Ben Affleck found himself going back to a wound in Hollywood that still hasn’t fully healed – and it’s a place he’d rather not revisit. Despite a promotional tour that was supposed to be all about the present day, the 53 year old actor and director somehow ended up talking about a painful episode from more than ten years ago on live national TV. He described it as a “massive humiliation”
You get the sense that sometimes the Hollywood awards machine can get its wires crossed – and Affleck was more than happy to tell the tale of how an awards season that had looked like it would be his seemed to take a 180 degree turn. He talked about the exact moment on Jimmy Kimmel Live! when he was promoting his new streaming project, The Rip, it all came flooding back.
Ben Affleck’s 2013 Oscar snub
When Affleck turned up on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he couldn’t help but bring up the year that Argo seemed to be pointing him in the direction of a Best Director Oscar nomination. People were saying he was a shoo in and all the stats were in his favour – he’d had a string of wins at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards and the BAFTAs, which usually gives you a pretty good idea of who’s in the running at the Oscars.
But then the morning of the nominations came along, and suddenly Affleck’s whole world was turned upside down. Except, of course, that this time round everyone was expecting him to be there, so it was all the more surprising – and not just a bit. “You wake up and they tell you you’re not nominated,” he remembered saying – and that was pretty much the same as any other year when he wasn’t on the list. But this time it was different – this time it turned into a real fiasco.
To make matters worse, he went to the Critics’ Choice Awards that same night and won the award for Best Director. Which would have been great, except that every single interview, every single red carpet chat, was still all about the fact that he hadn’t been nominated for the Oscars that day. And this was despite him having had a fantastic week with Argo picking up Best Picture. Jimmy Kimmel weighed in on the situation and had a point or two to make:
This whole awards season must be a joke – I mean, are you understating the situation or what? Argo won Best Picture but didn’t even get nominated for Best Picture, and you directed it and starred in it, and you still weren’t nominated – it’s almost as if the film just sort of… directed itself.
Argo, what its about?
Argo is about what you’d expect – it’s based on a true story from back in 1979 and 1981, when six American diplomats managed to slip out of Iran after a covert operation. The film does a great job of turning a genuine rescue operation into a bit of a parody of the whole system, and it’s that that makes it so charming. And of course, it won Best Picture at the Oscars, which of course didn’t count for much as far as the Oscar nomination for Best Director was concerned.
Hollywood’s Coolness Toward Affleck
The Argo backlash hasn’t been the first time Ben Affleck has felt on the outside looking in when it comes to all the prestige that the centre of Hollywood dishes out. Sure, his films have got critical acclaim, but a lot of his projects over the years have either met with a yawn or completely flown under the radar during awards season. Take The Last Duel, for example. Despite being a serious historical drama, it just didn’t get the recognition it deserved at the ceremonies or the box office.
One reason for this is a certain narrative that’s been around for years. At its heart its a pretty mean-spirited story that basically turned Ben Affleck into a regular target of jokes and memes, with a lot of it stemming from his personal life, his perpetual looking like hell at sporting events, his past struggles with booze, and that reputation of being a bit of a handful to work with. He’s spoken openly about the personal demons he’s had to deal with and how all these stories surrounding him impact how people see his actual work.
But to paint his career with that one brush would be a huge simplification. As it turns out, Ben Affleck is a filmmaker with a clear vision for what he wants to achieve with his films. He shifts back and forth between personal, low key projects and big, splashy movies while also making sure that politics and the human side of things are right up there with the plot in his films.
Source: Variety
