Ben Affleck has opened up about the decision for his ex-wife Jennifer Garner to step away from a film role which would have seen them playing a married couple.
The Gone Girl star is currently gearing up for the release of his new Netflix movie Animals, about a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose son is kidnapped, which he both co-wrote and co-directed.
When the project was first announced, it was intended that Ben’s frequent collaborator Matt Damon would take on the lead role, while Jennifer would play his wife.
Ben recalled to Entertainment Weekly: “I thought, ‘God, Jen Garner would be amazing for this role’.
“It also has the added benefit of, like, both of us will see our kids more because we do a week and a week and back and forth. I thought, well, we can coordinate our schedules around it.”
However, due to delays in production, when filming began, Matt was no longer available due to his work in The Odyssey, with Ben ultimately choosing to step up and take on the role himself.
This, of course, would have resulted in he and Jennifer starring alongside one another, which led to some difficult conversations.
“I talked to Jen, and she was like, ‘We don’t wanna do that. You just get baggage’,” he explained.
Ben did say he’d “love to work with” Jennifer in the future, hailing his former wife as a “fabulous” actor.
“We’re really good friends, and I’m profoundly grateful to her, and we have a great thing,” he enthused.
“I still would wanna work with her in the future, but what you don’t wanna do is take the audience’s baggage and have it work against you, you know?”
Ben and Jennifer found themselves at the centre of a media storm when they began dating in 2004, having first met on the set of Daredevil years earlier.
The two tied the knot in 2005, and share three children together.
After 13 years of marriage, they parted ways in 2018, and Ben later married his famous ex Jennifer Lopez.
He and the Jenny From The Block singer split for the second time in 2024, two years after getting married in Las Vegas.
