It turns out that Jennifer Lopez isn’t the only woman who’s had to be on camera with Ben Affleck when he’s apparently not in the mood to be photographed or interviewed and can’t help but appear bored, sullen or worse.
In fact, veteran Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist and host Sarah Ferguson has rated Affleck as one of the most aggravating famous people she’s ever interviewed, according to the Daily Mail.
“He was just rude, not interested, going through the motions,” said Ferguson (no relation to the British royale), who currently hosts ABC TV’s flagship news and current affairs program, “7.30.” She was speaking about Affleck in an interview to the Sydney Morning Herald’s Sunday Life magazine.
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Ferguson’s less-than-pleasant experience with the “Argo” actor and director occurred in March 2023 when she interviewed him and his “Air” co-star, Chris Tucker, she told the Sydney Morning Herald. The actors were on “7:30” to promote the film, which depicts the origins of Nike’s iconic Air Jordan shoes. Affleck also directed the film, which co-starred Matt Damon, Jason Bateman and Viola Davis.
During the interview, an unsmiling, downcast Affleck gave rambling answers and repeatedly looked off camera, as a clip of the interview shows. According to Ferguson, the interview was so bad that only four of the questions she asked could be used on air.
Ferguson’s revelations come at a time when Affleck has recently appeared quite a bit in public, not smiling and looking downcast or angry. His displeasure is understandable, given that he’s being followed around Los Angeles by paparazzi who are trying to chronicle the breakdown of his two-year marriage to movie and pop mega-star Jennifer Lopez.
But a sullen Ben Affleck has become part of his public persona. Supposedly, Lopez had a problem with her estranged fourth husband’s tendency to always look miserable when he joined her in public, especially when he spent the 2023 Grammys, where she was a presenter, looking bored, exhausted and unhappy. The singer/actor/influencer has always liked playing the role of fashion icon and entertainment diva for the camera.
In March, Affleck admitted that he tends to be “a little bit shy,” which could explain why he always looks angry in photos.
“People see me and they’re like, ‘Why is this dude always mad?’ Because somebody has their camera sticking in my face. And I’m like, ‘OK, here we go,’” Affleck said during an interview with Kevin Hart’s Peacock talk show, “Hart to Heart.”
Affleck told Hart he often encounters unwelcome attempts to photograph him while he’s out in public with his three children, according to Today.com.
“What I’d actually like to do is do something much more definitive than just look at you (with a frown). And I may be angry that you’re around my child,” said the actor, who also once admitted to Jimmy Kimmel to having “a very unhappy-looking resting face.”
Affleck also was the subject of the “sad Ben Affleck meme” and a viral 2018 New Yorker essay, titled “The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck.” Affleck has himself admitted that he was miserable in 2017, 2018 and 2019, when his first marriage to Jennifer Garner was breaking down and he was playing Batman in “Justice League.” The actor, who has long struggled with alcohol addiction, told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that he was drinking “too much” at the time.
The “Good Will Hunting” Oscar winner insisted to Hart that he understands that people are interested in taking photos of him at certain work events. “I don’t give a (expletive),” he said with an edge to his voice. “Go ahead, knock yourself out. I don’t notice you. But with my children, that’s a different thing.”
Of course, Affleck can’t bring up his children as a reason for being “rude” to ABC’s Ferguson, a well-respected journalist in Australia — not an annoying tabloid reporter whom he might look down on. At the time of their interview, Affleck was said to be happy in the first year of his marriage to Lopez and, according to reports, sober and healthy.
On her show, Ferguson seemed to be trying to engage him in a lively, thoughtful conversation about his film so that he could promote it. Affleck was apparently proud of the movie, which received mostly positive reviews. Critics praised Affleck’s “sure-handed” direction, the film’s lively, funny and warm performances, its “crackling good screenplay” and Affleck’s dynamic with Damon, his longtime friend and collaborator.
Maybe Affleck was having difficult with the time-zone differences in the interview. But at one point, Ferguson asked the movie star a potentially sensitive question that he had addressed in other interviews — about how “Air” is focused on a “white-run corporate entity” creating partnerships with young African American athletes that gave them a stake in future profits. But when Ferguson asked, Affleck appeared to have trouble articulating his intentions or his effort to incorporate the point of view of Black actors and collaborators in the film, including Michael Jordan.
According to the Daily Mail, Affleck awkwardly told Ferguson, “It happened by my looking at the story and thinking initially, you know, knowing a little bit how these companies work, and knowing about, you know, knowing by instinct it wasn’t only white people who worked at this company who were relevant to the story.”
“And I didn’t want to make that story,” Affleck continued. “Luckily, Michael (Jordan) graciously made himself available to me, and directed me to the three people he felt were principally relevant here… and also he talked about his father and his mother.”
Affleck was more articulate in his 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter — which wasn’t a TV interview and therefore didn’t involve that kind of pressure. Affleck told THR: “I wouldn’t make a movie whose central premise is the appropriation of Black culture for profit by white Americans. That’s not my film to make. I’m telling a story that’s about a combination of things, and this is one aspect of it.”
