Ben Affleck has had the most famously rollercoaster career of any Hollywood A-lister of this era. He’s been equally known for successes like Good Will

"Like a Boston Phoenix..."

Ben Affleck has had the most famously rollercoaster career of any Hollywood A-lister of this era. He’s been equally known for successes like Good Will Hunting (which he also co-wrote, garnering him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar), Armageddon, The Sum Of All Fears, Hollywoodland, Smokin’ Aces, and He’s Just Not That Into You as well as some notorious stinkers like Pearl Harbor, Daredevil, Gigli and Surving Christmas.

However, one of Affleck’s biggest success was not a film he acted, but directed with the critically-acclaimed Gone Baby Gone. Now the 38 year-old hopes to succeed both as an actor and director with his sophomore directorial project The Town and he believes the transition to both actor and director was a creative necessity and acting and directing this film suits this need on both ends.

“It’s really just a function of wanting to take a step toward directing, a step toward doing more unusual stuff, Hollywoodland, and then Gone Baby Gone, and then after that, State Of Play, and movies like that,” Ben believes, “And this movie, which I was kind of interested in on creative merits and I felt ready to try being an actor and a director, so it really wasn’t any meta-planning stuff. It was just creative instincts.”

Ben reveals how he was given authority over first pick during casting, starting with Chris Cooper, who plays the father of his character Doug MacRay, the leader of a bank robbing team.

“I was fortunate in that I was able to get all the first choices that I have for this movie,” Affleck reveals, “I knew I wanted Chris Cooper back when I was doing Company Men right before this.”

“I was buttering Chris up, like, ‘Can I get you a cup of coffee, Chris? A Danish, Chris? Tire flat, Chris? Be right back!’” he adds, “Just endlessly trying to be just sycophancy as a way of getting him in. And ultimately, we shot near his house and sort of just twisted his arm.”

Next was Jeremy Renner, who plays fellow team member Jem Coughlin.

“And I got Jeremy as my first choice,” he says, “I knew him from [The Assassination Of] Jesse James and just said, this guy is a genius, a genius actor, and won’t give you a fals... Read the complete interview here Celebrity Interviews