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Ben Affleck Admits to Bringing ‘a Lot of Unhappiness’ to Justice League Set: ‘I Had My Own Failings’

Ben Affleck is reflecting on his challenging superhero days.

In an interview for GQ, the actor, 52, described his time on 2017’s Justice League, in which he played Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman, alongside Henry Cavill’s Superman, as “a really excruciating experience.”

Affleck said while his negative experiences didn’t all come from being in a superhero movie, he is “not interested in going down that particular genre again.”

“I’ve lost interest in what was of interest about it to me,” Affleck said. “But I certainly wouldn’t want to replicate an experience like that. A lot of it was misalignment of agendas, understandings, expectations. And also by the way, I wasn’t bringing anything particularly wonderful to that equation at the time, either. I had my own failings, significant failings, in that process and at that time.”

Ben Affleck Batman Justice League
Ben Affleck as Batman in ‘Justice League’. DC Entertainment/Warner Bros/Shutterstock

At the time, Affleck said he felt he had failed as an actor and was unhappy when coming to set for the film that also starred Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Ezra Miller as The Flash, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, and Ray Fisher as Cyborg.

“But more of my failings of, in terms of why I had a bad experience, part of it is that what I was bringing to work every day was a lot of unhappiness,” Affleck said. “So I wasn’t bringing a lot of positive energy to the equation. I didn’t cause problems, but I came in and I did my job and I went home. But you’ve got to do a little bit better than that.”

This isn’t the first time the Argo actor has shared how difficult it was to be on set, previously saying Justice League was the “worst experience.”

The film itself was plagued by a variety of issues, including delays, budget issues, script changes, as well as the last-minute director change late in filming, which resulted in extensive reshoots. Director Joss Whedon took over the project after Snyder stepped away from the movie after his 20-year-old daughter’s death.

Several Justice League costars have spoken out against Whedon’s alleged behavior on set of the film, including Gadot, who recalled being “shocked” by how he spoke toward her during production. Additionally, Fisher accused Whedon of being “gross, abusive, unprofessional and completely unacceptable.” (An official investigation by WarnerMedia ended with “remedial action.”)

Ray Fisher (Cyborg / Victor Stone), Ezra Miller (The Flash / Barry Allen), Ben Affleck (Batman / Bruce Wayne), Henry Cavill (Superman / Clark Kent), Gal Gadot (Diana Prince / Wonder Woman), Jason Momoa (Aquaman / Arthur Curry) in Justice League
‘Justice League’.Courtesy of HBO Max

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In his latest interview with GQ, Affleck shared that another issue with Justice League was when it “started to skew too old for a big part of the audience.”

“Like even my own son at the time was too scared to watch the movie. And so when I saw that I was like, ‘Oh s—, we have a problem,’ ” Affleck said. “Then I think that’s when you had a filmmaker that wanted to continue down that road and a studio that wanted to recapture all the younger audience at cross purposes. Then you have two entities, two people really wanting to do something different and that is a really bad recipe.”

When asked what he thinks of his turn as the Caped Crusader, Affleck admitted he “had a really good time” entering the DC Universe.

“I loved doing the Batman movie. I loved Batman v Superman. And I liked my brief stints on The Flash that I did and when I got to work with Viola Davis on Suicide Squad for a day or two,” Affleck said. “In terms of creatively, I really think that I like the idea and the ambition that I had for it, which was of the sort of older, broken, damaged Bruce Wayne. And it was something we really went for in the first movie.”

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