LOS ANGELES – Ben Affleck has vowed to give up acting for the sake of his unborn daughter. The Pearl Harbor star said he made the decision at the request of his pregnant wife, Jennifer Garner. Friends of the couple say Garner, 33, who stars in the television show Alias, doesn’t want Affleck to continue acting while she is pregnant, and she certainly doesn’t want him to act after the baby arrives.
“Jen convinced me of the detrimental effect of second-hand acting on children,” said Affleck, who turns thirty-three today. “You don’t have to look far in this town to find people whose lives were ruined because both their parents insisted on acting when the children were young. My retirement is a small price to pay for a healthy child.”
His daughter’s gain is Hollywood’s loss, however, as Affleck has demonstrated a growing depth and range in a variety of roles. The Chicago Sun-Times‘ Roger Ebert praised Gigli in which Affleck played a mob enforcer because “something conventional and predictable . . . is not what we get from Gigli. The movie tries to do something different, thoughtful, and a little daring [and] maybe . . . is worth seeing for some scenes that are really very good.”
Affleck won similar praise for his work in Paycheck in which he portrays a scientist who gets his memory erased after inventing a machine that sees into the future. The NYC Film Critic, after noting that Affleck and director John Woo “received a lot of flack for Paycheck,” says that “much of it (was) undeserved.” Granted, the critic continues, Affleck is not at his best in contemplative scenes, but “[f]ortunately he spends most of Paycheck on the run so that improves his performance considerably.”
Most recently Affleck revealed a flair for comedy in Surviving Christmas, a movie that won him notice from Rolling Stone for “trying to channel Ben Stiller . . . [in] an unseasonably early holiday [bird] stuffed with helpings of Ben Affleck and James Gandolfini.”
Although Affleck confessed he will miss “the challenge of creating memorable characters,” he doesn’t think going cold turkey offscreen will be difficult.
“I know from addictions,” he laughed. “Four years ago I kicked the bottle after checking into Malibu’s Promises rehabilitation clinic. I’ve been sober ever since.”
In other news, President Bush said he hopes his neighbor Larry Mattlage “will aim a little lower next time.” Bush made his remark after learning that Mattlage had fired his rifle into the air to intimidate participants in the growing peace demonstration taking place near Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas.
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