When it comes to his life as a celebrity, Ben Affleck doesn't think "in a very serious way."
"I'll go out and get my packages or deliveries and I don't care that people are there to take pictures of me. And some people are probably, I guess you would call them smarter or more strategic because they think, well, 'I don't want to be seen with a T-shirt or spilling a drink,'" Affleck told GQ magazine.
"And I just think, 'Oh, f**k it, man, I don't give a sh*t. I just want to get my coffee,'" he added, as quoted by CNN.
The Oscar-winning writer, director and actor is featured on the cover of the latest issue of GQ.
In a wide-ranging interview, Affleck shares his views on the circulated memes of the so-called "sad Affleck," his professional path and his personal life, including his recent divorce from Jennifer Lopez.
The former couple appeared together in her documentary "The Greatest Love Story Never Told". Affleck explained to the publication why he agreed to join his then-wife in the project,.
"Part of it was, 'OK, if I'm going to be in this, I want to try to do it in an honest way and in a way that's interesting. Because I thought it was interesting research," he recounted.
"As I mentioned to you before, there are many people who I think have handled being a celebrity more skillfully and more ably than I have, Jennifer being one of them. My temperament is a bit more reserved and closed off than hers. As it happens in relationships, you don't always have the same attitude towards these things," the actor added.
"And so I thought, 'Oh, that's interesting, because how do you reconcile that? Because exactly what you said is true. I love and support this guy. I believe in him. She's great. I want people to see that," he added.
"And I think the thing that I said in that documentary or in the piece that they used was that I said, 'You can't marry the captain of a ship, and then say, 'Well, I don't like going in the water.' You have to own what you knew going into any relationship. And I think it's important to say that that wasn't the cause of some big meltdown. It's not like you watch this documentary and say, "Oh, now I understand the problems these two had."
Lopez filed for divorce in August 2024, two years after they married and more than 20 years after the two first met on the set of the comedy "Giggles."
As for their breakup, Affleck said there's "no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue."
"The truth is, when you talk to someone, 'Hey, what happened? Well there's no, 'Here's what happened. It's just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and their relationships in a way that we all usually do," he said.
"The reason I don't want to share that is just kind of embarrassing. I feel vulnerable," the Oscar winner added.
As for the three decades Affleck has unwittingly spent as a central figure in the tabloids, he's still trying to figure out why people continue to care about his "pretty drama-free" life as a "middle-aged man."
"With all the sensational stuff being written, if anyone sat down and talked to me about it, I'd say:
'Well, that's really the experience', his eyes would water with boredom," joked Affleck.
"I was forced to analyze it to try to understand it, to figure it out: What is this? Because you naturally think, 'OK, maybe I'll just wear the same outfit every day so the pictures won't be different."' Or maybe, "I'll just look like a slob," and I'm like:
"No - then you turn into the sad Ben Affleck spilling his coffee". Which I should point out I think is pretty funny," he concluded. | BGNES