Last Updated:January 07, 2026, 08:22 IST

Ben Affleck recalls his Oscars Best Director snub for Argo as a massive embarrassment and praises Matt Damon’s realism in their new film The Rip, as reported by Female First UK.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner got married in 2005 and separated in 2018.
(Photo Credit: X)

Hollywood actor Ben Affleck has spoken up on the “massive embarrassment” that hit him after he was snubbed in the Best Director category at the Oscars.

The 53-year-old star was widely expected to be nominated in 2013 for helming the thriller ‘Argo’, which won the Best Picture award, reports ‘Female First UK’.

However, the actor admitted that it was tough to miss out after constantly being told that he would be up for the award.

Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Ben said, “It was the year, the horrible thing of everyone telling you, ‘You’re gonna get nominated, you’re gonna get nominated for director’. 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’”.

Kimmel explained that he had thought of Ben as he watched Leonardo DiCaprio miss out on the Best Actor prize to Timothee Chalamet at the Critics’ Choice Awards on Sunday, even though his film One Battle After Another won the awards for Best Picture and Best Director.

The 58-year-old TV host said, “I was thinking, boy, he’s got so many better places to be. 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 p***** that (he had to leave) whatever he got airlifted from, a yacht somewhere, and couldn’t be there anymore. He came to lose”.

As per ‘Female First UK’, Ben Affleck confessed that he “felt” similar when he fielded questions about his Argo snub on the red carpet at the 2013 Critics’ Choice Awards.

The actor said, “It seemed like there were 500 people dying to talk to me. And every single one of them (said), ‘Hi, so the snub.’ What do you say to that? ‘Ha, ha, ha, yeah. It’s a bummer’”.

Ben once again teams up with his childhood friend Matt Damon in the new action thriller film The Rip and loves getting to work with his “understated” pal.

He told GQ magazine, “Every time I act with Matt is a humbling experience because I learn to appreciate further just how good an actor he is. He is so understated, so real and so honest, it’s the opposite of a ‘showy’ performance, and I think what he does is more difficult. When you know someone as long as I’ve known Matt, you develop a pretty good sense of what is real and what isn’t and it’s almost impossible to catch Matt acting”.

“He is really a master of realism and it’s something I deeply admire about him. One of many things”, he added.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – IANS)