In a revealing new
interview with The New York Times,
Ben Affleck opens up about how his struggle with sobriety has impacted his work in film, including his high-profile departure as the current DC movie universe's Batman.
"I drank relatively normally for a long time," Affleck says in the interview. "What happened was that I started drinking more and more when my marriage was falling apart. This was 2015, 2016. My drinking, of course, created more marital problems."
Affleck goes on to call his 2018 divorce from actress
Jennifer Garner "the biggest regret of my life," before digging into how difficulties in his personal life led to big changes in his career, especially with his stint as Batman.
The dissolution of Affleck's marriage ran parallel to his time as the Caped Crusader, with plans for him to direct, co-write, and star in what would become
The Batman emerging in 2015. In the lead-up to his debut as as the character in 2016's
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Affleck was already rumored to be checked out of the burgeoning franchise, with
memes of the star looking sullen at press junkets beginning to go viral.
Affleck
conceded writing and directing duties on
The Batman to
Matt Reeves in early 2017. In his interview with the
Times, Affleck recalls that when he showed a friend what he wrote for the superhero movie, they said, "I think the script is good. I also think you'll drink yourself to death if you go through what you just went though again."