Ben Affleck talks about ‘the only time' he saw his father cry

Published on Apr 29, 2025

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood star and filmmaker Ben Affleck has shared memories about his father Timothy as he talked about the first and the only time he saw his dad cry.
In his visit to the Criterion Closet, Affleck, selected some of the company’s cinematic offerings he considers favourites. David Lynch’s 1980 movie The Elephant Man, he recalled, “is the first and only time I ever saw my father cry.”
Lynch’s hit film, which stars John Hurt as a deformed man and Anthony Hopkins as a doctor treating him, is a “movie about what it means to be a human being. And it's heartbreaking and beautiful and... it's tied to a very personal memory for me,” said Affleck, reports people.com.
Appearing to get emotional, the Oscar winner concluded: “That's probably a good note to end on.”

Timothy, who shares sons Ben and Casey Affleck with ex-wife Christine Anne "Chris" Boldt, separated from her and moved from their Massachusetts home to California when the “Good Will Hunting” star was 12.
In 2020, Ben shared that his father, a former janitor, had marked 30 years of sobriety at the time.
He had “a tremendous amount of respect for what that takes and what that means," Affleck said of his father.
"Part of being an adult is learning that your parents are just people. They’re not perfect. They were just doing their best. As a child, we expect perfection out of our parents.”
Affleck called Criterion’s renowned closet, owned and stocked by the home video distributor, “my idea of heaven.”
In addition to The Elephant Man, his selections of favorites to take home included 1990’s Miller’s Crossing, 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, 2000’s Traffic and two movies he starred in: 1993’s Dazed and Confused and 1998’s Armageddon.
He also hailed Jean Renoir's 1939 classic The Rules of the Game for having his “favorite line from all of cinema”, “Everyone has their reasons”, which he quipped he “stole” for his 2007 movie Gone Baby Gone. The actor also praised Denzel Washington’s work in Spike Lee’s 1992 biopic Malcolm X.