Ben Affleck holds forth on the highs and lows of his career in a lengthy new interview.
Among the lows is shooting Justice League, to which he admits he didn’t bring his best self.
Among the highs is his Internet-famous DVD commentary for the Michael Bay-directed Armageddon.
“That is one of the achievements of my career on which I’m willing to pat myself on the back. I believe that may be at least top five all-time DVD commentaries,” Affleck tells GQ. “By the way, nobody said anything to me. I don’t think any of the other people listened to it or gave a f*ck until years later when it was played. And I was kind of shocked and appalled that I went on there and started being like…. I mean, that’s all true. Everything I said was a hundred percent true, but that’s the point. You’re not supposed to go on there and tell all of the truth.”
In the commentary, the actor relates a conversation with Bay.
“I asked Michael why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers, and he told me to shut the f*ck up,” Affleck says on the DVD track.
“So that was the end of that talk. [Does Michael Bay voice] ‘You know, Ben, just shut up, OK? You know, this is a real plan.’ I was like, ‘You mean it’s a real plan at NASA to train oil drillers?’ And he was like, ‘Just shut your mouth!’ “
Later, as Bruce Willis’ character stands in an airplane hanger looking at a drilling device, Affleck says in V.O. commentary: “Bruce is going to tell them that they did a bad job of building the drill tank. Because he’s a salt of the earth guy and the NASA nerd-o-nauts don’t understand his salt of the earth ways…his rough and tumble ways. Like somehow they can build rocket ships, but they don’t understand what makes a good trannie.”
At one point, Billy Bob Thorton (playing the head of NASA) is explaining to Willis’ character that the astronauts have been training for eight months.
“Like eight whole months,” says Affleck on the DVD track, “as if that’s not enough time to learn how to drill a hole, but in a week we’re going to learn how to be astronauts.”
In the footage, Willis’ character says, “These boys may make great astronauts, but they don’t know jack about drilling.”
To which Affleck replies in V.O., “I mean this is a little bit of a logic stretch, let’s face it. They don’t know jack about drilling? How hard can it be? Aim the drill at the ground and turn it on.”
You can watch Affleck’s now-classic commentary below.
In the new GQ interview, Affleck explains his mindset going into Armageddon.
“I thought, I’m going to go do a big Hollywood action movie and I love it. And yes, during the movie, I was kind of surprised to find that sometimes they weren’t all that interested in making sense.
“I remember Billy Bob [Thornton] was having a long conversation about a scene in the space mission control or whatever it was, and he was like, ‘No, that’s okay, man. I can stop talking about it. I just kind of like to be in the kind of movies that make sense, you know what I mean? But fuck it, we don’t have to do that. We’re not doing that on this one. Fuck it.’
“And I was the only person who was kind of like, ‘Okay, I guess we don’t operate by those other rules here.’
“There’s a sense of being small and of this thing being big. And so I felt like a little ant on the elephant when I would shoot my mouth off about the conversation I had with Michael about why is it easier to train oil drillers to be astronauts than to train astronauts to drill a hole in the ground?”
