Ben Affleck looks back at a career low with a surprisingly positive take. The actor stood in support of the film and shared how it was a learning experience for him.
Affleck recently appeared on Variety’s “Know Their Lines”, where he tries to remember some memorable lines from his movies. At one point, the actor correctly identified Gigli, the 2003 crime comedy that became one of the worst-reviewed movies in his filmography. That movie currently holds a six percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Despite its failure, Affleck spoke positively about Gigli. “You really can’t do anything that’s actually special or memorable or meaningful without being willing to take risks,” the actor reflected.
“So what happens is you got to go out there and like take a sort of home run swing at it. And the risk of that is if you miss, you look bad. And in this case, it was like it’s obvious that the movie missed. There’s this thing of like, ‘Oh my god, it looks bad,’ and you sort of have to be okay with that,” he continued.
Affleck added, “If you’re not willing to take a risk, if you’re not willing to try stuff, you will consign yourself to doing things that people have seen before that they kind of expect. And then that’s a kind of worse and less interesting form of failure in my opinion.”
Gigli became an unexpected lesson in directing for Ben Affleck
During the interview, Affleck also reflected on how working on Gigli helped him hone his skills as a director.
“I really learned how to direct on this movie working with Marty Brest,” the actor shared. “I just paid attention to every little thing because I was quite mindful of what I’m about to do. I want to direct movies. And I love Marty, and he’s a good director, and that’s the interesting paradox of this job is that you can be really good and still miss.”
Affleck is set to return to the big screen with the upcoming crime thriller film, Animals, which he also wrote and directed. The star-studded cast also includes Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, Adriana Paz, Luis Gerardo Méndez, and Steven Yeun.
Originally reported on ComingSoon.
