Ben Affleck: State of Play
By Fred Topel
Apr 16, 2009
Ben Affleck has been hiding out of the spotlight lately. Who could blame him? After the press gave not one, but two of his relationships, the contracted, and by implication derogative, Bennifer moniker, the spotlight hasn't been very kind to him. So he stepped behind the camera to direct the critically acclaimed Gone Baby Gone and came back to acting in smaller roles in ensemble films like He's Just Not That Into You and this week's State of Play.
Based on the British television series, which was first broadcast in 2003, the American State of Play film is a political thriller that kicks into gear after a congressman's mistress winds up dead. The politician (played by Affleck) turns to his veteran reporter friend (Russell Crowe) to get the story right. However, at the insistence of his newspaper editor (Helen Mirren), the old school journalist is paired with a blogger (Rachel McAdams). As their investigation uncovers more twists and turns in the murder scandal it also raises questions about the merits and drawbacks of their respective mediums.
In recent years Affleck has been reluctant to talk to the press, but the actor is happy to talk politics and journalism in support of this film, the issues of where a personal life ends and a pubic one begins obviously being close to his heart. Though the original State of Play hit screens long before John Edward’s pre-election sex scandal, Affleck draws comparisons between the situation his character finds himself in and that of those in Washington who have been caught with their proverbial pants down, both before and after the dawn of the blogging age.
Question: After making your very auspicious directorial debut what was the process of getting back into acting?
Ben Affleck: I think for one thing it was a relief to not have to worry about everything all the time. Something can go wrong, things can take a long time, and there can be confusion about the scene. I was just able to remind myself that it wasn't my responsibility. I could just go to the trailer and listen to music, or call people, and I didn't have to have that full time anxiety or feeling of responsibility for the movie. Directing a movie was really instructive for me. I think I learned a lot about writing, and a lot about acting, and I learned how all the pieces fit together from the inside. That was really valuable. It was a good thing.
Q:
Did you take anything from the John Edwards scandal, or any other current ones in the news?
BA:
We internalize these scandals. They are almost rote. They become like clichés. The story breaks, they stand next to the spouse, they say God has forgiven them, or are asking God to forgive them, and they want their constituents to forgive them. Then they go out and spear trash in the park or something trying to reconstitute their political career. Eventually people do forget. It's this cycle that it's lost its meaning of begging for forgiveness and hopefully receiving it.
We are so familiar with those things, but what was more interesting to me was to think about the real experience. What's the real experience that you wouldn't think of from the outside? Once of the things that I think is probably true, as I thought about it from Gary Condit, Elliot Spitzer, to John Edwards is the notion of us all thinking, "How could she forgive him? How could she stand there with him?" Thinking about it from the point of view of the politician, when that media glare gets put on you and your family, and it's blasting on them, it seemed to me that their instinct would probably be to protect themselves and come together.
That way forgiving someone publicly to me seemed obvious. If you were in that situation, for that wife it's probably not even a thought. "I may give you a hard time about this privately, and rail against you, but when we go out there we are going to be a team. I'm going to forgive you." To me I was less surprised by it when I did the movie and really thought about it.
We are so familiar with those things, but what was more interesting to me was to think about the real experience. What's the real experience that you wouldn't think of from the outside? Once of the things that I think is probably true, as I thought about it from Gary Condit, Elliot Spitzer, to John Edwards is the notion of us all thinking, "How could she forgive him? How could she stand there with him?" Thinking about it from the point of view of the politician, when that media glare gets put on you and your family, and it's blasting on them, it seemed to me that their instinct would probably be to protect themselves and come together.
That way forgiving someone publicly to me seemed obvious. If you were in that situation, for that wife it's probably not even a thought. "I may give you a hard time about this privately, and rail against you, but when we go out there we are going to be a team. I'm going to forgive you." To me I was less surprised by it when I did the movie and really thought about it.
Q:
Do we hold politicians up to too high of standards? Should we expect more from them?
BA:
I don't think that we hold politicians to too high of a standard. I don't think that we hold anyone to a particularly high standard anymore. I think we've become accustomed to the frailty of all public figures. We start to traffic in scandal so much, people with shortcomings, and the train wreck has become such a popular exhibit. We like the underbelly. We chase these stories and oftentimes find them. I think that politicians should be held to a certain standard. They are elected officials, for God's sake. If they aren't going to keep it together then who is?
