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There’s no arguing that Ben Affleck’s ties with director Kevin Smith boosted them both to places they could never go individually. Smith directed Affleck in six of his films, including Dogma, Mallrats, and his breakout role in Chasing Amy before Affleck went on to co-write Academy Award-winning Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon. Affleck then became a Hollywood A-lister, dated J-Lo, and became a respected director himself, all while growing apart from his former go-to collaborator for over a decade.
The pair’s once close personal and professional relationship has been all but abandoned, with Smith consistently going on the record to reveal that he is “not fucking tight” with Affleck.
This week, a Twitter user randomly pondered the Smith and Affleck’s fractured relationship, saying: ‘Sometimes I wonder what really happened between Ben Affleck and Kevin Smith that made them not talk to each other.”
Smith actually replied to the tweet:
If I had to guess? It’s because one of us has a big mouth and told too many candid stories that sometimes weren’t his to tell, and the other one is Ben. https://t.co/kwj82A20SJ
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) November 26, 2018
Smith, who has always been publicly candid, could be referring to the story he told at a 20th anniversary screening of Chasing Amy in July of 2017. This omission plunged Affleck into some hot water, with Westworld’s Evan Rachel Wood tweeting: “Try getting raped in a scene. Also, grow up Ben.”
“When I gave him the script, I said, ‘At one point in the movie you end up kissing Jason Lee.’ And I contextualized it as I set up the story, you’ve got to remember this is 1996. And a young Ben Affleck said, ‘Kissing another man is the hardest acting challenge an actor will ever face,’ or something like that. And it was a true story about a young f—king kid in a completely different era.” [via TooFab]
Smith also revealed back in 2009 that Affleck’s then wife Jennifer Gardner didn’t care for his sense of humor.
“Jennifer does not share the same sense of humor as me — she did not like my jokes,” Smith said, according to The New York Daily News. “I was picking on Ben Affleck making fun of him because I’ve known him for a really long time — I was talking smack — and Jennifer goes, ‘You know, if you keep saying stuff about him, I’m going to kick your a–.’ And she could — I’ve seen ‘Alias.’ She has a real girly sense of humor and didn’t understand that I was kidding.”
After Kevin Smith had his near-fatal heart attack, Affleck never reached out to wish him well. Smith didn’t take it personally, admitting “I’m too much trouble.”
[h/t TooFab]