In his new film, The Way Back, Ben Affleck plays a high school basketball coach whose battle with alcohol destroys his marriage and sends him to rehab. And in an unflinching new interview, Affleck discusses the similarities between the character’s arc and his own struggles with alcohol, which coincided with the end of his marriage to Jennifer Garner.
Speaking bluntly about the role substance abuse played in his relationship, Affleck tells the New York Times, “I drank relatively normally for a long time. What happened was that I started drinking more and more when my marriage was falling apart. This was 2015, 2016. My drinking, of course, created more marital problems.”
Though his marriage ended in 2018, the actor still speaks in present tense about the relationship.
“The biggest regret of my life is this divorce,” he added. “Shame is really toxic. There is no positive byproduct of shame. It’s just stewing in a toxic, hideous feeling of low self-worth and self-loathing…. It’s not particularly healthy for me to obsess over the failures—the relapses—and beat myself up,” said Affleck, who completed a third rehab trip in 2018. “I have certainly made mistakes. I have certainly done things that I regret. But you’ve got to pick yourself up, learn from it, learn some more, try to move forward.”
In her 2018 Vanity Fair cover story, Garner insinuated that she was well aware of the shame Affleck felt. “People have pain—they do regrettable things, they feel shame, and shame equals pain,” Garner said, in defense of her ex. “No one needs to hate him for me. I don’t hate him. Certainly we don’t have to beat the guy up.”
In The Way Back, the New York Times reports that there is a particularly wrenching scene in which Affleck’s character apologizes to his ex (Janina Gavankar)—telling her, “I failed you. I failed our marriage.” Director Gavin O’Connor told the paper that Affleck suffered a “total breakdown” on set after filming the exchange.
Affleck explained of the scene, “It was really important, without being mawkish or false, that he make amends to her—that he take accountability for the pain that he and only he has caused.” Maintaining that the benefits of making the film, “to me, far outweighed the risks,” Affleck said that he found filming “very therapeutic.”
Exorcising his personal demons in a gritty drama is apparently more comfortable territory for Affleck than returning to the fictional superhero realm. The actor said he briefly considered reprising the role of Batman after appearing as the superhero in 2017’s Justice League—and inspiring a Sad Affleck meme during the lackluster press circuit.
“I showed somebody The Batman script,” Affleck said of the sequel, which will see Robert Pattinson take over the role. “They said, ‘I think the script is good. I also think you’ll drink yourself to death if you go through what you just went through again.’”