Name: Ben Affleck | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #578
Uploaded: 2025-04-24T14:00:25.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ben Affleck | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #578' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-04-24. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ben Affleck | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #578' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-04-24. Transcript available.

Ben Affleck | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #578

today's guest is an actor a writer a director he's won an oscar award you know
his movies
like goodwill hunting gone girl batman the list goes on he has a new film the
accountant 2 it's
in theaters this friday with john bernthal you may have seen the first one i
had a great time
getting to know him today's guest is mr ben affleck
yeah i lost my i wonder if you lose vanity as you get a little bit older like
not you but like do p
what is that i don't know i see some people like i don't know it's hard to tell
because that you
know you see some people like doing crazy looking things and you think like
that looks crazy why are
you trying to look 18 years old you know what i mean um oh like he's on
celebrity big brother right now
who's that guy he kind of looks like jack sparrow i don't know i don't know
what you're talking about
but i can imagine a lot you know what i mean you kind of can like a loo i think
you can go one of
two ways like if you see yourself all the time and especially if like the way
you make a living is
by kind of in part the way you look or whatever it feels like you know people
can get like obsessed
with it you know what i mean yeah that's kind of who i was thinking of mickey rourke
i think
yeah no no judgment against him but he trust you know it's like you can it's
definitely an active
yeah some people it's like an active thing and then you're in a real kind of
like conundrum
with yourself because you have to get old so then you you would constantly be
feeling like afraid to
get older i guess or you'd be in like in a yeah i think it's a tricky thing
right like you you know
nobody wants to get older right because what it means is like you're gonna die
and nobody wants
to really face that and also you just find out like you know i you know you're
50 man you'll
when you get there you'll see like just regular shit that used to be normal
hurts like moving
around you're like damn what happened to me today you're like oh i why is my
back hurt oh because i got up
and then i sat back down you know what i mean yeah i petted a small dog creates
like small injuries
all the time you know and so you start to get a little bit that that can kind
of affect you and i
think if you um i think part of it's you got to just get comfortable with the
fact that you know and
i guess i'm lucky because i'm i don't feel like oh shit i better look young and
i you know kind of
am who i am and and um i'm all right with that and also kind of what i what i
like what i'm interested
in more and more is stuff that doesn't necessarily involve like how i look like
that pressure i think
like for women i from it for anybody who's sees himself all the time it's like
i think that can
turn into like a a vicious cycle of uh trying to look at shit and fix it or
look younger or something
uh whereas like you don't have to look any kind of way to direct movies you
know what i mean or or have
a business you know so i'm i guess i'm lucky you love me do you it's hard to
know if you it would
seem like you seem like a guy who likes being in hollywood or doesn't like
being in hollywood
i guess there's things i really like about it and things i really don't like
yeah right and i wish
they didn't have to be together but they are right like it's kind of life it's
there's you got to take
the good with the bad i don't really like to like do big social events or go
out much i'm kind of
i don't really want to be on care certainly when i'm like in my regular life
and i'm walking around
in my you know whatever underwear and t-shirts but i don't want people looking
at me i like
i'm my family and my kids and my life i i wish that were more private i don't i
don't know how many
people really want to be sort of scrutinized in that way but i i really like
making movies and i like
telling those stories and so look the truth is i always knew that was kind of a
part of it and so
you know i deal with it i don't there's things i i don't love about um this
business a lot of them
you know it can make you kind of crazy you know it can record and there's stuff
that's just no fun
for me like you know events and shows and stuff like that i don't some people
really know how to
have a good time i wish i i did i wish i was out there like great we're gonna
hit it and i'm gonna
you know what i mean like as if i had that attitude i'd probably be happier
about it yeah you know
what i mean yeah dude i'm always trapped inside of myself there's always like a
lot of this like
somebody were like you don't like being in a crowd i'm like i have a crowd
inside of me right now there's
a crowd in my head that's busy enough 30 people in here and we're out of hors d'oeuvres
so i i got
enough fucking problems on the interior right now um so i can talk dude i can
totally uh i can totally
relate to that and every time there is a an uh and then we'll get off this i
want to talk i know you
i want to talk to you about directing and acting but um because yeah i was just
i was like this
bit is so because they always get pictures you where you seem like you're like
the the dwarf that
like is kind of like the backup dwarf you know like you're on the side you're
smoking you're like
what is that guy i didn't i don't know that character but it's like you're like
is he pissed
because he's a little pissed yeah he's an understudy he's the understudy dwarf
okay and not dwarf
like you're a regular heighted guy but it's like but i shouldn't have said
dwarf i shouldn't say
anything but it was like um i don't know they all it's like they only put this
chronology out of you
that makes you seem like you're kind of bummed well here's the thing um if the
only time like
when somebody's taking a picture of me i'm bummed because usually i'm with my
