Facing the camera and commanding it

The one thing they all said to me,in one form or another,was: make sure you get enough coverage of yourself, he recalled. They said the natural tendency is to go do a scene,and theres three of us,and I do 10 takes on actor A and 12 takes on actor B,and now were probably in a rush,so the polite thing to do is bang out one take on yourself and move on. Because you dont want to look like a prima donna.

He laughed as he recounted this. My first two movies were agony, he confessed,referring to The Town and Gone Baby Gone,his 2007 debut as a director,in which he did not appear. I was terrified.

And his third? Called Argo,it opens next month,and it explores a little-known footnote to the Iranian hostage crisis,which began in 1979 and lasted more than a year. Affleck not only directed it but also plays the lead role of a CIA exfiltration expert who posed as the producer of a nonexistent science-fiction movie in order to get into Tehran and try to rescue six Americans hiding in the home of the Canadian ambassador. Many who have seen the movie consider it the best of his three directing efforts,the one that will move him forevermore beyond his seemingly playboy past. Remember the engagement to Jennifer Lopez? And their on-screen magic in Gigli? Since Gigli,Affleck actually tied the knot with a different Jennifer,surname of Garner. Theyve been married more than seven years and had their third child in February. All settled down,all grown up,Affleck now has subtle flecks of silver in his hair. Hes quick with jokes and lavish with self-deprecation,when the subject of his performance 15 years ago in the movie Chasing Amy came up. I was supposed to kiss Jason Lee, he recalled,referring to a pivotal scene. And he had heard peers say that you were a really great actor if you could convincingly play homosexual as a man, he continued. And I just blew it. The kiss is in there,but it looks like Tom amp; Jerry.

The kiss was on his mind,he said,because Damon was working on an HBO movie about the pianist Liberacehe plays Liberaces boyfriend and had recently talked to Affleck about it. Matts like,Yeah,Im going to make out with Michael Douglas tomorrow, and it triggered that memory, Affleck said. On Damons big lip lock,he added,It was much better than my kiss. Maybe Michael Douglas is sexier than Jason Lee. Matt and Ben: competitive kissers,lifelong friends and the toast of Hollywood in the late 1990s,when they won the Oscar for their screenplay for Good Will Hunting.

The heart of the action in Argo is set in Tehran,where the lives of six Americans are on the line. Afflecks character,Tony Mendez,travels there to coach them on new,fictive identities,in the hope that they will be able to pass themselves off as a movie crew scouting locations and to leave Iran that way. The movie puts extra emphasis on the characters estrangement from his wife and distance from his young son,and becomes,in some ways,an allegory of fatherhood,with Mendez acting as a parent to the stranded and terrified Americans.

Affleck has roles in two moviesa thriller,Runner,Runner,and a romantic drama,To the Wonderthat have been shot but not released. Having just turned 40,he said,made him wonder: Is that halfway? Its a zero-sum game. You have from now until the end. And if you take a year to do one thing,its a year you no longer have to do something else.