Q:
We know that you are very interested in politics from your support of John Kerry's 2004 campaign. How happy are you with what Obama has accomplished so far?
BA:
Obviously it's quite early in his administration. I think anybody could open the window and know that a lot of folks are having a very hard time out there. They are faced with a steep uphill climb…It's going to be challenging. I think that the Obama administration, I believe, will be defined, ultimately in four years when they are running, by how well they handle this economic crisis. Whether or not our economy is back on its feet in the next couple of years, or whether it's still sputtering. I think it's too hard to know now.
Q:
Even to have a plan early on seems like an improvement.
BA:
Let me tell you something, you can judge Obama as compared to Obama and be critical. You can judge Obama as compared to the previous administration and it would be almost impossible for him to fail.
Q:
Are you nostalgic about the sort of noble media in a film like this, that no longer exists?
BA:
I don't know. You guys are the experts on this stuff. Is there a nobility to media and what goes on inside a newsroom? I think that this is the last movie that will be set in a newspaper. I don't know how this movie will be perceived but I do believe that people will look back and say, "Oh, yeah. That was the movie that comes out right around the time that the internet destroyed newspapers." That is happening.
The New York Times laid off 200 people yesterday. They are cutting salaries. The blogging, the news sites, they are all now superseding the traditional news gathering, ink on dead trees organizations. I don't think that the verdict is in on what that means, what's going to happen, or what the integrity is of one institution versus the other. It's really interesting.
Part of what this movie looks at is the tension between Rachel's and Russell's characters, which side of us is going to win out. What does the world look like with just bloggers gathering news? I think there are two mobs right? One is this incredible, global journalism. It's a full democratization of journalism. You have actual correspondents in every home. For example there were people blogging from Mumbai right when those incidents started happening. You get to the truth and you don't have to worry about bias because you have so many bloggers. Ultimately, it's impossible to lie because there is too much evidence that can come out from other people to refute people who report with bias. You have this "everyone is a reporter" model. The other model is that everyone is biased, no one sources anything, it's just ugly noise, and we've destroyed our journalistic standards.
The New York Times laid off 200 people yesterday. They are cutting salaries. The blogging, the news sites, they are all now superseding the traditional news gathering, ink on dead trees organizations. I don't think that the verdict is in on what that means, what's going to happen, or what the integrity is of one institution versus the other. It's really interesting.
Part of what this movie looks at is the tension between Rachel's and Russell's characters, which side of us is going to win out. What does the world look like with just bloggers gathering news? I think there are two mobs right? One is this incredible, global journalism. It's a full democratization of journalism. You have actual correspondents in every home. For example there were people blogging from Mumbai right when those incidents started happening. You get to the truth and you don't have to worry about bias because you have so many bloggers. Ultimately, it's impossible to lie because there is too much evidence that can come out from other people to refute people who report with bias. You have this "everyone is a reporter" model. The other model is that everyone is biased, no one sources anything, it's just ugly noise, and we've destroyed our journalistic standards.
Q:
Is the relationship between a celebrity and the media similar or different to the media's relationship with politicians?
BA:
I'm not a total expert, but I have some experience, and they are very similar. They are similar in the pressures that exist. The pressures that are brought to bear on the media side to sell magazines, to sell newspapers, get hits on the website. The focus has to be on the thing that sells the most, which tends to be the most sensational, scandalous, headline grabbing…So maybe the temptation is to bend the truth.
In the case of entertainers, they will flat make up stories. They will completely use sources that don't exist, or stuff that is very thinly sourced. On the political side people are a little bit more judicious about completely abandoning journalistic standards. You still have those same impulses to push, find the story, and dig up the most scandalous aspect of it.
I think there is the other side that is at war too, which is the side that wants to do good journalism. They want to do good reporting. They care about the substantial stuff. [They are] saying to the powers that be, "I don't want to do this all the time. I want to do something interesting." The Yin and Yang is at play on both sides of entertainment and politics. The only difference really is that with entertainers people feel more comfortable saying, "It's fine. Just print it and run it." Because they know it's not the President of the United States. It's not going to change the world so they figure they can just print it.
In the case of entertainers, they will flat make up stories. They will completely use sources that don't exist, or stuff that is very thinly sourced. On the political side people are a little bit more judicious about completely abandoning journalistic standards. You still have those same impulses to push, find the story, and dig up the most scandalous aspect of it.
