Ben Affleck is getting candid about the way he grew up.
During a recent appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the 52-year-old “Gone Girl” star told the host about the freedom he had as a child and how the way he was raised by his parents would be looked down upon today.
“I was thinking about it the other day. I would go to the movies. I was an actual latch-key kid. I walked to school,” he explained. “Like from the first grade, I had a key with a piece of yarn around my neck and I went to school, and we wanted to see the movies. I remember seeing ‘Star Wars.’ Took the subway like three stops, must have seen it 20 times.”
When asked by host Jimmy Kimmel how old he was when he began traveling through the city on his own, Affleck admitted he was as young as five, six or seven years old.
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As a parent to three children, Violet, 19, Seraphina, 16, and Samuel, 13, who he shares with his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, Affleck understands that “if you did that in West LA now, they would call child protective services, like ‘This man has to be imprisoned.’”
“So, either my parents were very derelict, or it was a different era. Or both,” he said. “I remember coming home from school like when my dad still lived there, and him just being there. He didn’t have a job, he had nowhere to go, he just didn’t want to walk me to school. He just couldn’t be bothered.”
Affleck appeared on the show to promote his latest movie, “The Accountant 2,” which is the highly anticipated sequel to his successful 2016 action/thriller, “The Accountant.” In the film, he portrays a man on the autism spectrum who reconnects with his brother after eight years to track down assassins.
In the new movie, Affleck’s character tries to make a romantic connection, and in one scene begins line dancing to connect with a woman. In a recent interview on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” Affleck explained that “multiple instructors” were hired to give him dance lessons.
After mentioning this, Clarkson interrupted to poke fun at his need for more than one teacher to learn, to which Affleck joked, “I did not need multiple instructors . . . I arrived at the rehearsal, and there was two women there, and the director had been calling me every day, [saying] ‘You practicing the dancing? You practicing the dancing?’ [I thought] ‘How uncoordinated do you think I am?’”
Although Affleck brought his three children to the premiere of the movie, he admitted that they “don’t censor their criticism” when it comes to his work, saying they are “very tough” on him.
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“They’ll sit right next to me watching a movie and, while it’s happening, [say] ‘This is terrible. I mean, this is terrible. Why did you do this?'” he said.
The actor made headlines last month when he denied his son the purchase of $6,000 sneakers. In a TikTok video taken at a shoe convention, Samuel could be seen asking his dad for the shoes, and upon seeing the hefty price tag, Affleck told his son, “That’s a lot of lawns you gotta mow there.”
During a recent appearance on “Today with Jenna & Friends,” Affleck elaborated on the incident, explaining that it’s important to him that his children understand the value of working hard. He shared that his older children both have “the kind of classic teenager” jobs.
“You love your kids. You want to give them everything and do everything for them, but I think you definitely do them a disservice by not connecting [if] you want something that you want, you have to work for that,” he said.
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As for his son, the “Good Will Hunting” star said he is “reckoning with that reality right now” and has no “crazy-expensive, fancy shoes” in his closet.
“And I’m like, ‘Well, if you want that, you can work 1,000 hours,’” he said on the morning show. “You know what I mean? Minimum wage. And once you work 1,000 hours, you may not want to spend that on a pair of shoes.”
The lesson in working hard also applies to sports, with Affleck sharing that he isn’t the kind of parent who lets their children win when it comes to playing games against them.
While on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” Affleck shared how growing up with Matt Damon and seeing his dynamic with his father inspired him to make his children “earn” their wins.
“I told my son when he was really getting serious about playing basketball, he wanted to play me all the time, and I was like, ‘I’m not gonna let you win,'” he explained. “Kind of ’cause I remembered Matt Damon’s dad, he didn’t let him win, and when Matt finally beat his dad, I still think it’s one of the best days of Matt’s life. He never forgot it. “
“I didn’t expect it to happen that quick. We were playing, and he kind of got lucky, I’m not gonna lie, he managed to hit like five threes real quick at the end of the game . . . he beats me, and I can see it meant the world to him,” he continued. “What I didn’t expect was how much it would mean to me. I was like damn it. I did not like it. I’m like, I’m not ready to be losing to [my son].”
