LOS ANGELES – Ben Affleck has vowed to give up acting for the sake of his one-year-old daughter, Violet. The star of Hollywoodland made the decision despite having been nominated for his first Golden Globe award, because “she’s going to have my last name and I don’t want her to mutter it over a drink. I want her to be proud of her old man.”
Mr. Affleck’s decision was also influenced by his wife, actress Jennifer Garner, 34, who played CIA agent Sydney Bristow in the late ABC television series Alias.
“Jen convinced me of the detrimental effect of second-hand acting on children,” said Mr. Affleck, 34, who managed to quit drinking five years ago.
“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 their children were young. My retirement is a small price to pay for a healthy child.”
Violet Affleck’s gain is Hollywood’s loss, however. Her father’s portrayal of television Superman George Reeves in Hollywoodland clearly signaled a return from “the ego excess of Armageddon, Pearl Harbor [and] Gigli,” wrote Peter Travers in Rolling Stone.
“[Mr.] Affleck’s battering at the hands of fame has prepped him beautifully to play Reeves. He knows this character from the inside: the surface charm, the hidden vulnerability, the ache of watching a career become a joke and being helpless to stop it.”
Mr. Affleck said he had considered retiring after his 2004 disaster Surviving Christmas, a movie so terrible that Washington Post critic Desson Thomson wondered if Mr. Affleck was “trying to beat out Pauly Shore and Cuba Gooding Jr. for worst movie posterboy of all time.”
Another critic, marveling at the rough treatment Mr. Affleck received from movie critics, asked what he might have done to deserve it: “Did he (screw) Harry Knowles’ mom or Roger Ebert’s wife? Has he made off with Stephen Holden’s children?”
Whatever his transgressions, the critics won’t have Mr. Affleck to kick around any longer. What’s more, he says, “I’m proud enough to want to go out on top, and I think I did. It doesn’t get much better than a Golden Globe nomination.”
Although Mr. Affleck confessed he will miss “the challenge of creating memorable characters,” he has not ruled out lending his singular voice to “the right” animated features.
“I’ve been told I have a face for animations,” he laughed.
Next Oprah: Actors who should retire for the sake of their children.
© The fine fucking print: The editorial content on this page is fictional. It is presented for satirical and/or entertainment purposes only. We cannot be held responsible for the actions of anyone who takes this sort of shit seriously. We also do not wish to be held responsible for any copyrighted material that sneaked onto this page when we weren’t looking. If you can prove that anything on this page belongs rightfully to you, we will happily take it down and return the unused portion. No questions asked.