I think there is the other side that is at war too, which is the side that wants to do good journalism. They want to do good reporting. They care about the substantial stuff. [They are] saying to the powers that be, "I don't want to do this all the time. I want to do something interesting." The Yin and Yang is at play on both sides of entertainment and politics. The only difference really is that with entertainers people feel more comfortable saying, "It's fine. Just print it and run it." Because they know it's not the President of the United States. It's not going to change the world so they figure they can just print it.
Q:
Now one story breaks and all the bloggers comment on it. Is that helping or hurting journalism?
BA:
Part of the blogging culture that is good is that it's made the traditional press much more nervous. They become more accountable because they are the ones who are most sensitive to what the bloggers are going to say. Most American's don't spend their days worrying what bloggers are going to say. They just read the blogger that they want to read. They aren't going, "Oh, what's going to come out in the blogs?" But mainstream media sweats it because for the first time they are actually accountable to someone who is going to write about them and their work.
I think that has a very strong impact on mainstream media and how they work. I think it has coarsened the dialogue a little bit. There is a lot of shaming, a lot of finger wagging, and it's a public, gossip high school mill. Every time a story comes out then 50 people start digesting it, a lot of them are very jaded, so you get all these different viewpoints on it.
Ultimately, you have a million blogs and a lot of them are different iterations of the same take on something. There are a few that are really good and smart. A lot of them are just people who want to be ugly about something. One of the things that will be interesting to see is that bloggers are sourcing from the mainstream media, the newspapers. So if the newspapers are gone then bloggers are going to have to do more reporting. I think that will be good actually and I hope that's what happens. Conversely, the newspapers have gotten lazy, gotten nervous, and started sourcing from blogs. That I think is dangerous.
You could pick any blog. I could start a blog tomorrow. Then I can say, "I heard that so and so is an alien." Then its on a blog, it's out there, and enough of a source to pick it up and start a fire going. Obviously, something as outrageous as that people won't use, but a lot of false stories got started and had false currency because they were placed in blogs.
I think that has a very strong impact on mainstream media and how they work. I think it has coarsened the dialogue a little bit. There is a lot of shaming, a lot of finger wagging, and it's a public, gossip high school mill. Every time a story comes out then 50 people start digesting it, a lot of them are very jaded, so you get all these different viewpoints on it.
Ultimately, you have a million blogs and a lot of them are different iterations of the same take on something. There are a few that are really good and smart. A lot of them are just people who want to be ugly about something. One of the things that will be interesting to see is that bloggers are sourcing from the mainstream media, the newspapers. So if the newspapers are gone then bloggers are going to have to do more reporting. I think that will be good actually and I hope that's what happens. Conversely, the newspapers have gotten lazy, gotten nervous, and started sourcing from blogs. That I think is dangerous.
You could pick any blog. I could start a blog tomorrow. Then I can say, "I heard that so and so is an alien." Then its on a blog, it's out there, and enough of a source to pick it up and start a fire going. Obviously, something as outrageous as that people won't use, but a lot of false stories got started and had false currency because they were placed in blogs.
Q:
Do we need to know everything?
BA:
I don't think we need to know anything about people's sex lives or personal lives. I think that is totally irrelevant. We don't need to know about that stuff. There were no blogs when Monica Lewinsky happened. Although, I guess Drudge did break that story. If you think it's a story worth breaking. I think that's a story that kind of bogged down the wheels of government for two years. I don't care. Some people do. Maybe some people think that's a fair reflection on the candidate's character, but I don't. I don't care who you want to sleep with, I'm not voting for your sexual predilections. I'm voting for your policy positions.
Q:
Is a political career something that is in the back of your head?
BA:
I really like my job that I have now. Plus, unlike in Hollywood where you need one director to hire you, in politics you have to have a lot of people to vote for you. I think it's harder work. I really am happy with what I'm doing now. In fact I've never been at a place where I've felt better about going to work everyday. I'm more engaged and very, very happy.
Q:
What changed?
BA:
I don't know. Life is weird...I learn as I've gone along. It's gotten to a point where I've really gotten comfortable with the things that are important to me. I don't worry as much about making choices that I hope will appeal to certain externalities. Like, "Well, this movie has to work in this way, I make X amount of money in order to keep me at X place in my career." All this other stuff gets in the way. Rather its, "This is an interesting role. It's got a character in it that seems complicated and real. I get to work with talented people." That's my criteria and it's easy.
loading your activity feed...