Hollywood actor Ben Affleck has opened up about the “massive embarrassment” he felt after being snubbed in the Best Director category at the Oscars.
The 53-year-old star was widely anticipated to receive a nomination in 2013 for directing the thriller ‘Argo’, which ultimately won the Best Picture award. However, Affleck admitted that missing out was particularly tough, especially after being told repeatedly that he would be nominated.
Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Ben shared, “It was the year, the horrible thing of everyone telling you, ‘You’re gonna get nominated, you’re gonna get nominated for director’. And so, of course, I wake up that morning, and sure enough, and, by the way, it’s not (unlike) any other morning that I had not been nominated for Best Director. But all of a sudden, it’s a massive embarrassment. I woke up and people (said), ‘You didn’t get nominated’”.
Kimmel mentioned that he thought of Ben when he watched Leonardo DiCaprio miss out on the Best Actor prize to Timothee Chalamet at the Critics’ Choice Awards. Despite DiCaprio’s film One Battle After Another winning the awards for Best Picture and Best Director, Kimmel speculated about DiCaprio’s feelings, saying, “I was thinking, boy, he’s got so many better places to be. And the movie wins Best Picture. The director Paul Thomas Anderson wins Best Director, and then he doesn’t win. And I’m thinking he must be so p***** that (he had to leave) whatever he got airlifted from, a yacht somewhere, and couldn’t be there anymore. He came to lose.”
Reflecting on his own experience, Affleck confessed that he “felt” similarly when fielding questions about his Argo snub on the red carpet at the 2013 Critics’ Choice Awards. He recounted, “It seemed like there were 500 people dying to talk to me. And every single one of them (said), ‘Hi, so the snub.’ What do you say to that? ‘Ha, ha, ha, yeah. It’s a bummer’”.
In his latest project, Ben reunites with childhood friend Matt Damon in the new action thriller The Rip, expressing his enjoyment of working with his “understated” pal.
He told GQ magazine, “Every time I act with Matt is a humbling experience because I learn to appreciate further just how good an actor he is. He is so understated, so real and so honest, it’s the opposite of a ‘showy’ performance, and I think what he does is more difficult. When you know someone as long as I’ve known Matt, you develop a pretty good sense of what is real and what isn’t and it’s almost impossible to catch Matt acting.”
“He is really a master of realism and it’s something I deeply admire about him. One of many things,” he added.