I've got to work really hard and I know exactly what I've achieved because I know how hard I've worked, and I make sure to work as hard as I absolutely possibly can, because I know that's the only shot I have at being successful.
Ben AffleckThe first Star Wars movie had come out in 1977 and had become this huge phenomenon with all the toys and everything - it just kind of swept America.
Ben AffleckIt's been reinforced to me, and it's a little cliche, but I've learned that you can't make a movie that even works, much less that's good, without really good writing and really good acting. That lesson has led me to not be distracted, so much, by the other stuff going on in filmmaking and to focus on the essence of a story, and the words and the events and the way that those are interpreted by the actors. That philosophy has taken me to a place that I really like.
Ben AffleckWe wanted to show people what it was like in one of those neighbourhoods that they would never have access to, in bars that they would be too scared to go into, and a world that they would never get to see. All of that is something really unusual and rare and kind of fascinating. And the only way to do that and to make it really worthwhile was that it had to be authentic. We dedicated a lot of time and energy to making that right and real. So we found basically the worst locations that we could.
Ben Affleck