Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck Biography

Benjamin Geza Affleck was born on August 15, 1972 in Berkeley, California. His father works in a Drug rehabilitation hospital in California and his mother is a teacher in Cambridge. His younger brother, Casey, is also an actor and co-starred with Ben in Good Will Hunting. When Affleck was very young his family relocated to the Boston area. This is where he broke into acting. At the age of eight he starred in PBS's marine biology-themed "The Voyage of the Mimi". He also struck up a friendship with Matt Damon, a boy two years older than himself who lived down the street. After graduating high school the young Affleck dabbled in higher education at both the University of Vermont and California's Occidental College. He found it all too restricting and opted to give Hollywood a try. He landed parts in made-for-TV movies and had a small role in "School Ties" in 1992 which also featured Matt Damon. Ben followed with work in "Dazed and Confused" (1993), and "Mallrats" in 1995.

Ben Affleck began feeling frustrated with the lack of substantial roles he found in Tinseltown. He received a phone call from long time friend Matt Damon. Damon wanted Ben to help him work on a screen play he had started while at Harvard. Affleck agreed and together they came up with a brilliant story that featured them in the lead characters. However, it was Afflecks brother, Casey, who introduced the pair to director Gus Van Sant. Van Sant had directed Casey in "To Die For". Thanks to Van Sant's interest the script was picked up by Miramax and in 1997 "Good Will Hunting" was released. The movie was a huge success and so were Affleck and Damon. They won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Ben became one of Hollywoods most promising young men. He also gained a lot of attention for his ongoing relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow.

He continued to keep busy with enormous success in Oscar winner "Shakespeare in Love" starring Gwyneth Paltrow and the block buster "Armegedon" (1999) opposite Liv Tyler and Bruce Willis. He has continued with a dizzying pace, appearing in "Forces of Nature", "Boiler Room", "Daddy and Them", and reuniting with Damon in "Dogma". Affleck made what can be considered a comeback with the September 2006 release of the critically acclaimed George Reeves biopic-noir Hollywoodland, directed by HBO TV-series veteran Allen Coulter.

Ben Affleck had a high-profile romance with actress Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998. In 2002, he began dating actress/singer Jennifer Lopez, whom he met on the set of Gigli. The same year, his engagement to Lopez was announced. The couple broke up in 2004, both blaming the media attention. Affleck subsequently dated his Daredevil co-star, actress Jennifer Garner, and the two were engaged after nine months of seeing each other. In May 2005, it was announced that Garner was pregnant and the couple were married on June 29, 2005 on the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos. Garner gave birth to a daughter, Violet Anne Affleck, on December 1, 2005. The couple currently lives in Santa Monica, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts.