By the numbers: Hollywood heartthrob and sad superstar Ben Affleck turns 50

He’s played everyone from Jack Ryan to George Reeves and Bruce Wayne to Matt Murdock, but the role of Hollywood star is perhaps the one that has weighed most heavily on the man born Benjamin Geza Affleck.

Of all the actors of his generation, he’s perhaps the one to have had the bumpiest ride, great success tempered by disastrous failures and an off-screen life subject to intense scrutiny.

As he celebrates his 50th birthday on August 15, Stuff to Watch takes a by-the-numbers look at some of the big moments of his three-decade career in the spotlight, which began with 1992 sports drama School Ties.

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2

The number of Oscars awarded to the 1997 drama Good Will Hunting he developed with his good friend Matt Damon.

The pair originally pitched it as a thriller about a young South Boston man whose superior intelligence was targeted by the government, but they were persuaded by When Harry Met Sally director Rob Reiner to focus more on the relationship between this character and his therapist Sean Maguire.

Damon and Affleck also had to battle to act in the movie. Many studio executives thought Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio would be a better fit for Will Hunting and Chuckie Sullivan. Their insistence paid off, the film made back more than 20-times its original US$10 budget, Damon and Affleck won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (Affleck is still the youngest writer, at 25, to win a screenwriting Oscar) and Robin Williams took home the gong for Best Supporting Actor for playing Maguire.

6

That’s how many Golden Raspberry Awards his much-maligned 2003 movie Gigli took home (it received nine nominations in all).

Yes, before their high-profile reunion and marriage over the past 18 months, Affleck and Jennifer Lopez (whose combined moniker of “Bennifer” was apparently the first celebrity couple portmanteau name) were best known for this disastrous romantic crime comedy which is regarded by many people as one of the worst movies of all time. Not only did it only make back only about 10% of its US$75m budget, it ended the career of former Beverly Hills Cop, Scent of a Woman and Meet Joe Black director Martin Brest.

$356,400

Affleck’s winnings from the 2004 California State Poker Championship, a result that also earned him a place at that year’s World Poker Tour finale.

While he has opened up about his ongoing battles with alcohol addiction, anxiety and depression, he repeatedly denied tabloid reports of a gambling addiction earlier in his career. He was though cited, along with Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio, as one of the regular frequenters of Molly Bloom’s high stakes poker games – as dramatised in Aaron Sorkin’s 2017 movie Molly’s Game.

TMZ and People also reported 2014 that he was banned from playing Blackjack at Las Vegas’ Hard Rock Hotel & Casino after they caught him counting cards (which, while not illegal, is actively discouraged by gambling establishment bosses).

3

The number of appearances Affleck has made in the cowl and cape as Bruce Wayne’s alter ego Batman (so far). Unfortunately, none of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad or Justice League could be described as a runaway success, more critical and commercial failures. Fans weren’t keen on his casting from the start and some industry commentators thought his decision to turn his back on his own extremely successful film-making career (he had won plenty of awards and plaudits for Gone Baby Gone and Argo) “somewhat bewildering”.

Two images that went viral perhaps best summed up the situation – an onset 2014 still from Batman v Superman of a sullen-looking Caped Crusader and a frame-grab from a press junket to promote the same movie two years later, when Affleck himself looks defeated while in a joint-interview with his co-star Henry Cavill.

But although Warners have since found another actor to play The Batman (Robert Pattinson), “the Batfleck” still has at least two more scheduled appearances to come – in 2023’s The Flash and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

13

How long Affleck was married to fellow actor Jennifer Garner.

The actors who played Marvel’s Daredevil and Elektra began dating in 2004, marrying the following year. Before separating in 2015 and eventually finalising their divorce in 2018, Bennifer #2 had three children together: Violet Anne (born December 2005), Seraphina Rose Elizabeth (January 20090 and Samuel Garner (February 2012).

The pair also had an uneasy relationship with the paparazzi, helping usher in a Californian law designed to stop celebrities’ children from being harassed by photographers, while Affleck also blamed their presence for encouraging Garner’s serial stalker Steven Burky to get close to her while blending in with the pack.

In 2020, Affleck admitted to The New York Times that the divorce was “the biggest regret of my life”.