Ben Affleck has finally revealed the real reasons he decided to leave The Batman.
In an interview published Tuesday by The New York Times, the two-time Oscar winner said his struggles with alcohol, his divorce from Jennifer Garner, and a “troubled shoot” on Justice League prompted him to abandon the role of Bruce Wayne.
“I showed somebody The Batman script,” Affleck told the Times. “They said, ‘I think the script is good. I also think you’ll drink yourself to death if you go through what you just went though again.”
Affleck said he “drank relatively normally,” but then things got out-of-control.
“I drank relatively normally for a long time. What happened was that I started drinking more and more when my marriage was falling apart,” he explained.
“You’re trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or sex or gambling or shopping or whatever,” the actor and director explained. “But that ends up making your life worse. Then you do more of it to make that discomfort go away. Then the real pain starts. It becomes a vicious cycle you can’t break. That’s at least what happened to me.”
Affleck’s marriage to Garner ended in 2018 after a long separation. The 47-year-old star played the caped crusader three times — in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, and a cameo in Suicide Squad.
Robert Pattinson is now taking over the title role in The Batman. Directed and co-written by Matt Reeves, the film co-stars Zoë Kravitz, Colin Farrell, Andy Serkis, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Jayme Lawson and Peter Sarsgaard. It’s slated to arrive in theaters on June 25, 2021.
