Ben Affleck underwent a physical transformation before starring in the 1998 blockbuster “Armageddon.”
The actor, who is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly’s February issue, reflected on the requirements he had to meet before playing an oil driller who trains to be an astronaut.
“I was a little naïve about the opinions people would form about me,” said the 49-year-old. “Or [director] Michael [Bay] and [producer] Jerry [Bruckheimer]’s focus on aesthetics, like, ‘You guys gotta go to the tanning bed!’”
“They made me fix my teeth and work out and be sexy,” the star continued. “Be sexy, how do I do that? ‘Go to the gym!’ Running in the gym and putting oil on my body and stuff, and it just turned out to be a long-form version of one of those male topless calendars, in a garage, carrying a tire, kind of greased up.”
According to Affleck, Bay “had a vision of a glistening male torso into the oil, and he was like, ‘That’s going to go in the trailer and sell tickets!’”
“And you know, what can you say?” Affleck shared. “We could have made, I think, 400 ‘Chasing Amys’ for what we made ‘Armageddon’ for.”
And despite his decades-long career, Affleck said it’s “Armageddon” that his children prefer watching. He shares daughters Violet and Seraphina, as well as son Samuel, with ex-wife Jennifer Garner.
“It’s funny because that’s the one movie of mine that my kids have watched and they’ll kind of all admit to liking, even though they relentlessly mock it and me,” said the Oscar winner. “’What are you, driving a tank on the moon?’ But they had fun, you know what I mean?’ They won’t even watch ‘The Town.’ So there you have it.”
ORDER A COPY OF ROB’S NEW BEST SELLING BOOK! Called “America’s Number ONE Gossip Columnist” by The National Enquirer. Rob ‘Naughty But Nice’ Shuter breaks celebrity news every day on his website NaughtyGossip.com where he delivers all the dish about the stars we love in his naughty but nice signature style. You can also catch him co-hosting and breaking celebrity news on Good Day New York, The Today Show, The Talk, Wendy Williams Show, CNN, Extra and Z100’s ‘Elvis Duran.’ Previously, Rob was the Huffington Post’s only celebrity columnist and the former executive editor of OK! Magazine. Rob has also hosted his own Saturday night talk show on Mark Cuban’s channel and his own daily morning show, ‘The Gossip Table,’ on VH1! Breaking some of the biggest entertainment stories, including Jamie Lynn Spears’s pregnancy news, Britney’s first post-meltdown interview, Eva Longoria’s wedding, and baby exclusives for Jessica Alba, Tori Spelling and Mathew McConaughey’s tots, Rob always knows where to find the best scoop. Before Rob was one of the world’s most successful entertainment reporters, he was a publicist working for Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, P. Diddy, Jessica Simpson and Jon Bon Jovi! Now he is bringing all this experience to his new show on I HEART MEDIA in his unique cheeky way, that is always a pinch and never a punch!