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Ben Affleck
BY the time Ben Affleck and fellow man-of-the-moment Matt Damon appeared at the 1997 Golden Globes ceremony to collect a Best Screenplay award for Good Will Hunting, even cave-dwelling hermits had heard the tale of how the boyhood buddies wrote the Little Screenplay That Could and turned it into a box-office smash. Castle Rock …
Occupation: Actor, Screenwriter
Date of Birth: August 15, 1972
Place of Birth: Berkeley, Calif., USA
Sign: Sun in Leo, Moon in Scorpio
Relations: Father: Tim (social worker; former actor who supposedly “chased women” with Dustin Hoffman); mother: Chris (teacher); brother: Casey (actor); former companion: Gwyneth Paltrow (actress); best friend: Matt Damon
Education: Briefly attended classes at the University of Vermont and Occidental College
Fan Mail: C/O Creative Artists Agency
9830 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
USA
Bio-
I’m certainly not Web-dexterous. I sort of fall around the WebùI don’t surf it. I get dragged, and stumble. I heard there was a lot of porno stuff on the web. I looked for it and couldn’t find it. Then I found this one site and it was twenty bucks a month! Twenty bucks a month! Hustler’s only $3.99. Come on, twenty bones?!!!
— Ben Affleck
BY the time Ben Affleck and fellow man-of-the-moment Matt Damon appeared at the 1997 Golden Globes ceremony to collect a Best Screenplay award for Good Will Hunting, even cave-dwelling hermits had heard the tale of how the boyhood buddies wrote the Little Screenplay That Could and turned it into a box-office smash. Castle Rock originally purchased the rights to their script in 1994, but the rookie screenwriters refused to participate in the production after the studio announced plans to film the movie in Toronto, in favor of a location shoot in their beloved Boston. The project went into a tailspin from which it might never have recovered had it not been for the benevolent intervention of Affleck’s pal, indie god Kevin Smith, who convinced Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein to give the screenplay a look-see. Miramax proved more than willing to take over production, and the rest, as they say, is Hollywood history. Hot on the heels of his Golden Globe win, a chiseled, bare-chested Affleck fronted an issue of GQ, and producers began lining up to offer him lead roles. A Best Original Screenplay Oscar win only confirmed his rising-star status. It’s a safe bet Affleck won’t be spotted waiting tables anytime soon.
Born in Berkeley, Calif., to an auto mechanic father and a schoolteacher mother who separated not long after his birth, Affleck grew up in Cambridge, Mass. Shortly after his eighth birthday, he landed his first acting job, as a regular on the PBS series The Voyage of the Mimi; that same year, he first crossed paths with Damon, whose family lived just two blocks away. The boys became bosom buddies, and eventually attended classes together at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a tony secondary school where both were heavily involved in the drama program. During those years, Affleck and Damon also answered casting calls for every movie that filmed in Boston, and by the time they graduated, each had appeared as an extra several times. While Damon went on to study at Harvard, Affleck was more serious about pursuing a career in acting than laboring to earn an academic degree. Though he subsequently made sporadic efforts to settle into the student lifestyle at both the University of Vermont and California’s Occidental College, the allure of the silver screen proved too strong for him to ignore.
Early rounds of television work in the mini-series Hands of a Stranger and in the Danielle Steele adaptation Daddy paid the rent, and a small part in the coming-of-age drama School Ties, in which he co-starred alongside Damon, Chris O’Donnell and Brendan Fraser, marked an auspicious feature film debut. But Affleck didn’t really get to stretch his acting chops until 1993, when he made a memorable appearance as a freshman-baiting bully in Richard Linklater’s paean to smoking dope and slacking off, Dazed and Confused, which also featured up-and-comers Matthew McConaughey, Milla Jovovich, and Parker Posey.
Though Affleck did step behind the camera to lens a short film, the imaginatively titled I Murdered My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook and Now I’ve Got a Three-Picture Deal With Disney, he doesn’t seem to have much time for directing or writing these days. After wrapping the summer 1998 dis-asteroid flick Armageddon, he headed into production on Dogma, a controversial religious satire written and directed by Smith that re-teamed him with Damon, and tackled a trio of indie flicks: he headlined both 200 Cigarettes, with Courtney Love and Christina Ricci, and Desert Blue, which also featured Ricci, along with Sara Gilbert and Brendan Sexton Jr.; and for director Ben Younger’s poison-pen portrait of ’90s-era capitalistic greed, Boiler Room, he took on the starring role of a shady Long Island stockbroker. On the mainstream side, Affleck co-starred with Sandra Bullock in the woebegone romantic comedy Forces of Nature; and teamed with Charlize Theron and Gary Sinise in the John Frankenheimer-directed action noir Reindeer Games.
