Good Will Hunting

Jersey Girl was written for Ben Affleck, and Smith did have Affleck in mind when he was writing Chasing Amy.

 

On the Dogma commentary, he says he wrote the Amy part for Affleck. (Least I think that's the commentary he said it on).

 

some disagreement here from me. he was super in "chasing amy" as well and i thought "hollywoodland" was excellent as well. he was great as george reeves. 8) 8) 8)

 

I think you're right on that one. I think he also said it on the first of the Evening discs when he's talking about Affleck's role in Daredevil: "I think Affleck could play the shark in Jaws." Smith has a man crush on Affleck mostly because of his acting chops. It's a big part of why he decided to help Affleck and Damon out with Good Will Hunting; he and Scott Mosier have executive-producer credits.

 

I agree:

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Yet Ben and Matt forgot to thank Kevin and Scott when they won the Oscar. Loosers!

 

I actually thought that Hollywoodland was Ben's best performance since Dogma and maybe in forever.

 

That baffles me. It's debatable that without Smith casting Affleck in Mallrats -- because that's when they met -- and certainly Chasing Amy, he would never have gotten his shot. Or at least as quickly. And would Miramax have signed the Hunting script without Smith and Mosier? I think so. But who knows?

 

I've never seen Hollywoodland. I'll get on that.

 

Loved Chasing Amy, but Hollywoodland was a snoozer.

 

I think they might have already sold GWH when he was shooting Mallrats. Not to Miramax (it floated around for a few years), but I think they'd sold it or were in talks. Ben said it gave him and Kevin something to talk about other than Mallrats.

They were also shooting Dogma when they won the Oscar, which makes the snub even weirder.

 

Good Will Hunting is, like many others, one of my top 10 favorites. I like it more and more every time I watch it, even though Damon and Affleck are Red Sox fans.

I'll reaffirm what someone said earlier about Affleck in Chasing Amy -- his best acting job along with Good Will Hunting. You would think a guy smart enough to write screenplays like GWH would know to avoid movies like Gigli, etc., but I guess when the $$ is there, you don't back off.