{"id":777496,"date":"2026-09-21T05:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T05:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/777496\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T05:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T05:10:12","slug":"ben-affleck-nearly-cast-ex-jennifer-garner-in-animals-as-his-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/777496\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Affleck Nearly Cast Ex Jennifer Garner In ‘Animals’ As His Wife"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs Ben Affleck<\/a> takes the lead in his next directorial outing, he\u2019s recounting the casting game of musical chairs that almost resulted in his onscreen reunion with ex-wife Jennifer Garner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe co-writer, director and star of Animals<\/a>, premiering Oct. 9 on Netflix<\/a>, explained how he came to take over the lead role of Mark Kimball from his pal Matt Damon, after initially casting Garner to play Mark\u2019s wife Abigail in the crime thriller.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI thought, God, Jen Garner would be amazing for this role,\u201d he told Entertainment Weekly<\/a>. \u201cIt also has the added benefit of, like, both of us will see our kids more because we do a week and a week and back and forth. I thought, well, we can coordinate our schedules around it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAffleck added, \u201cShe can bring something interesting that she hasn\u2019t [done], that I kind of know she can do, that I don\u2019t think she had a chance to do in one movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut being that a similar kidnapping thriller was coming out with A24\u2019s Spike Lee joint Highest 2 Lowest, Affleck pulled the plug on that version of Animals two weeks before production was set to begin. \u201cIt\u2019s hard enough to make a good movie. You don\u2019t need those kinds of headwinds,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKerry Washington<\/a> as Abigail and Ben Affleck as Mark in \u2018Animals\u2019 (Warrick Page\/Netflix)<\/p>\n

\n\tA few months later, Affleck\u2019s passion for the project reignited the production, but Damon was busy working with Christopher Nolan.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMatt was unfortunately doing another lesser film, obviously, with Odyssey. He chose a smaller director and a smaller film and a smaller role for his career, and I think he\u2019s gonna suffer for it. He\u2019ll regret this choice,\u201d joked Affleck. \u201cA better actor had to play the part, naturally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDeciding to take on the role of Mark himself presented another issue. \u201cI talked to Jen, and she was like, \u2018We don\u2019t wanna do that. You just get baggage,’\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKerry Washington as Abigail and Christopher Woodley as Denny in \u2018Animals\u2019 (Warrick Page\/Netflix)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would love to work with her, frankly,\u201d added Affleck of his ex-wife. \u201cShe\u2019s fabulous, and we\u2019re really good friends, and I\u2019m profoundly grateful to her, and we have a great thing. I still would wanna work with her in the future, but what you don\u2019t wanna do is take the audience\u2019s baggage and have it work against you, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, Affleck ended up casting Kerry Washington after getting to know each other during the 2023 Hollywood strikes. \u201cShe\u2019s very polished, but she\u2019s also very warm. I thought, Oh my God, she\u2019s amazing for this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tCo-written by Affleck, Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray, Animals stars Affleck as Los Angeles mayoral candidate Mark Kimball, whose son is kidnapped, giving him and wife Abigail (Washington) a few hours to get their hands dirty and come up with the ransom money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Ben Affleck takes the lead in his next directorial outing, he\u2019s recounting the casting game of musical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2851,14192,6491,96,57600,256298,392,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-777496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-animals","tag-ben-affleck","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-jennifer-garner","tag-kerry-washington","tag-netflix","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}