lima beans when I was young. I never liked lima beans and that was a big thing with my mom and dad, as I said that they were gross. And as a consequence, never went back and tried them in adulthood although probably my taste buds have changed and I’d be able to tolerate them.
Which character have you played that you had most want to get brunch with? What would you talk about? Maybe George Reeves who played Superman on TV. And, you know, it’d be interesting to know the circumstances surrounding his life and death were something of a mystery. So, be-, movie was called Hollywoodland. But it would be cool to get a chance to talk to him and hear about his life from him. I haven’t played too many real people. Certainly, not real people that I have met like, Tony Mendez for Argo. But, you know, he was a consultant on the movie. So, I got to know him.
Last question: What question would I want to put in here for the next guests? What’s your biggest regret?
Catherine: And that was Ben Affleck being interviewed by Ben Affleck. My biggest regret is not being able to see the bitmojis your kids made you. Let us see them. Ben, let us see them.
If you guys want to hear other Netflix stars question themselves, you can do that right now. We dropped the whole season at once. Because we’re Netflix and that’s like, our whole thing. So, subscribe, rate, review, tell your friends, tell your enemies. Play every single episode from a boombox while you’re riding on the subway. Be that guy. I Hate Talking About Myself is produced by Pineapple Street Media and by Netflix. Our music is by Hansdel Soo and it’s hosted by me, Catherine Cohen. Thanks for listening.
[End of audio]