Ben Affleck previously ruled out a run for Congress in Massachusetts, he revealed in a recent interview, saying that Rep. Ayanna Pressley would have beaten him handily.
The actor, who grew up near Boston, told The Boston Globe in an interview published Thursday that people in his circle had urged him to run against former Rep. Michael Capuano, who was a 10-term Democratic incumbent when Pressley unseated him in 2018.
She became the state’s first Black woman elected to Congress.
“She probably would have beat my [expletive], so I’m glad I didn’t run,” he told the Globe. “Even though she’s from Ohio, I have a feeling she would have cleaned my clock.”
Affleck explained that he had campaigned for then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) ― who later served as U.S. secretary of state and now serves as the Biden administration’s special envoy for climate ― during his run for president in 2004.
“I felt strongly about gay marriage; and I felt George Bush and the war in Iraq was wrong,” he said. “But I didn’t want to run for Congress. I looked at the life of people in Congress and it was a constant process of glad-handing, begging for money, and being beholden to people. It’s so depressing. I thought it was miserable and corrupt and ugly.”
The actor said he focused his efforts on nonprofit work instead. In 2010 he co-founded Eastern Congo Initiative, a grant-making advocacy organization that works with organizations that “support economic and social development opportunities for the people of eastern Congo,” according to its website. (Read Affleck’s entire interview with the Globe here.)
Affleck has been reflecting on his decadeslong acting career during his press tour for “The Tender Bar,” which hit select theaters last month and premiered on Amazon Prime last week.
During an interview with the Los Angeles Times published last week, the actor said that when it comes to choosing projects, he is not “preoccupied with notions of success or failure about money or commercial success because those things really corrupt your choices.”
“Then what happens is the movies are less interesting and you’re less good,” he said.
Jennifer Lopez, who sent the internet into a frenzy when she confirmed her rekindled romance with Affleck in an Instagram post over the summer, shared her support for “The Tender Bar” actor on the social media app last week.
The singer-actor, who stars in upcoming movie “Marry Me,” posted a video showing the contents of a press box for “The Tender Bar” on her Instagram story, ET Canada reported.
“This is awesome, thank you, ‘Tender Bar,’” she said in the video.