All All. Sign In. Favorite Gents. List activity. Ben Affleck. Producer Actor Writer Argo Ben has a younger brother, actor Casey Affleck , who was born in He is of mostly English, Irish, German, and Scottish ancestry.
Affleck wanted to be an actor ever since he could remember, and his first acting experience was for a Burger King commercial, when he was on the PBS mini-series, The Voyage of the Mimi It was also at that age when Ben met his lifelong friend and fellow actor, Matt Damon.
They played little league together and took drama classes together. Ben's teen years consisted of mainly TV movies and small television appearances including Hands of a Stranger and The Second Voyage of the Mimi He made his big introduction into feature films in when he was cast in Dazed and Confused After that, he did mostly independent films like Kevin Smith 's Mallrats and Chasing Amy which were great for Ben's career, receiving renowned appreciation for his works at the Sundance film festival.
But the success he was having in independent films didn't last much longer and things got a little shaky for Ben. He was living in an apartment with his brother Casey and friend Matt, getting tired of being turned down for the big roles in films and being given the forgettable supporting ones. Since Matt was having the same trouble, they decided to write their own script, where they could call all the shots. So, after finishing the script for Good Will Hunting , they gave it to their agent, Patrick Whitesell , who showed it to a few Hollywood studios, finally being accepted by Castle Rock.
It was great news for the two, but Castle Rock wasn't willing to give Ben and Matt the control over the project they were hoping for. It was friend Kevin Smith who took it to the head of Miramax who bought the script giving Ben and Matt the control they wanted and, in December 5, , Good Will Hunting was released, making the two unknown actors famous.
