It's much nicer to be praised than to be damned. But you have to have a certain sense of your own priorities and ideas about what works and what doesn't because otherwise, if you're just looking for eternal validation all the time, you can be motivated by the wrong things and I don't think it's as personally satisfying in your own work.
Ben AffleckI hate the whole reluctant sex-symbol thing. It's such bull. You see these dudes greased up, in their underwear, talking about how they don't want to be a sex symbol.
Ben AffleckWhen you are in your 20s and you're not married with kids, you're having fun. But when you're in your 30s and you're not married and don't have kids, you begin to develop a Peter Pan complex. As you grow older, you have more responsibilities and you have to step up to them.
Ben AffleckClearly, there's a real onus on you to do something correctly when everybody, at least in the United States, had a really clear, specific idea of what this guy looked like - and even more so, what he looked like as Clark Kent and as Superman. You have this whole vast audience of people who would be acutely aware of any deviation whatsoever and probably holding you to a slightly higher standard as a result.
Ben Affleck[Directing first film:] I was terrified, it was really very scary because there is a lot of responsibility. I think I was terrified because I wanted it to work so much. A lot of actors direct movies but I thought the stakes were kind of higher for me because I really, really cared. [...] I just worked as hard as I possibly could on every single thing, every single day. I said that if this failed it would not be because I didn't work as hard as I possibly could...every day.
Ben Affleck