Ben Affleck quit The Batman over fears he would ‘drink himself to death’
Ben Affleck has revealed that one of the reasons he quit the forthcoming film The Batman was over drinking fears.
In a new, wide-ranging interview in The New York Times, the actor said his struggles with alcohol and his divorce from Jennifer Garner contributed to his decision to leave the franchise.
“I showed somebody The Batman script,” said Affleck, who has played the superhero three times. “They said, ‘I think the script is good. I also think you’ll drink yourself to death if you go through what you just went though again.’”
The Oscar-winner, who divorced Garner in 2018 after a long time apart, added: “I drank relatively normally for a long time. What happened was that I started drinking more and more when my marriage was falling apart."
He continued: “You’re trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or sex or gambling or shopping or whatever, but that ends up making your life worse. Then you do more of it to make that discomfort go away. Then the real pain starts. It becomes a vicious cycle you can’t break. That’s at least what happened to me.”
Affleck played the character in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League and Suicide Squad.
Robert Pattinson is now taking over the lead role in The Batman, which also stars Zoë Kravitz, Colin Farrell and Andy Serkis.
The Batman will arrive in UK cinemas on 25 June 2021.
