Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck, born August 15, 1972, in Berkeley, California, became known first as a child performer and later as an actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He spent much of his youth in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he met Matt Damon; the two would become longtime collaborators. Affleck appeared in the PBS educational series The Voyage of the Mimi in 1984 and its 1988 sequel, playing C.T. Granville. Early film roles included Dazed and Confused (1993), Mallrats (1995), and Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy (1997), in which he played comic-book artist Holden McNeil. These projects preceded the breakthrough that changed his career decisively.

In Good Will Hunting (1997), Affleck and Damon wrote the screenplay and starred as South Boston friends; Affleck played Chuckie Sullivan, while Damon played the gifted janitor Will Hunting. The script won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, shared by Affleck and Damon, and earned them international prominence. Affleck then led releases including Armageddon (1998), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), The Sum of All Fears (2002), and Daredevil (2003). In Hollywoodland (2006), he portrayed actor George Reeves and received the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. He also played Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Justice League (2017), and The Flash (2023).

Affleck’s directing career gained force with Gone Baby Gone (2007), adapted from Dennis Lehane’s novel and starring his brother Casey Affleck. He followed it with The Town (2010), a Boston-set crime drama in which he directed and played bank robber Doug MacRay. Argo (2012), based on the CIA’s 1979 operation to extract six American diplomats from revolutionary Iran, won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Affleck directed, produced, and starred as Tony Mendez, the CIA officer who used a fake science-fiction film project as cover. Argo also brought him Golden Globe and BAFTA awards for directing, despite his absence from the Oscar directing nominees.

Beyond films, Affleck co-founded the Eastern Congo Initiative in 2010, an advocacy organization for eastern Congo. He co-founded the production company Artists Equity with Damon in 2022. Its first release, Air (2023), dramatized Nike’s effort to sign Michael Jordan; Affleck directed it and portrayed Nike co-founder Phil Knight. He directed Live by Night (2016). Affleck has three children with actor Jennifer Garner, whom he married in 2005; they divorced in 2018. In 2022, he married singer and actor Jennifer Lopez in Las Vegas, Nevada.