He’s not backing down — Ben Affleck keeps defending his 6% RT misfire

Ben Affleck has a reputation for being pretty honest about his career highs and, well, the absolute lows. Case in point: the infamous Gigli disaster from 2003. Yes, that one. The film that managed to unite critics and audiences in horror, racking up a truly dismal six percent score on Rotten Tomatoes – and still popping up in worst-of-all-time lists twenty years later. You can sort of hear the collective sigh every time someone brings it up. But here’s the kicker: Affleck is remarkably upbeat about the whole mess.

Gigli stands at 6% on Rotten Tomatoes – not quite the badge of honour most people want, but Affleck seems unfazed.

Affleck Looks Back (But Doesn’t Flinch)

Affleck recently popped up on Variety's ‘Know Their Lines’ segment, where actors try to remember and identify their own classic quotes. At one point, he gets handed a line from Gigli – which, to his credit, he recognises right away. Instead of dodging the topic or rolling his eyes, he leaned straight into the film’s notoriety and turned his answer into a mini-masterclass on creative risk.

He explained that, as humiliating as the flop might look from the outside, the thing about doing anything memorable in film (or, honestly, in life) is that you’ve got to be willing to swing for the fences. Sometimes you miss, spectacularly. Gigli, he admits, missed. And badly. But Affleck argues that chasing easy wins and giving people the same old thing is actually a much duller – and for him, more soul-crushing – way to fail.

Here’s how Affleck put it during the interview: "You really can't do anything that's actually special or memorable or meaningful without being willing to take risks... So what happens is you got to go out there and like take a sort of home run swing at it. And the risk of that is if you miss, you look bad. And in this case, it was like it's obvious that the movie missed. There's this thing of like, 'Oh my god, it looks bad,' and you sort of have to be okay with that."

He went even further, saying that playing it safe just leads to projects that are blandly forgettable. In his own words, that’s the “worse and less interesting form of failure.” Hard to argue, really, if you’ve ever sat through one of those soulless studio films that simply tick boxes.

Turns Out, It Was a Crash Course in Directing

What’s actually surprising: Affleck credits Gigli with helping him pick up the skills he needed to get behind the camera. He specifically singled out director Marty Brest, saying he basically treated the set as a training ground. While everyone else was tallying up Razzie nominations, Affleck says he was laser-focused on absorbing as much as he could from Brest. This, apparently, was the real start of his journey from tabloid punchline to Oscar-winning director. He reckons it shows that you can be a talented filmmaker and still totally miss the mark on a project; it just happens sometimes.

Affleck’s Next Move?

If you’re wondering if he’s picked up his bat for another home run attempt, the answer is yes. Affleck has a new crime thriller, Animals, coming out soon – and this one’s got some star power backing him up. The cast features Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson, Adriana Paz, Luis Gerardo Méndez, and Steven Yeun (who’s everywhere these days). On top of starring, Affleck wrote and directed this one himself. That Gigli education, clearly, is still getting some use.