Movies
Section B • Page 6
The University Daily Kansas
The 2001 Japan Exchange and Teaching Program
Teach English in junior and senior high schools in Japan Learn about Japanese culture and people Gain international experience
Requirements
- Have an excellent command of the English language
- Obtain a bachelor's degree by June 30, 2001
- Be a U.S. citizen
- Be willing to relocate to Japan for one year
Applications are now available. The deadline for applying is December 6, 2000.
For more information and an application contact the Consulate General of Japan in Kansas City at 1800 Commerce Tower
911 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64105-2076. Call (816) 471-0111 ext.105 or 1-800-INFO-JET.
The application can also be heard at www.embianan.org
Ben Affleck grateful for role with ex-girlfriend in Bounce
Ben Affleck stars with ex-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow in Bounce, which opens tomorrow. Affleck described the movies's script as being rich, layered, textured, interesting and subtle — a real actor's movie. Contributed photo
NEW YORK — Ben Affleck chomped on ice from his soda glass, and the occasional shard of cube shot from his mouth as he explained how it felt to make a love story with ex-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow.
The Associated Press
"It wasn't easy," Affleck says. "It was certainly awkward in some ways. Like they always say, the old adage about not — uh, it may not be printable — the idea that you're not supposed to date co-workers ... You know the said."
Yes, many of us know that scatological expression.
But Affleck was able to defy that old saying and make Bounce with his former squeeze and fellow Academy Award winner because she made it possible, even easy.
"She's a pretty exceptional lady," he said during an interview in a Manhattan hotel suite. "I'm not a guy who's got a lot of good relationships with ex-girlfriends. I don't know how that works."
The 28-year-old actor, who shared a screenwriting Oscar with Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting in 1998, theorizes that women are better at remaining friends with exes. (Paltrow declined to be interviewed.)
"That's always been a mystery to me up until now," Affleck says. "Maybe I just grew up. I don't know what it was. But I've finally been able to have a decent friendship with somebody who I went out with."
One benefit of their relationship, which lasted from fall 1997 to the beginning of 1999, is the "emotional honesty" that he and Paltrow's shared past brought to Bounce, Affleck savs.
In the film, Affleck plays Buddy Amaral, an unctuous, glib ad man who gives his airplane ticket to a family man (Tony Goldwyn) eager to get home for the holidays. The plane crashes and everyone is killed. Buddy's agency handles the airline's damage-control ad campaign, so, doubly wracked by guilt, he drinks himself into rehab.
Once he's sober, he looks up the
man's widow (Paltrow). Initially it seems he just wants to boost her fledgling career as a real estate agent, but then they fall in love, all without her knowing that Buddy should have been on the plane.
Affleck shot 1998's Shakespeare in Love with Paltrow while they were dating.
After they broke up, Paltrow brought Affleck the Bounce script, which he found to be "rich, layered, textured, and interesting and subtle, and a real actor's movie."
"I would never have probably have heard about it if it hadn't been for her." he says. "Because since we weren't going out anymore, I'm sure people would have assumed that I'd be the last guy who they would bring it to, because people would assume that it would be awkward or whatever."
He was grateful for the role in Bounce: a character who is flawed and contradictory, a guy in pain who is looking for redemption. And director Don Roos said, "Affleck really shines as an actor in the second half of the movie, as Buddy is forced to go deeper."
Affleck, who will appear in next year's planned epic Pearl Harbor, said he's come a long way from the days when casting directors didn't
think he was leading-man handsome.
"So it was a challenge for me to get people to take me seriously as a leading man," he said, crediting director Kevin Smith for helping by giving him the lead in the 1997 independent hit Chasing Amy.
Several years and various magazine covers later, the friendly 6-foot-2-inch actor admitted feeling resentful about the attitude he met early in his career. "But something good came of it," he said. "It's what motivated Matt and I to sit down and write."
Without going into specifics, Affleck said he and Damon, his childhood friend from Cambridge, Mass., were writing a script they hope to co-direct.
As for those doubters, Affleck said he didn't want to do a dance of vindication in their offices now. What's more important to him is to prove that the people who believed in him were right. That's why he was glad Good Will Hunting was successful.
They had to convince Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein to spend $15 million on the movie
"I wanted him to feel like he made a good choice, a good investment. There's nothing worse than the feeling that you've let people down." Afleck said.
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