Ben Affleck Goes Back to Boston Roots, Again, For The Company Men

Not that you need any reminding, but Ben Affleck loves Boston. He loves Boston so much that his first two directorial efforts -- not counting the one about killing a lesbian wife -- have been love letters to his home city, highlighting its blue collar nature. His new film, The Company Men, centers on Boston as well, but not in the salt-of-the-earth way Affleck fans might be used to seeing; Affleck plays a successful businessman who gets pushed out in a bit of corporate downsizing. Why did Affleck grab for the white-collar this time around?

"I thought that was interesting these characters were not guys who were making 50,000 a year and were getting laid off, they were making 6 figure incomes and getting laid off," Affleck said at the New York premiere of The Company Men last night. "My character was a working class guy, went to BU, got a good job, believed in the system, built himself up, bought into all the things that we're taught -- which is that if you do the right thing, and if you work really hard you can get that promotion and you can buy a jetski or whatever it is. And then he found when he did all those things right and then got it all yanked out from under him you wonder 'well who am I?'"

According to Affleck, preparing for The Company Men was, unfortunately, a lot easier than you might have thought. "I'd love to say I had such a hard time researching this movie about people struggling economically but that wasn't the case," he said. "We shot where I grew up [in Massachusetts], so I could just go to guys I went to high school with, guys I grew up with, so many of them were dealing with some of that stuff [that we do in the movie]."

The star was also able to look at his own profession for some needed inspiration. "This business is all about uncertainty. You learn from being an actor when you first start out that you try to audition for a job, maybe get a couple lines on a TV show doesn't mean you'll ever work again for the rest of your life. You're always auditioning for your future. There's no seniority, there's no tenure. So it gives you this very fight for your food mentality that stays with a lot of actors even when they've become successful."

The Company Men was scheduled to come out on Friday, but The Weinstein Company pushed back its wide release to Jan. 21; it will still get an Oscar qualifying run in New York and Los Angeles this year.

Additional reporting done by Chloe Melas