In the 1990s and early 2000s, Kevin Smith and Ben Affleck were two of the most consistent movie-making partners. Fast-forward a decade from their last collaboration and it sounds like the former friends aren’t even on speaking terms.
“We’re not f**king tight. I have not been [close with him] in decades,” Kevin told Yahoo Movies during a Comic-Con event on Friday. “That’s old Ben. He’s got a wife that don’t care for me at all. And plus, honestly, he probably don’t care for me at all anymore. He’s a triple-A-list movie star and s**t like that. If he’s Jimmy Carter, I’m Billy Carter, to put it in ’70s terms. And I’m not even related and s**t.”
In a recent interview with The New York Daily News, Kevin traced the end of his bromance back to one encounter with Jennifer Garner.
“Jennifer does not share the same sense of humor as me — she did not like my jokes,” he said. He added of one tense encounter on the set of 2006’s Catch and Release, “I was picking on Ben Affleck and making fun of him because I’ve known him for a really long time — I was talking smack — and Jennifer goes, ‘You know, if you keep saying stuff about him, I’m going to kick your a**.’ And she could — I’ve seen Alias. She has a real girly sense of humor and didn’t understand that I was kidding.”
Despite their differences, Kevin still highly regards his old friend.
“Ben is one of the most intelligent people on the planet,” he said. “He will run for office and one day be President, and then we’ll smoke a joint in the Oval Office. He’s very well-spoken and been brought up extremely well, but he’s filthy… His jokes are way dirtier than mine. He’s made jokes to me, and I’ve been like, ‘Ben, you need to go to church.'”
