Ben Affleck calls politics “a difficult grind” after co-stars’ nudge
If you’ve wondered whether Ben Affleck might go from box office to ballot, he just cleared that up.
On the red carpet at the Wednesday premiere of his new Netflix thriller Animal, Ben Affleck laughed off the idea that he should try his hand at elected office after some castmates nudged him in that direction. “Maybe they hate me,” he cracked when asked how he felt about their encouragement, according to Variety.
“Selfishly, I just see what a difficult grind of a job it is and I'd rather make movies about it.”
In the film, Affleck plays a businessman who’s also running for Los Angeles mayor — a tidy setup for the question — and he’s not exactly a stranger to politics in real life. He directed and co-wrote the movie, and he’s spent years stumping for Democrats on the national stage.
- Barack Obama
- Hillary Clinton
- Joe Biden
- Kamala Harris
Not a fan of the current game
Affleck told Variety he has little interest in today’s political arena, describing it as a performance-first environment that prizes spectacle over substance. He called the whole enterprise exhausting and broken, adding that nobody — on either side — seems happy with how it works right now.
It’s not the only bit of cleanup he’s done lately. Affleck also pushed back on online chatter about Netflix’s “creative notes,” after comments from longtime collaborator Matt Damon were spun as proof of uniquely wild mandates from the streamer. Affleck said those kinds of studio notes aren’t new — they’ve been part of making movies for generations.