Ben Affleck Says Justice League Was ‘The Worst Experience’

Ben Affleck recently referred to his time on Justice League as “the worst experience” for a variety of reasons. Affleck, who starred in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League as the Dark Knight, spoke with the LA Times for a new interview and discussed how the team-up movie contributed greatly to his decision to leave the role.

“It was really Justice League that was the nadir for me,” he said. “That was a bad experience because of a confluence of things: my own life, my divorce, being away too much, the competing agendas, and then Zack’s personal tragedy and the reshooting. It just was the worst experience. It was awful. It was everything that I didn’t like about this. That became the moment where I said, ‘I’m not doing this anymore.’ It’s not even about, like, Justice League was so bad. Because it could have been anything.”

Affleck was also originally supposed to write, direct, and star in The Batman, but he dropped out of that as well. He noted, “Directing [The Batman] is a good example. I looked at it and thought, “I’m not going to be happy doing this. The person who does this should love it.” You’re supposed to always want these things, and I probably would have loved doing it at 32 or something. But it was the point where I started to realize it’s not worth it. It’s just a wonderful benefit of reorienting and recalibrating your priorities that once it started being more about the experience, I felt more at ease.”

Affleck is reprising his role as Batman in the upcoming The Flash. Matt Reeves’ The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson, arrives on March 4th.