Kevin Smith Addresses Why Ben Affleck’s Not Talking to Him

Once upon a time, Batman actor Ben Affleck’s career was closely tied to that of filmmaker Kevin Smith. The actor notably appeared in many of Smith’s films, perhaps most notably as the homicidal banished angel Bartleby in Dogma and as comic book artist Holden McNeil in Chasing Amy. However, the pair haven’t spoken in years and now Smith is revealing why.

Over on Twitter, a fan wrote that they wonder what really happened between Affleck and Smith to make the pair stop speaking and Smith pointed the finger squarely at himself.

“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,” Smith said.

The idea of Smith saying too much and thus causing the fracture in the long-time friendship isn’t terribly difficult to imagine. Smith is notoriously chatty and while his knack for telling an interesting story or gushing about the projects and things he loves is frequently entertaining there have been times when the director has gone potentially crossed a line regarding Affleck. It’s something he gave a specific example of to The Daily Beast in an interview earlier this year.

Smith explained that he accidentally got Affleck into a bit of trouble during a celebration of Chasing Amy‘s 20th anniversary by telling a story about Affleck’s reaction to a scene in the film where Affleck kisses co-star Jason Lee on the lips.

“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.”

It was a story that got more than a little attention and trouble for Affleck as the quote was repeated out of context.

“So if you’re Ben Affleck, the only time you probably see my name is in relation to how I make your life harder in some way,” Smith said. “So I imagine, even if he did hear about the heart attack he was probably like, ‘Well, I’m glad he’s alive, moving on.’ I’m too much trouble. I realize, even now as I’m saying this, I try not to talk about him and we just did for five minutes. He probably didn’t hear about the heart attack, but he’ll hear about this. ‘Why is this f—king fool still talking about me?’”

Of course, just because they don’t speak anymore doesn’t mean that Smith has any ill will towards Affleck. Smith even defended Affleck’s Batman on an episode of his Fat Man on Batman (now Fatman Beyond) podcast earlier this year.

“I think if you think back to when Batman v Superman came out, he was the one that actually skated. He got a lot of f—king praise,” Smith said when asked why Affleck is “unfairly maligned” for his turn as the Dark Knight following Christian Bale’s almost universally-praised three-movie tenure as the character.

“There were people going, ‘This movie’s got a lot of issues, ironically, Affleck as Batman is not one of them.’ That was my recollection of people’s reaction to BVS. They had issues with the tone and the darkness and sh-t like that, but he was the one thing that most people agreed was really good in the movie.”

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