Kevin Smith Talks Ben Affleck

Before a recent screening of Mallrats, Kevin Smith spoke to the audience about Ben Affleck. Page Six quotes him as follows:

"For years, early in my career, they would write about us like Scorsese and De Niro. Like not good but the bad version of them. A lot of my early work features Ben because I love him, he’s one of the most charming people I’ve ever met. When I met him, he knew exactly who the fuck he was. Hanging out with him on ‘Mallrats,’ he was really f—ing sweet. That’s what I loved about Affleck. Real fucking sweet. Like, he was working on ‘Good Will Hunting,’ and Castle Rock was producing it at that time, and then we brought it to Miramax. So he didn’t shoot every day on ‘Mallrats.’ His was kind of a smaller part. 

So my man would be like, ‘Would you mind if I went back to Los Angeles and worked on the ‘Good Will Hunting’ script because we’re getting closer to shooting? And I said, ‘Yeah dude, as long as you come back when we gotta shoot your scenes, totally.’ So before he left, he would write — he did this three fucking times — he wrote a note, which, in the day of the text, he’d probably just sent a text, but this was 1995. So I went to my office at the mall and there was a note on the desk and it was from fucking Affleck and he was like, ‘I just wanted you to know I’m having a really good time, thanks for letting me go to this thing, most movies I work on aren’t fun, this is really fun, so it’s not a good sign for its box office prospects. 

I always just thought he was so fucking charming and funny and smart. He’s way over-educated and again knows exactly who he is. So I always felt he could be a leading man. I was like, ‘Dude, why aren’t you a leading man?’ and he was like, ‘Because you cast me the guy who fucks people in Volkswagens and shit.’”