Ben Affleck Takes His Second Shot

Ben Affleck is getting ready to re-launch his career following a string of lackluster movies. He's hoping that his professional career will flourish the same way his personal life has over the past few years with wife Jennifer Garner and daughter Violet, almost 2. He's staking it all on his directing debut in Gone Baby Gone (which I've heard is fabulous).

In a revealing new interview in the November issue of Details magazine, the actor discusses his directorial debut, leaving Los Angeles, and the decisions he has made since Good Will Hunting came out in 1997.

Here are some highlights from the interview:

On his film Gone Baby Gone:
“I feel like (Gone Baby Gone) is the linchpin for my life. My career. I have a lot riding on it. I want [the film] to work. Badly. I mean, a shitty movie comes out on 2,800 screens? I’ve been there and it’s embarrassing.”

On deciding to direct the film:“That’s why there’s something really great about directing-about having authorship over something. If you don’t like this movie, I’m the guy to see. I’m the guy to criticize. I take some measure of comfort in that. It’s fair, at least.”

On his directorial debut:“Listen, I’ve gone out and directed a movie and made it really f—king good. If the movie’s good, people will like it and go see it. All the rest of it is bullshit.”

On what’s at stake with his new film:“It’s pretty simple. If people don’t go see it – I’m f—ked.”

On dating Jennifer Lopez:
“It was probably bad for my career. What happens is this sort of bleed-over from the tabloids across your movie work. You go to a movie, you only go once. But the tabloids and Internet are everywhere. You can really subsume the public image of somebody. I ended up in an unfortunate crosshair position where I was in a relationship and [the media] mostly lied and inflated a bunch of salacious stuff for the sake of selling magazines. And I paid a certain price for that. Then, in concert with some movies that didn’t work…”

On living in L.A.:“I’d be surprised if I’m still living here in a couple of years. Professionally it would be difficult. But that’s not as important as that other thing.”