Batman V Superman: Ben Affleck says he relates to a world-weary Batman after copping some big hits

AS Batman V Superman makes serious box office millions, Ben Affleck revealed how he identifies with his superhero character after copping some big hits in his own life.

THE CAPED Crusader audiences meet in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice is jaded, world-weary and, frankly, a little bit broken after a couple of decades of ups and downs.

The man who plays him, Ben Affleck, can sympathise.

“I definitely can relate to that aspect of it,” Affleck says with a hollow laugh over the phone from Los Angeles in the middle of a global tour to promote the movie.

“The world-weariness, I do, I guess. I mean I haven’t spent 20 years fighting crime, but I have had an unusual road and I have definitely seen a lot. Not a lot surprises me any more. That jaundiced view of the world maybe came a little more naturally to me than I would like to admit.”

Affleck’s career as seen more highs and lows than he would also probably like to admit. After his early successes as an Oscar-winning screenwriter of Good Will Hunting and leading man in hits such as Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, his career seemed to slide into a terminal decline.

His earlier foray into the superhero genre, Daredevil, was widely slated, and his movies with then girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, Gigli and Jersey Girl, made him a walking punchline.

MORE: Is Ben Affleck the best Batman ever?

Henry Cavill, left, and Ben Affleck are the stars of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Picture: Matt Sayles/Invision/AP

Oddly, it was another superhero that helped him turn it all around. His portrayal of the tortured and doomed George Reeves — the man who played Superman in the 1950s TV series — in the 2006 drama Hollywoodland drew strong reviews and was a timely reminder that Affleck could indeed act.

The following year he won plaudits for his directorial debut Gone Baby Gone and his second feature The Town was also a critical and box office hit. His third film as director, Argo, won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2013, and with his leading man status reinstated thanks to the 2014 thriller Gone Girl, Affleck was well and truly back on top.

Well, professionally at least. The rollercoaster continued last year when he split from Jennifer Garner, his wife of 10 years and the mother of his three children, amid rumours of an affair with their nanny. Both parties insist the split was amicable, with Affleck calling his ex a “superhero mum” on the red carpet this past week.

Ben Affleck split from Jennifer Garner last year. Picture: Jeff Vespa/WireImage

But it might have been the Affleck of old that comic book movie geeks were thinking of when the actor was cast in Zack Snyder’s sequel to Man Of Steel, which the Warner Bros studio hopes will be the first in a series of interconnected superhero films to rival the hugely successful Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The news that Affleck would play Batman opposite Henry Cavill’s Superman sent social media into meltdown, sparked a petition that attracted more than 50,000 signatures and inspired countless internet memes, many posing the question of whether the actor’s old pal Matt Damon would play Robin.

Affleck, though, was undeterred. Not only is he used to haters, but the studio had prepped him by showing the similar outrage that greeted some of his predecessors to don the cape and cowl, such as Michael Keaton.

“Warner Bros were very good at preparing me actually,” Affleck says. “They showed me some of the reactions to past casting announcements and said they tend to cause eruptions and nowadays the internet fan sites get magnified in the echo chamber of the media because everyone reports on it and it becomes its own story.

Ben Affleck felt that same outrage that greeted Michael Keaton’s casting as Batman. But Affleck was ready.

“So they said, ‘Are you all right with this?’ And it was fine with me — I have been doing this for a long time and I have taken worse. In my experience, really what matters is the final product, not the spin or what people think of it ahead of time.”

Affleck says he also had a “very heavy sense of the history” of Batman and the heavy-hitting actors who have played him in the past. In addition to Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney played Batman in the 1990s and Oscar-winner Christian Bale redefined the Dark Knight for a whole new generation in Christopher Nolan’s wildly acclaimed and hugely successful trilogy that kicked off with Batman Begins in 2005.

“As an actor I spend my time watching other actors’ performances and admiring other actors and looking up to those I think are great and so many other great actors have played this part before me,” Affleck says.

“If I had thought too much about it I don’t think I would have been able to do it. I have so much respect for Chris Nolan and Christian Bale, then going back to George and Val and Michael Keaton, they are all really accomplished brilliant actors. They raised the bar very high and made you want to come to work and do your best and tell a story that’s worthy of being included in that tradition.”

Ben Affleck was intrigued by director Zack Snyder’s idea of a more brutal, jaded Batman who would go head to head with the Man Of Steel. Picture: Clay Enos/Warner Bros

And having read the comics as a boy growing up in Boston, Affleck was intrigued by Snyder’s vision, set in a different universe to Nolan’s Batman and based in part on Frank Miller’s seminal 1986 graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns.

“It’s a vision of this broken, world-weary prize-fighter in the 12th round, end-of-the-line Batman and I thought that was something new and different and kind of exciting,” he says. “I liked the idea of the conflict between him and Superman — two competing ideologies and world views.

“We didn’t want to do another chapter of the Chris Nolan series because it would have just been a pale imitation of the original. We wanted to not necessarily change directions, but to change worlds. In Chris’s world there were no other superheroes — Batman was the centre of it and he was the only one living this kind of life.

“In the DNA of our story you have Superman, you have Wonder Woman — all these other meta humans — and Batman is living in a very different reality. That alone separates it from the world that Chris constructed so brilliantly in his three films.”

And while Batman V Superman has been copping some unflattering early reviews, the blockbuster has landed the sixth best weekend opening of all-time by raking in an estimated $US 170.1 million ($AU 226.4 million) at the US box office. This beats previous Batman films by several million dollars, and will make it Warner Bros’ best opening should the estimate hold.

Affleck’s Batman is also the most brutal so far captured on screen: he brands, he beats and seems to have scant regard for collateral damage in his almost manic quest for vigilante justice. As such, the movie raises some broader questions for America and a wider world beset by the threat of terrorism.

“I think this a Batman who has maybe been taken to the brink by the modern era,” Affleck says. “We live in such a scary and uncertain time these days and feel so under siege — there are dangers that lurk around every corner even in everyday life.

“This is a Batman who has been taken to the very brink of what’s morally acceptable to do and maybe even going over in terms of being a vigilante fighting crime. It raises this question of when we are afraid of something, we wonder how much of our principles is it OK to sacrifice to make ourselves safe? How much is vigilantism acceptable? Or stop and frisk? There’s a lot of stuff in the air around this ideas these days.”

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE IS NOW SHOWING