kids i'm trying to go
somewhere and then there's four guys we're like oh and i'm like hey man every
time can you give me
some time i'm trying to be with my kids i'm do you mind can you you know what i
mean so the look
on your face is kind of like and then they go away not taking the picture you
go inside and you're
having a good time but it's this selective experience of like take a picture of
somebody
every time they're feeling irritated they're gonna look irritated especially if
you're the one
irritating them yeah it's like i'll come piss you off and then take your
picture and then put and
then be like look i'm pissed off right that's exactly what that's exactly what
that whole system
is really right but and it's like useful because that's why like you know i'm
sure you've seen on
all the stuff like the you know that's kind of the idea is like follow somebody
around antagonize them
and then hopefully they'll have like a nervous breakdown and go crazy on you
and then your
video be worth more money you know yeah it's it's such a it's that whole thing
gets really black
mirrorish man you know it really gets kind of like um like i can remember a
long time ago you know
years and years ago like i really had a lot of empathy for britney spears
because i remember that
it seemed like it's not somebody that i i knew or hung out with but i just like
everybody else you
see all this shit that comes through and i but having had my own experiences
myself i knew like
these are people are following her around in a time where she may or may not
have been having
difficulty i don't know because i don't know her but i do know that the the
cycle of having people
harangue you and yell at you and hassle you and follow you it kind of seemed
like that itself was kind
of whipping up the whole thing into a tizzy so it's it's and i like they're not
helping well yeah
and they're kind of poking a stick at it and going look look look at it look
and it's that's where it
felt kind of like that's the first time i thought this is kind of a a weird
kind of um unintentional
i think culturally but kind of collective cruelty where what's taken out of the
image that you see
are the people around right you know waving the stick at the tiger or poking on
it or whatever
um and all you see is the the growling animal whatever it is um but like that a
part of that
is because somebody's coming around and you know hitting on it or whatever to
make it get active and
that's where you think okay well this isn't really news it's not even real it's
not what would be
happening if this effect wasn't taking place yeah and and that's where i
thought okay you know the
the sort of wise thing to do is to just sort of like maintain one's perspective
and try to remove
yourself a little bit it doesn't which is what i would like to do i think there's
this sense that
that like if you see someone's picture all the time they must want you to be
seeing right right
which is not the case at all for me i'm self-conscious i don't really want you
to be
seeing that i don't see any reason for it as an actor it's no good for you
because i don't really
want people if they watch a movie to be like that's not him because i saw him
yesterday eating lunch and
i know he's who he really is it gets in the way of you being able to create
like the illusion it's
really hard work to create the illusion that this person like the character in
the accountant two for
example is a real person in a real circumstance in order to get the audience to
care about it to laugh
to find it exciting and empathize the character they have to suspend disbelief
that's harder wow if
you're constantly being shown something else so i think it it gets in the way
it makes it harder to
to be an actor and it's also just it's also not good for you people start to
resent you if they see
you too much no matter whether or not you're trying to be so you go no i don't
want to do this and
nonetheless like i remember 20 years ago going through an experience where i
was like it feels to the
world like i'm trying to shove myself in their face and nobody likes that right
nobody wants to be the
like you the the camera hog the guy who's trying to yeah get a bunch of new ben
affleck shoes or
whatever and i'm like man you just leave me alone and i'd be i would be much
happier so in a way it
also can damage your career although i think it's i don't pretend to understand
the nuances and the
of social media and how to manage that as celebrities so i don't do it some
people do it really well
but and i think there is a difference now because like it's like if you have
100 million followers
that's actually valuable and meaningful in a different way i still i'm kind of
old school
i guess in a way of see medium school i think i'm middle school yes exactly i
am a seventh grader
oh dude yeah i don't think i don't know if i graduated that when some of them
they let you
skip i guess if you're you know depending on what county you're in sometimes
they hold you back um
they hold you back dude bro the scariest thing was when like the dumb bully kid
got held back
and you're like you had to stick around in your grade and you're like bro i
remember we got word
kids 6 10 and in like sixth grade dude we got word that damien had gotten held
back and people were
like oh hell no dude we cannot do damien again hold me back too we cannot do
damien again like damien has
to go out to pasture wherever they put these kids that leave sixth grade and
they're like damien's coming
finish their education shut him down dude tase him or something you know put a
tire spike when he's
leaving out of his driveway in the morning but damien cannot come back um but
yeah it is interesting
and it is kind of a sickness i think a lot of people see that stuff as a
sickness these days
um but i do think it's fascinating about the suspension of disbelief and that
that was something
that used to be amazing about celebrities is like you never got to see them
right and so you only got to
see them and actors and you only got to see them on screen and in this way and
so you really envision
them that way i mean you would almost be shocked if you saw a celebrity in
person or an actor in
person uh who didn't like like i