Dating back to his days at the Rindge and Latin School, Affleck maintained an on-again, off-again relationship with his high-school sweetheart, Cheyenne Rothman, but his sometimes commitment to her didn’t stand a chance when it came to his celebrity tryst with golden girl Gwyneth Paltrow. Not long after the standard “they’re just friends” denials were issued by both celebs’ publicists, Affleck and Paltrow came out as a couple rather publicly by attending the 1997 Golden Globe Awards ceremony together. The following year witnessed the release of their co-starring venture Shakespeare in Love, a film that garnered Paltrow both a Best Actress Golden Globe and a Best Actress Oscar, but also marked the demise of their relationship.
Ben Affleck: Credits
MOVIES
Actor
Reindeer Games — 2000
Boiler Room — 2000
Dogma — 1999
Forces of Nature — 1999
200 Cigarettes — 1999
Shakespeare in Love — 1998
Armageddon — 1998
Phantoms — 1998
Going All the Way — 1997
Good Will Hunting — 1997
Chasing Amy — 1997
Glory Daze — 1996
Mallrats — 1995
Dazed and Confused — 1993
School Ties — 1992
TV
Lifestories: Families in Crisis — 1994 (Series; appearance)
Against the Grain — 1993 - 1994 (Series)
Daddy — 1991 (Movie)
Hands of a Stranger — 1987 (Mini-series)
Wanted: The Perfect Guy — 1986 (After school special)
The Voyage of the Mimi — 1980 (Movie)
Affleck, Ben Web sites 1~20 of 20 reviewed Web sites
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BenAffleck.com
Photos, interviews, a history of the actor, press releases on his projects, message boards, a shop for merchandise, auctions, mailing list and more.
http://www.benaffleck.com/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Chasing Ben Affleck
Polls, interviews, pictures, a chat room, store, links, web board as well as commentary by the editor in this fan site.
http://www.katieweb.com/ben/
Last reviewed by tuneless
Official Ben Affleck Web Site
Official web site for the actor, with messages from him, latest news, message board, examples of his photography work, and auction of memorabilia.
http://www.affleck.com/
Last reviewed by Debrabate
Affleck Files, The
Plenty of Affleck related information on this site, links, fan reviews, chat, pictures, mailing list, multimedia and more.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Makeup/6949/
Last reviewed by snahnav
Afflecknet
This fan site contains a biography, store, link, chat, mailing list, news, pictures, FAQ and more devoted to the actor.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/9640/
Last reviewed by jhawkins2000
Ben Affleck Page
A solid site of Affleck-ian goodies, including a “rumors” page, chat room and message board, photo gallery and collection of Ben-related articles.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studio/3372/
Last reviewed by jhawkins2000
Ben There….. Done That
A site dedicated to career of actor extraordinaire Ben Affleck. Includes news, articles, an interactive section, a multi-media section and even a section where you can vote BEN AFFLECK FOR PRESIDENT!!!!
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palace/7293/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Chasing Ben
News, message boards, pictures, filmography, background information, poll’s related to the actor, chat, and links are all a part of this fan site.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/1813/af…
Last reviewed by jerryman44
Unofficial Ben and Casey Affleck site
Links, news, pictures, biographies and fan club information.
http://members.tripod.com/~MelinaM/
Last reviewed by SurfLearn
Affleckpage
Contains pictures, poll, biography, message board, links.
http://www.homestead.com/affleckpage/affleckpage.h…
Last reviewed by condorp4
Afflecktionately Ben’s
News, gossip, articles, interviews, postcards, of course pictures, links, opinion polls are just a part of this fan site.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Bungalow/4035/
Last reviewed by hvrijsse
Ben Affleck Club
Provides gallery, news, biography and movie review for the actor.
http://www.crosswinds.net/~benaffleckclub/
Last reviewed by SurfLearn
Ben Affleck Fan Fiction Archive
Includes fan fiction, news.
http://affleck.dreamwater.com/
Last reviewed by emse
Ben Affleck Interactive Web
Several picture galleries, biography, filmography and a Ben Affleck diary.
http://benaffleck.bizhosting.com/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Ben Pages
Biography, chat room, internet postcards of the actor, links, news & notes, message board, poll are all included in this page dedicated to Ben Affleck.
http://www.angelfire.com/md/twosistersfourguys/ben…
Last reviewed by wellsking
BenaFFIEck
A biography, pictures, filmography, news of the actor and guestbook on this slightly quirky fan site.
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/8191/ben.html
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
BoxOfficeMania.com
Gossip, biography, filmography, pictures, trailers, movie posters, box office stats, and links.
http://www.boxofficemania.com/actors/b/ben_affleck…
Last reviewed by snahnav
Movie Times: Ben Affleck
Some pictures, results at the box-office and a links section.
http://the-movie-times.com/thrsdir/actors/baffleck…
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Mr. Showbiz Celebrities: Ben Affleck Profile
Biography, news and credits.
http://mrshowbiz.go.com/people/benaffleck/
Last reviewed by DottieHinkle
Unofficial Ben Affleck Page
Large photo gallery and links to other articles on the actor. Unfortunately, the site hasn’t been updated recently.
http://katieweb.com/unofficialben/
Last reviewed by Lady_Tasha
Photo Gallery-
Topics: Actor, Celebrities
Tags: Ben Affleck, Castle Rock, Matt Damon
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