So many hats! Ben Affleck opened up about directing and acting in his latest crime drama, Live By Night, during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show on Friday, January 13.
“When you do all that, it’s hard to avoid blame!” Affleck, 44, joked of his many responsibilities, via Entertainment Tonight. He added that people give him “a little more credit” now because he directs, but joked: “People still don’t respect me!”
The two-time Oscar winner, who also wrote the screenplay for Live By Night, stars in the film alongside Sienna Miller, Chris Messina and Elle Fanning. He and Miller, 35, have a few sex scenes together, which host Graham Norton was quick to bring up.
“Why else get into directing?” Affleck quipped. “That’s kind of the whole point!”
Earlier this month, Affleck sat down with Us Weekly to discuss the movie and explained how he likes to create a relaxed vibe on set. “Just by allowing actors to have enough time to do whatever they want, to not feel rushed, to not feel pressure to act and hurry it up and get it done and get it done right, just that we have enough time to make sure that it’s going to get done right,” he exclusively told Us.
Affleck’s professional success is “really important,” to him, but he says that his family is his No. 1 priority. He and his estranged wife, Jennifer Garner, often travel with their three kids — Violet, 10, Seraphina, 7, and Samuel, 4 — to set locations so the other one can work.
“[My career is] the most important thing to me outside of my family. I take it very seriously and work really, really hard at it,” he told Us. “Family comes first, but this is something that’s really important to me too.”
