Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner hadn’t done a film together since Affleck’s 2003 feature Daredevil. One of the reasons Garner wasn’t sure about working with her ex-husband was due to his pace as a filmmaker.
Ben Affleck once credited Jennifer Garner for his career revival
Affleck’s career went through heavy turbulence before the Oscar-winner managed to find his footing. Somewhere in the early to mid 2000s, the media turned on Affleck. And Affleck had a difficult time finding the source for all the vitriol that was being thrown his way.
“The amount of venom—I must have touched some specific little place in the consciousness,” Affleck once told GQ. “I don’t believe I didn’t deserve any negative judgment for anything, but it was just way out of whack.”
His solution at the time was to retreat from the spotlight until he could figure out a new way to maneuver his career.
“I think I just ran away. You can only handle so much. I moved for a while to this place in Georgia that I have, was able to get away, by and large, from stuff. Come up with a plan for how to do something with my life that doesn’t put me in the crosshairs of this sort of thing,” he said said.
During his hiatus, Affleck married Jennifer Garner, who he met doing Pearl Harbor and fell for later on. Garner would later become instrumental in Affleck’s career resurgence by giving him the inspiration he needed to do certain roles.
“Getting to know Jennifer, falling in love with her and being connected with her gave me a foundation to reach out and say, okay, I’m going to do Hollywoodland,” he once confided to Loaded (via Daily Mail). “I’m going to direct Gone Baby Gone. Those were the steps forward I needed to put positive stuff on the board.”
Jennifer Garner didn’t want to work with Ben Affleck because he was a slow director
Despite their successful careers, Garner and Affleck didn’t think it was a good idea to work together. The last films collaborated on didn’t do too well either critically, financially, or both. Affleck felt this was a sign that any potential onscreen collaboration wouldn’t be well-received by the public.
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“I think audiences have a hard time suspending disbelief,” Affleck once told Time (via Us Weekly). “They already know a whole bunch of things about the relationship you have with the other person and if you try and thrust you and another person into a fictional relationship, I think it is distracting.”
But Garner had another reason why she wasn’t too keen on working with her husband. Although she more than admired Affleck’s directing career, she felt she would’ve been bothered by his pacing as a filmmaker.
“I don’t want to because he is not the world’s fastest director, and I like to get in and do my work and go home and put the kids to bed,” Garner once said according to Just Jared. “I’m afraid there would be this moment where I would say, ‘OK. You’ve got it. I promise you it is in the can. I’ve got to go home.’ But you know, life is long and I never say never. I think Ben is brilliant at what he does. I am so happy for him and proud of him.”
Ben Affleck would’ve loved to direct Jennifer Garner in a movie
Affleck and Garner officially divorced in June of 2015. Still, the two kept an amicable and friendly relationship with each other after their separation. Affleck wouldn’t have even minded directing his ex-wife in a feature film of his own.
“I think that would be great. I’ve often said that I want to direct a movie that Jennifer was in because I think she’s so great and she could do something really cool,” Affleck told People in a 2017 interview.
The two would just have to get their family situation sorted out before agreeing to another team-up.
“The problem that gets in the way is that one of us has to be looking after the kids at home,” he said.
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