Ben Affleck appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” amid his press tour for Netflix’s “The Rip” and looked back on the “massive embarrassment” of being snubbed at the Oscars for best director with “Argo.” Affleck was a frontrunner to land a nom. He won best director honors at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and BAFTAs. Alas, Affleck was snubbed while “Argo” went on to earn seven Oscar nominations and win best picture and two other prizes.
“It was the year, the horrible thing of everyone telling you, ‘You’re gonna get nominated, you’re gonna get nominated for director,’” Affleck remembered. “And so, of course, I wake up that morning, and sure enough — and, by the way, it’s not [unlike] any other morning that I had not been nominated for best director. But all of a sudden, it’s a massive embarrassment. I woke up and people [said], ‘You didn’t get nominated.’”
Affleck’s story reminded Kimmel of being at the Critics Choice Awards the night prior, where “Once Battle After Another” picked up major honors for best picture, director and adapted screenplay but left leading man Leonardo DiCaprio shut out for best actor (which went to Timothee Chalamet for “Marty Supreme”).
“I was thinking, boy, he’s got so many better places to be,” Kimmel quipped about DiCaprio. “And the movie wins best picture. The director Paul Thomas Anderson wins best director, and then he doesn’t win. And I’m thinking he must be so pissed that [he had to leave] whatever he got airlifted from — a yacht somewhere — and couldn’t be there anymore. He came to lose.”
“This is maybe the worst award-show situation ever,” Kimmel continued. “I think you’re underselling this. Because ‘Argo,’ not only was it nominated for the Oscar for best picture, you won best picture. You starred in it and directed it, and you were not nominated in either category … it’s as if the movie directed itself.”
“That’s sort of what it felt like,” Affleck replied. “The day of the snub, which all of a sudden it’s a negative event and a horrible thing, I had to go to the Critics Choice Awards. I remember getting there and there’s a red carpet line, like 500 people dying to talk to me, and every single one of them was like, ‘Hi! So the snub…’ What do you say to that? ‘It’s a bummer!’ I did end up winning the Critics Choice Award.”
“Honestly, it’s just embarrassing,” Affleck added. “I wasn’t the one going out there being like, “I’m going to be nominated!’ It’s having to be put through the ritual of then answering for why you didn’t get nominated. I didn’t say I was [going to be]!”
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Someone who can relate to what Affleck is talking about is Bradley Cooper, who was similarly snubbed for best director with “A Star Is Born” despite landing nominations from the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards and Directors Guild of America. Cooper also said the snub was “embarrassing.”
“The first thing I felt was embarrassment, actually. Think about it. I felt embarrassed that I didn’t do my part,” Cooper told Oprah in 2019. “Even if I got the nomination, it should not give me any sense of whether I did my job or not. That’s the trick, to make something that you believe in.”
Cooper explained that did not set out to make a movie that landed Academy Award nominations, adding: “The only thing I set out to do was to tap into as an authentic place as possible. [An authentic place] in myself and everybody I asked to make this movie — to tell a human story of people who are going to deal with their family life, trauma as a child, addiction in a real way, love in this life and finding your voice.”
Watch Affleck’s full interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in the video below.
From Variety US