by Paul Fischer

In his latest film, the sci-fi thriller Paycheck, Ben Affleck's character has a chance to change an unsettling future. In reality, Affleck takes pleasure in laughing at the kind of year he has had, acknowledging that he may or may not want to change anything. "It's sort of that trade off," the good-humoured Affleck remarks. "I have a great life. It's not the most important thing in the world to have a big gigantic bomb movie, but it's also nice to realize that you get over it. It's just a movie. You can't make a movie work if it doesn't. We tried to re-shoot for 5 weeks and there was just nothing you could do. I feel like I have 2 out of 3 this year that work and it may take 2 to make up for 1 but I feel really good about Paycheck. I think it's going to work and I just try not to read and get too involved in like gossips and tabloid sort of stuff because I take comfort in the assumption, maybe erroneous, that most people understand that the tabloids are largely fictitious."

And yes, Ben's love life is not fiction and a wedding is still on, but not necessarily to Jennifer. Affleck wants it known that he may have another marriage on the horizon. "I'm willing to make a statement about this marriage right now," he says, unashamedly. "This is legal now, in Massachusetts and Matt Damon and I have set a date. We will be married on New Years day and the honeymoon will of course be on the Greek island of Mykenos," he confesses amidst peals of infectious laughter, when asked about Matt's film, Stuck on You, a Farrelly Brothers movie that revolves around conjoined twins. "There is nobody I would rather be strapped to, " says the strapping young lad, "but of course I'd want to be on top. As for the marriage, "We registered at the gayadvocate.com. Log on!"

Affleck has always maintained a sense of humour about himself, such as the above would indicate. On a more reflective note, the actor says that comes from "a sense that I'm really lucky and am very grateful for a really good life." I understand that it is a trade off and when it no longer becomes worthwhile to me I'll no longer make it."

Affleck is genuinely passionate about Paycheck, which he was keen to do because it meant working with action director John Woo. "I've been a great fan of John's Harboiled and The Killer so it was like getting to work with one of my heroes. Getting to stand there and do the 2 guns shot, I literally felt like a 12 year old kid. It was really interesting from the perspective of somebody who wants to be a director and is trying to pay attention to directors and how they work, to have paid really close attention and one of the things that was interesting was that he demonstrated a desire to grow, to change stuff. He wanted to imbue this movie with a kind of Hitchcock tone and I realized that he really has a foresight about what he wants the movie
to be."