Actor Ben Affleck attends the premiere of Warner Bros Pictures' The Accountant. Photo / Getty
Actor Ben Affleck attends the premiere of Warner Bros Pictures' The Accountant. Photo / Getty
Ben Affleck's alleged behaviour in the Hollywood sex scandal pales in comparison to the litany of accusations Harvey Weinstein now faces.
But the 45-year-old star, who has been accused of inappropriate behaviour by two women, says he is ashamed of his actions.
J Lo and Ben Affleck. Photo / Getty
"I need to look at my own behaviour and think about how am I behaving, how am I treating people and when I am wrong, admitting it when confronted with it," he told news.com.au.
"I'm trying to monitor myself and take responsibility. I have to continue the process of trying to be the best version of myself that I can be, for my family, for my children, for my co-stars and for the people that I run into in a day-to-day life."
He is responding to accusations by two different women. Firstly by former MTV host Hilarie Burton, who alleged he groped her breast. And also makeup artist Annamarie Tendler, who complained about the Oscar-winning star's wandering hands at the 2014 Golden Globes.
At the Rosewood Hotel in London, Affleck is in a sombre mood while promoting his hotly-anticipated superhero action movie, Justice League, in which he reprises his role as Batman.
Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck attend the Boston Celtics versus the Orlando Magic in 2009. Photo / Getty
As the Harvey Weinstein story broke Affleck reflected on his ties to the producer who funded Good Will Hunting, 20 years ago.
"I didn't work particularly close to Harvey Weinstein and I haven't worked with him for 15 years," he said. "I really didn't like working with him. He was underhanded and duplicitous. I knew he was sleazy. I didn't know the terrible extent of his crimes but I knew that there was ugly shit going on and I didn't want to be part of it. In retrospect, I wish I had done more and I wish I had stopped working with him earlier, but hindsight is 20/20."
Affleck and his writing partner, Matt Damon, famously landed their big break in Hollywood with Good Will Hunting, for which they won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, in 1997.
Actors Ben Affleck (L) and Matt Damon attend an awards ceremony. Photo / Getty
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Good Will Hunting, and Affleck can't quite believe it. "It was a big dream come true for Matt and myself. It was a like a miracle that the movie got made. Now in retrospect, it's a tainted memory because it was [financed by] Harvey Weinstein. They were the good ol' days for me but now I know they were some pretty awful days for people who ran into Harvey Weinstein."
Award-winning producer/director Brett Ratner, also accused of sexual assault by several high-profile actresses including Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge, is co-producer of Justice League through his company RatPac Entertainment (co-founded with James Packer in 2012).
Understandably, Affleck is also anxious to distance himself from Ratner.
"I don't know Brett Ratner. With regards to his relationship to this movie and his past movies, financiers don't really have much to do with the actual movie. They're like banks studios go to, to hedge risks. So if WB [Warner Brothers] has $100 million in a movie, they might go, 'Geez. We want to sell somebody 25 per cent to mitigate our risks,'" he explained. "But it doesn't mean you have a creative relationship with that person."
Almost all of the men accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour wield enormous power and hefty bank accounts.
"It's a system that has allowed these power dynamics to exist in such a way where men have all the power and are doing so much exploiting," said Affleck.
It's a far cry from his Boston upbringing with younger brother Casey (who was himself sued by two women in 2010 for sexual harassment in lawsuits that have since been settled) under modest financial circumstances by a single mother, a schoolteacher. Now, at 45, the eldest Affleck is worth approximately US$105 million, according to Forbes.
"I am not somebody who glorifies the rich or who thinks, 'Boy, one day, if I could just become a billionaire, I could be happy,' or has this notion, like that famous quote: 'The rich are different than you and I, they have more money.' "My relationship to money has been to not chase it and to try and remember that often times you are presented with choices in this business and some pay better and others offer more personal satisfaction. And I have tried to err on the side of the personal satisfaction," he says. "Although my father was a writer and a director and not successful and had to make a living as a bartender and an auto mechanic. So, there is a part of me that I think wants to be different than my father."
He laughed. "You know, I could write a whole play about it. So, I am also tempted by the hallmarks of success in terms of ascribing some personal achievement to that and I am not immune to it."
There's a line in Justice League where Affleck's Batman, devoid of any superpower like his spandex-clad colleagues, Superman, Wonder Woman or Aquaman, says that being rich is his superpower. He laughed again. "I don't think that being rich is actually a superpower, unless you spend all your money on the Batmobile."
As the list of men behaving badly reaches from Hollywood into fashion, politics and virtually every business arena, Affleck said. "It's revealing itself to be a galactic problem.
"I think that there's got to be a certain amount of terror stuck in the hearts of people who are sexual harassers right now, thinking that they may be brought to task. We as men need to take responsibility for ourselves. Otherwise, if it doesn't become a man's issue, as well as a women's issue, it's always going to be an issue."
