Benjamin Géza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is an Academy Award-winning American film screenwriter, director and actor.
Biography
Affleck was born Benjamin Geza Affleck-Boldt in Berkeley, California, the son of Chris Ann, a school district employee and teacher, and Timothy Affleck, a drug counselor, social worker, janitor, auto mechanic, bar tender, and former actor with the Theater Company of Boston. Affleck's younger brother is actor Casey Affleck. Affleck has Irish ancestry.
His family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts when he was very young and his parents divorced in 1984.
At the age of eight, Affleck met ten-year-old Matt Damon, who lived two blocks away. Affleck and Damon would later attend Cambridge Rindge and Latin School together, although they were in different year groups. Affleck attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, as well as the University of Vermont.
Affleck worked as a child actor, appearing on the PBS kids' series The Voyage of the Mimi as well as in several made-for-television movies. Affleck came to national attention working with best-friend Damon in Good Will Hunting (1997). They shared credit and both received the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Affleck had a high-profile romance with actress Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998, following her breakup with actor Brad Pitt. In 2002, he began dating actress/singer Jennifer Lopez, whom he had met prior to filming Jersey girl. The same year, his engagement to Lopez was announced, and the relationship between the two received a lot of attention by the entertainment media who dubbed the couple "Bennifer." The couple broke up in 2004 while they were due to get married on the 14th of September of that year, both blaming the media attention - including an alleged incident in which Affleck partied with Christian Slater and some lap dancers in Vancouver. This negative publicity and media attention was also brought along to the 2004 Jersey Girl, which also was a box office failure.
Affleck subsequently dated his Daredevil co-star, actress Jennifer Garner, and the two were engaged after nine months of seeing each other. In May 2005, it was announced that Garner was pregnant and the couple were married on June 29, 2005 on the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos. Garner gave birth to a daughter, Violet Anne Affleck, on December 1, 2005 in Los Angeles, California.
Affleck is an avid poker player, regularly entering local events. He has been tutored by poker professionals Amir Vahedi and Annie Duke, and won the California State Poker Championship on June 20, 2004, taking home the first prize of $356,000, which qualified him for the 2004 World Poker Tour final tournament. Affleck is a fan of the Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots and Boston Celtics.
Affleck supports a non-profit organization called the A-T Childrens Project. He started supporting the A-TCP after meeting Joe Kindregan when filming Forces of Nature. Kindregan, who was then 9 years old, has a rare disease called ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T). Affleck has attended benefits and spoken to Congress to advocate for the A-T Childrens Project. The disease, described as like having muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, immune deficiency and cancer all at once, is progressive; children with A-T usually do not live beyond their late teens. In 2007, Affleck was the keynote speaker at the Graduation Ceremony for Falls Church High School at the GMU Patriot Center. Of his best friend and graduating senior Joe Kindregan, Affleck mentions that though Kindregan is bound to a wheelchair, through his perseverance he has taught Affleck, "How to stand."
In the final weeks of the 2000 Presidential campaign, Affleck promoted the Democratic ticket, supporting Al Gore and repeatedly delivering a get-out-the-vote plea: "It's very important to vote. The president will appoint three or four Supreme Court justices."
