Ben Affleck Said 1 of His Career Achievements Should Have Gotten Him in Trouble

Ben Affleck has been nominated for Oscars, but he said one surprising career achievement stands out to him. Not long after the release of Good Will Hunting, Affleck starred in Armageddon. The film performed well financially, but Affleck doubted its merits as a work of art. He said as much on the commentary track, which he acknowledged should have gotten him in trouble. Still, he considered it among the best work of his career.

Ben Affleck said one of his career achievements should have had repercussions 

In 1998, Affleck starred in Armageddon, a film about deep-core drillers trying to destroy an asteroid. Affleck said he found the film completely nonsensical and said as much on the DVD commentary. He’s proud of his work on the commentary track.

“That is one of the achievements of my career on which I’m willing to pat myself on the back,” he told GQ in 2025. “I believe that may be at least top five all-time DVD commentaries.”

He directly insulted the film, but they still put out the commentary. Affleck admitted someone should have said something to him about it.

“By the way, nobody said anything to me,” he admitted. “I don’t think any of the other people listened to it or gave a f*** until years later when it was played. And I was kind of shocked and appalled that I went on there and started being like…. I mean, that’s all true. Everything I said was a hundred percent true, but that’s the point. You’re not supposed to go on there and tell all of the truth.”

What did he say in his commentary?

In his commentary, Affleck said he came to director Michael Bay with concerns about the film’s logic. Bay wasn’t open to suggestions.

“I asked Michael why it was easier to train oil drillers to become astronauts than it was to train astronauts to become oil drillers, and he told me to shut the f*** up,” Affleck said. 

In one scene, Billy Bob Thornton’s character said astronauts had been training to drill a hole for eight months without success. Affleck found this laughable.

“Like eight whole months,” Affleck said on the DVD track, “as if that’s not enough time to learn how to drill a hole, but in a week we’re going to learn how to be astronauts.”

Ben Affleck said this felt particularly nonsensical to him in his career

Affleck said Armageddon was a learning experience for him. He realized movies didn’t necessarily have to make sense to get made.

“I never expected, ‘Oh, this is going to be genius.’ I thought, I’m going to go do a big Hollywood action movie and I love it,” he said. “And yes, during the movie, I was kind of surprised to find that sometimes they weren’t all that interested in making sense.”

He said that even when he mentioned his concerns, he didn’t expect them to be taken seriously by anyone on set.

“I was the only person who was kind of like, ‘Okay, I guess we don’t operate by those other rules here.’ But there’s a sense of being small and of this thing being big,” he said. “And so I felt like a little ant on the elephant when I would shoot my mouth off about the conversation I had with Michael [Bay, the director of Armageddon] about why is it easier to train oil drillers to be astronauts than to train astronauts to drill a hole in the ground?”