Ben Affleck recently lost both of his parents within two months, but it was only after their deaths that the Hollywood star discovered a side of his mother he had never known.
When Good Will Hunting earned Ben Affleck and Matt Damon their first Academy Award nominations in 1998, the childhood friends arrived at the Oscars with their mothers as their dates.
By the end of the night, both women were watching their sons accept the award for Best Original Screenplay.
Years later, Affleck admitted he had been surprised by how much attention their choice of dates received.
“We were sitting next to our moms, and we won, and we kind of hugged our moms. I remember how everyone had made such a big thing out of it,” Affleck told Damon in a 2023 conversation with Vanity Fair. “I remember thinking, being insecure, like, ‘Why? Why is it weird that we’re bringing our moms?’ Who else do you think we would bring?”
For Affleck, there had never really been another option.
“There was nobody else that was going to go. That was it. Of course, our moms were gonna go,” he added. “That was really innocent and not faked.”
Nearly three decades later, Affleck is looking back at his relationship with the woman who sat beside him that night through an entirely different lens.
‘My parents just died’
During an appearance on Kerry Washington’s “Street You Grew Up On” podcast, the 54-year-old revealed that he and younger brother Casey Affleck lost both of their parents within just two months.
“My parents just died. Both of them,” Affleck told the host. “It’s sort of a big thing, and it’s caused me to start thinking about my own childhood in ways that have been a little bit different.”
Their father, Timothy “Tim” Affleck, died in April, followed by Chris Anne Affleck on June 2 at 83, months after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Two days earlier, the grandmother of five had fulfilled a wish to watch Casey’s son, Atticus, graduate from high school, according to People.
‘Most important center of her life’
Afterwards, Affleck found himself revisiting not only the mother who raised him, but the woman she had been long before he was born.
Reading letters Chris had written to her own parents gave him a glimpse of a young woman still deciding what she wanted from life, with ambitions and interests that existed entirely apart from the family she would later build.
“It was really weird for me to read these letters. First of all as this young woman, full of life and ambition and dreams and not sure, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll be a social worker, maybe I’ll be a teacher, there’s these protests,’” he told Washinton.
“But of course, the thing that struck me was: This has nothing to do with me. This woman had her own whole life for 30 years that had zero to do with me,” the multiple award-winning actor and filmmaker explained.
“I didn’t even see her in a way as her own whole person like that apart from me. And it blew me away,” Affleck said.
He added: “All I knew was a person who just made me and my brother the absolute most important center of her life. She was gorgeous, and smart, and thoughtful and passionate – and I just thought like this woman’s amazing.”
‘An incredible woman’
Seeing his mother as that young woman also forced him to reconsider the life that followed, including a marriage that became increasingly difficult as his father struggled with alcohol.
Affleck remembered Tim becoming “angry, resentful,” and grew emotional as he reflected on what that meant for his mother.
“It also made me sad,” he said. “This is an incredible woman. She should have happiness and love. And she didn’t.”
By the time his parents separated, 11-year-old Affleck understood enough about their marriage to feel something very different from grief.
“I remember thinking I should try to look sad,” he recalled. “Can I try to cry? Should I be sad? But I was so happy.”
Learned to ‘deeply appreciate’ mom
After the divorce, Chris continued raising Ben and Casey in Massachusetts, while Tim eventually moved to California, became sober and rebuilt his relationship with his sons.
Chris, meanwhile, worked as a teacher, spending her days with fifth and sixth graders before returning home to another demanding job with her own two boys.
“Then she came home and did everything,” the Pearl Harbor star shared.
Decades later, Affleck has three children of his own, sharing Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 14, with ex-wife Jennifer Garner. Becoming a parent, he explained, has given him another way of understanding just how much of herself his mother gave her children.
“It really struck me, really for the first time what that I had taken for granted,” he said. “I’ve certainly learned to even more deeply appreciate my mom. And really value and see what she did and what the sacrifice and commitment that she made and how complete it was.”
What’s the most important lesson your mom taught you? Please let us know in the comments and then share this story as a reminder to give the moms in your life a little extra love!
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