Kevin Smith opens up about Ben Affleck’s weirdly touching story
Kevin Smith recently recalled Ben Affleck’s sweet gesture when they were shooting their first film together.
While catching up with PEOPLE magazine on the 25th anniversary of their 1999 movie Dogma, which is returning to theatres on Thursday, June 5, the 54-year-old American film director reflected on working with Affleck on his 1995 movie Mallrats.
Smith shared that the 52-year-old American actor and filmmaker left him thank-you notes more than once when he let him leave the set to work on Good Will Hunting if they would pause shooting.
At that time, The Accountant actor and his friend Matt Damon had just sold the script to Castle Rock Entertainment.
Calling to mind, Smith revealed, “He would come over and be like, ‘Hey, I’m not shooting for three days. Can I fly back to Los Angeles to work on the script with Matt? We got a meeting with Castle Rock.’ I said, ‘Oh my God, absolutely, man, just come back before you have to shoot.’”
“He didn’t work every day. So otherwise he’d be sitting around Minnesota. So when he would leave, and he did this like three times over the course of the shoot, he always left me a thank-you note on my desk,” the director of Chasing Amy noted.
He explained, “I’d go in my office and there’s an envelope that said ‘Kevin,’ I’d open it up. And it was from Ben: young Ben Affleck going like, ‘Hey man, thanks for letting me go back to Los Angeles for our script. I just want you to know I’m having a real good time in this movie. It’s fun to be around young people. You’re cool and blah, blah, blah.’”
“Just very polite. Not in an a***-kissy, obsequious way at all. Just like, I don’t know, maybe like today you would text a f***** person, but this was 1995 and the man put f***** pen to paper and sealed it in an envelope,” Kevin Smith said.
