Profile of Ben Affleck on Famous Like Me

Benjamin Geza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) in Berkeley, California, is an American actor and Oscar-winning screenwriter.

Acting

Born in Berkeley, California to Tim Affleck (of Protestant Scottish descent) and Chris (of Irish Catholic ancestry), he grew up in the Cambridge, Massachusetts area and attended college in Los Angeles at Occidental College. He currently lives in Santa Monica, California. He was a child actor, having a role on the PBS kids' series The Voyage of the Mimi and made-for-television movies when young. He came to national attention when he and and his future best friend Matt Damon (whom he had met while studying at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School) wrote the screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997), for which they won an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.

He is also known for his roles in many of Kevin Smith's films - all of them, in fact, except for Clerks..

Along with Matt Damon and producer Chris Moore, Affleck founded the production company LivePlanet, through which the three friends created the documentary series Project Greenlight.

Affleck's most recent films, including Gigli, Paycheck, Jersey Girl, and Surviving Christmas have been critically panned and massive box office bombs.

Romance

Affleck had a brief but high-profile romance with actress Gwyneth Paltrow following her breakup with Brad Pitt. He began dating actress/singer Jennifer Lopez, whom he met on the set of Gigli. In 2002 it was announced that he was engaged to Lopez, and the relationship between the two received enormous attention by the entertainment media. Both subsequently lost fans and credibility, probably due in part to the saturation of Affleck/Lopez interviews and projects, and especially after the notorious failure of Gigli, which in part was due to the negative publicity which led to the couple being dubbed "Bennifer". They broke up in 2004, with both blaming the media attention. In 2005 he proposed to his Daredevil costar, Alias star Jennifer Garner after nine months of dating. In May 2005 it was announced that Garner was pregnant , and they were married on June 29, 2005.

Poker

Affleck is also an avid poker player, regularly entering local events. He has been tutored by poker professionals Amir Vahedi and Annie Duke. He won the California State Poker Championship on June 20, 2004, taking home the first prize of $356,000, and qualifying him for the 2004 World Poker Tour final tournament.

Political activism

In the final hectic weeks of Campaign 2000, Affleck spent his time passionately campaigning for the Democratic ticket, supporting Al Gore, repeatedly delivering a get-out-the-vote plea: "It's very important to vote. The president will appoint three or four Supreme Court justices."

During the final week of the race, Affleck stumped for Gore in California, Florida, and Pennsylvania. During a stop in Pittsburgh, the star--along with Helen Hunt, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner and other actors--spent an hour at a phone bank calling registered Democrats. "People in my generation have a low voter turnout. One of the reasons that I'm here is to demonstrate that no matter who you are going to vote for... I think it's important to get involved and get out and vote," Affleck told reporters. "But I'm going to tell people to vote for Gore."

On October 28, 2000, Affleck flew with the First Lady (Hillary Clinton) to Ithaca, New York, where he introduced her at a Cornell University rally. Affleck told the college crowd that Clinton had been advocating for women and working families since "Rick Lazio was running around the frat house in his underwear." Lazio, then a Long Island congressman, was Clinton's Republican opponent.

On Monday, November 6, the final day of the campaign, Affleck was one of several A-list celebrities summoned to Miami Beach by Miramax Films boss Harvey Weinstein for a late-night Gore rally, just hours before polls opened nationwide. The Gore campaign's last event, a final effort to energize South Beach voters, didn't end until about 1 AM, but Affleck flew back to New York that morning and made a surprise live appearance on The Rosie O'Donnell Show. It was 10:15 when he made his final public pitch from a Rockefeller Center studio, noting that he was "a little bit tired...I've been out getting involved, doing stuff and trying to get people to vote. And that's why I came by here." Also, "Today is the get-out-the-vote day and...I think this is the time to get involved, especially the young folks who are here ... I'm about to go vote," Affleck then said, adding later, "I am personally gonna vote for Al Gore."

As returns came in that night, Affleck told Salon's Amy Reiter, "I'm nervous this evening, but one of the things that's exciting to me is the amount of people who voted. No matter who wins, I think it's a healthy thing for our country that so many voters have come out and participated in the process. Either way, I think the most important number will be the turnout." Amazingly, as The Smoking Gun later discovered, Affleck himself had never bothered to vote.

In the May 2001 issue of GQ, Affleck says, "My fantasy is that someday I'm independently wealthy enough that I'm not beholden to anybody, so I can run for Congress on the grounds that everyday people--be they singers or poets or bankers or lawyers or teachers--should be in government."

In the March 2003 issue of Vanity Fair, Affleck again floats the possibility of a future run for Congress. "I think there's a real nobility to public service," he told the magazine. "It would be fun to run on a platform I really believed in, without being beholden to the win-at-all-costs mentality."

In 2004, Affleck actively campaigned for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. During the first day of the Democratic Convention, Affleck was featured on Larry King Live with Tucker Carlson and Al Sharpton. Larry King asked Affleck if he would consider running for office, and Affleck admitted to contemplating the proposition. Specific attention focused on whether or not he would run for Kerry's open Senate seat (as Affleck was from Massachusetts). He noted that the line between politics and entertainment is becoming increasingly blurry, as Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh all came from the entertainment business, although all were/are members of the Republican Party.

As of 2005, Affleck was widely being mentioned as a possible Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Virginia for the 2006 United States Senate race as an opposition for the incumbant, Republican star Sen. George Allen.

Filmography

• The Dark End of the Street (1981)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie) (1992)
• School Ties (1992)
• Dazed and Confused (1993)
• Mallrats (1995)
• Glory Daze (1996)
• Going All the Way (1997)
• Chasing Amy (1997)
• Office Killer (1997) (scenes deleted)
• Good Will Hunting (1997) (also writer)
• Phantoms (1998)
• Armageddon (1998)
• Shakespeare in Love (1998)
• 200 Cigarettes (1999)
• Forces of Nature (1999)
• Dogma (1999)
• Boiler Room (2000)
• Reindeer Games (2000)
• Bounce (2000)
• Pearl Harbor (2001)
• Daddy and Them (2001)
• Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)
• Changing Lanes (2002)
• The Sum of All Fears (2002)
• The Third Wheel (2002) (also executive producer)
• Daredevil (2003)
• Gigli (2003)
• Paycheck (2003)
• Oh, What a Lovely Tea Party (2004) (documentary)
• Jersey Girl (2004)
• Surviving Christmas (2004)
• Elektra (2005) (scenes deleted)
• Man About Town (2005) (completed awaiting release through Dreamworks)
• Truth, Justice, and the American Way (2006) (currently in post-production)

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