Ben Affleck is starring in the upcoming drama The Way Back, but, apparently, it almost didn’t happen.
The film’s director recently opened up about how Ben’s ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, helped keep the movie on track after Ben’s 2018 relapse.
“So, what happened was, just as we started prepping the movie, Ben fell off the wagon,” Gavin told University of Pennsylvania’s 34th Street Magazine. “So he ended up going to rehab, and I didn’t know if the movie was over. The studio certainly thought the movie was over.”
But before they could pull the plug on the project, Jennifer stepped in.
“His ex-wife Jennifer Garner called me up, and told me that when he went to rehab, he took a basketball with him,” he continued. “She said, ‘Gavin, he’s asking you, please don’t pull the plug on the movie, he really wants to do this.’”
Gavin revealed that Ben had to detox for a week in rehab before he was able to meet with him.
“We spent half a day together and figured out a way to do this that will work for him, because most importantly he needed to recover and needed to get his sobriety on track,” he shares. “That overtook everything. And then he got out the day before we started shooting. So we had a very raw, vulnerable guy showing up for our first day of shooting.”
Ben plays Jack Cunningham, a former basketball star struggling with addiction. He previously opened up about his character having a lot of parallels with his personal journey IRL.
“There are some things about this character I really could connect to — being a recovering alcoholic, going through family strife, a divorce,” Ben told People. “You try to bring your own life experience to the parts that you can, use your imagination on the other parts.”
And he hopes that the movie will make an impact on an emotional level.
“The potential for a movie like this is to really inspire somebody, to move somebody,” he said. “Sometimes you do movies, you go, ‘Okay, it’s a thriller. They’re thrilled. And then they go home and they’ve forgotten about it.’ My goal with this was to make something that would feel enduring and lasting.”
“Not everybody is going to come in and think it’s great,” he added. “But for those who do, and for those who may be moved by this, the idea that you can face hard things and get better, I’m really proud of that.”
