Ben Affleck reveals why his role in ‘The Way Back’ is the ‘performance he’s most proud of’
"It's a movie about overcoming adversity, and had a message of hope that really resonated with me and really still does now."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej99nhfsfXo
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Ben Affleck has been in the acting business for almost three decades now, playing everything from a high school bully in 1993’s “Dazed and Confused” to Bruce Wayne in 2016’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” But according to an interview with GQ, Affleck’s performance in “The Way Back” is the one that he’s most proud of.
The Cambridge native sat down with the magazine for its “iconic characters” video series, in which actors go in-depth about some of their career highlights. Affleck discussed 11 movies in total, but he said that “The Way Back,” which opened Friday and earned $8.5 million in its opening weekend, still stood out.
“I felt really emotionally connected and in tune with where I needed to be character-wise,” Affleck said. “It was really just fun every day. I know that’s a weird thing to say about a movie that’s got a lot of dark emotion in it, but ultimately it was an inspirational movie. It’s a movie about overcoming adversity, and had a message of hope that really resonated with me and really still does now, and it’s probably the performance I’m most proud of.”
Affleck also discussed the film that he said was the single-hardest to make in his career, 2001’s “Pearl Harbor.” According to Affleck, along with having to learn how to fly a plane while simultaneously overcoming a fear of flying, producers also enrolled the cast in an actual boot camp for U.S. Army Rangers, where the actors were surrounded by legitimate ranger candidates and drill sergeants.
“It was horrible. It was incredibly agonizing, painful, miserable experience,” Affleck said. “I would’ve definitely quit the first day if I wouldn’t have been too embarrassed to have it get out that I quit the training. They yelled at us, they called us by our character names, the guys were really scary. It was exhausting physically. To this day, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
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