The “Air” director has come a long way since his failed attempt at playing Basketball Player #10 in the 1992 movie “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
Ben Affleck is on top of the world right now. His latest directorial outing, “Air,” was both a massive critical success and a key piece of evidence that the new business model he and Matt Damon are utilizing through their Artists Equity production company can be viable. But even in the midst of all of his success, the filmmaker is still willing to look back at his humble beginnings.
Appearing on “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” Affleck reminisced about one of his earliest film roles in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” He had one line of dialogue as Basketball Player #10 in Fran Rubel Kuzui’s 1992 film (which was written by Joss Whedon and inspired his TV series of the same name). Affleck told Corden that he thought he did a good job of delivering his line about the grave threat that a werewolf posed to this basketball game — but the production team apparently disagreed.
“I was feeling it. I felt authentically afraid,” Affleck said “And then I went and saw the movie with friends… and I sounded very different. And I realized right then they re-recorded my line.”
While embarrassed about the ordeal, he now admits that dubbing over his poor performance was probably the right call.
“I was so bad,” he said. “They needed me to be in the scene, but the director obviously [was like], ‘I can’t hear the voice again!’ They had to pay someone to come in and say, ‘Hey man, take it.’ Because apparently, I couldn’t say that convincingly enough.”
Fans of Affleck shouldn’t be particularly surprised to hear him speaking negatively about one of his own roles. The famously candid actor has no problem voicing his opinions about films that didn’t turn out well. He recently opened up about how the unpleasant experience of making “Justice League” caused him to reevaluate his career.
“I just thought, ‘This isn’t the life I want. My kids aren’t here. I’m miserable,’” he said of the “Justice League” shoot. “You want to go to work and find something interesting to hang onto, rather than just wearing a rubber suit, and most of it you’re just standing against the computer screen going, ‘If this nuclear waste gets loose, we’ll…’ That’s fine. I don’t condescend to that or put it down, but I got to a point where I found it creatively not satisfying. Also just, you’re sweaty and exhausted. And I thought, ‘I don’t want to participate in this in any way. And I don’t want to squander any more of my life, of which I have a limited amount.’”
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