Ben Affleck Displays On “Huge Embarrassment” Over Surprising Oscar Snub For Argo 14 Years Later

Ben Affleck displays on Argo and the one Academy Award nomination everybody thought he was assured to get. Launched in 2012, the political thriller not solely featured Affleck as star and producer, however as director as effectively.

Whereas showing on Jimmy Kimmel Stay, Affleck congratulates Kimmel on his latest award win on the Critics Selection Awards earlier than then remembering his personal expertise at that ceremony again in 2013. For Affleck, his Critics Selection wins for Argo adopted a rollercoaster Oscars expertise, the place he was assured he can be nominated for Finest Director. As Affleck recollects:

“It was the yr, the horrible factor of everybody telling you, ‘You’re gonna get nominated, you’re gonna get nominated for director. And so, after all, I get up that morning, and positive sufficient — and, by the best way, it’s not [unlike] some other morning that I had not been nominated for greatest director. However abruptly, it’s an enormous embarrassment. I wakened and folks [said], ‘You didn’t get nominated.’”

Kimmel then provides some extra context, calling it “perhaps the worst award-show state of affairs ever.” He continues: “Argo, not solely was it nominated for the Oscar for greatest image, you received greatest image. You starred in it and directed it, and you weren’t nominated in both class … it’s as if the film directed itself.”

“That’s kind of what it felt like,” Affleck replies. “The day of the snub, which abruptly it’s a damaging occasion and a horrible factor, I needed to go to the Critics Selection Awards. I bear in mind getting there and there’s a pink carpet line, like 500 individuals dying to speak to me, and each single considered one of them was like, ‘Hello! So the snub…’ What do you say to that? ‘It’s a bummer!’ I did find yourself successful the Critics Selection Award.”

Affleck concludes by including that the entire state of affairs was “simply embarrassing,” recalling that he by no means championed himself as a nominee to start with. “I wasn’t the one going on the market being like, “I’m going to be nominated!’” he explains. “It’s having to be put by the ritual of then answering for why you didn’t get nominated. I didn’t say I used to be [going to be]!”

The 2012 Affleck directorial effort ended up successful Finest Image, beating different movies from that yr like Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Lifetime of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Darkish Thirty. Although Affleck wasn’t acknowledged as a director or an actor on the ceremony, he did find yourself successful Finest Director on the Critics Selection Awards, the place Argo was additionally named Finest Image.

Chronicling a CIA operation to rescue six American hostages in the course of the 1979 Iran hostage disaster, Argo occupies a singular area in Oscars historical past. The movie, which additionally stars John Goodman, Alan Arkin, and Bryan Cranston, was the primary since 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy to win Finest Image with out an accompanying Finest Director nomination.

Affleck hasn’t had a significant presence on the Oscars with any movie since Argo, with no different nominations or wins. He is had success on the Golden Globes together with his subsequent directorial efforts, although, with The Tender Bar (2022) incomes him a Finest Supporting Actor nomination and Air (2024) having been nominated for Finest Movement Image – Musical or Comedy.

Affleck’s subsequent directorial challenge is a thriller referred to as Animals, which he’ll star in alongside Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, and Steven Yeun. It is too early to say whether or not this film could have any success on the Oscars, however Affleck evidently hasn’t been in a position to depart his Argo expertise behind.