Former Batman actor Ben Affleck talked about how playing Batman was a difficult time for him.
‘Mixed Expectations’
In an interview with GQ, Affleck explained how he lost interest in doing any more roles in the superhero genre. He felt like it was a mix of both his own personal faults, as well as other filmmakers who either misunderstood or had different expectations of the role.
“There are a number of reasons why that was a really excruciating experience. And they don’t all have to do with the simple dynamic of, say, being in a superhero movie or whatever. I am not interested in going down that particular genre again, not because of that bad experience, but just: I’ve lost interest in what was of interest about it to me. But I certainly wouldn’t want to replicate an experience like that. A lot of it was misalignment of agendas, understandings, expectations. And also by the way, I wasn’t bringing anything particularly wonderful to that equation at the time, either. I had my own failings, significant failings, in that process and at that time.”
This lines up with Affleck’s previous statements saying how filming the movies were “the worst experience”.
Ben Affleck on his own ‘Failings’
He elaborated on his “own failings”. He was generally unhappy in his personal life and he brought that on-set when he filmed.
“I mean, my failings as an actor, you can watch the various movies and judge. But more of my failings of, in terms of why I had a bad experience, part of it is that what I was bringing to work every day was a lot of unhappiness. So I wasn’t bringing a lot of positive energy to the equation. I didn’t cause problems, but I came in and I did my job and I went home. But you’ve got to do a little bit better than that.”
Keep in mind, Affleck’s time as Batman was also when he picked up drinking again as well as going through a divorce with then-wife Jennifer Garner.
Batman Being Too Scary for Kids
He also admits that his version of Batman and the rest of the DCEU was too dark and scary for children. He even said how his own son did not want to watch the films.
“What happened was it started to skew too old for a big part of the audience. Like even my own son at the time was too scared to watch the movie. And so when I saw that I was like, ‘Oh sh–, we have a problem.’ Then I think that’s when you had a filmmaker that wanted to continue down that road and a studio that wanted to recapture all the younger audience at cross purposes. Then you have two entities, two people really wanting to do something different and that is a really bad recipe.”
Ben Affleck appeared as the Dark Knight across three films: Batman v Superman; Justice League; and The Flash. He also had a brief cameo as Bruce Wayne in a teaser for Suicide Squad. While Affleck’s time as Batman is done, fans are still looking forward to more adventures starring other actors.
In the next few years, we will be getting Robert Pattison in The Batman Part II and the DCU’s debut of Batman in Brave and the Bold.
Source: variety.com
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