Ben Affleck has joked about his on-screen nudity in a conversation with Sacha Baron Cohen.
The actors traded gags about baring all for the camera in a conversation for trade magazine Variety‘s Actors on Actors series.
Affleck famously stripped off for a shower scene at the end of the 2014 thriller Gone Girl, the adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s bestselling book, which also starred Rosamund Pike.
Cohen is also no stranger to taking his clothes off on camera, and caused a stir with the luminous green “mankini” he wears in his film Borat.
He said to Affleck: “So, obviously, you’re a two-time Academy Award winner, a multiple Golden Globe winner, you were nominated for best depiction of nudity, sexuality or seduction by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists in Gone Girl. What did that mean to you?”
Affleck replied: “Wow. Everyone dreams of that.”
Cohen then asked: “Were you furious when you didn’t win?” to which Affleck replied: “Were you angry? … I mean you do so much frontal, you’ve been so naked, and yet you were overlooked.”
“Yeah, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists never saw what I saw in the mirror,” the Ali G star said.
Affleck then turned the tables on Cohen, asking him: “I noticed in the past, when you blacked out your penis, it was 14 inches.
“Now, how close to the truth was that really?”
Cohen quickly changed the subject, joking: “I feel like we’re veering away. Tell me about your Batman!”
Affleck, who previously starred in blockbusters Pearl Harbor and Armageddon, also discussed how he decides which projects he wants to take on, saying: “At this point in my career, I’m a little old. I’m 48, so I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be the ‘not-25-year-old’ guy.
“But there are more interesting roles. People with whom you can identify are more interesting to me because I no longer have the ability to do something when I’m bored halfway through it and hate it.
“I just can’t do it. It’s not worth it to be away from my kids.
“If I’m going to travel, there had better be something really satisfying that I think they’ll see at some point, hopefully. Although my kids are like ‘Dad, we don’t want to watch your movies.’
“With this movie (The Way Back), what happened was, we were released on the week that Covid became pervasive and they shut everything down.
“And I thought ‘This is a disaster. My movie comes out that I really want people to see and they closed movie theatres.’
“But then they moved it right to streaming.
“There was this captive audience of people who are all of a sudden at home, and I think more people saw it than would have gone out to the theatre.
“I think you have to weigh that. So now the line is blurred, and I’m just looking to do stuff that is personally rewarding. I think my Armageddon days are behind me.”
