Ben Affleck says ‘tsunami’ of terrible Gigli reviews ‘really made me question things’

Ben Affleck has reflected on the catastrophically bad reviews of Gigli, the 2003 film on which he met his real-life girlfriend Jennifer Lopez.

The crime comedy starred Affleck as a mobster who is ordered to kidnap the brother of a powerful federal prosecutor. When everything goes wrong, his boss sends in Ricki (Jennifer Lopez), a free-spirited female gangster, to help.

In the years since its release, Gigli has been considered one of the worst films of all time, with its sex scene between Affleck and Lopez attracting the most ridicule. The movie was also one of the most expensive box office bombs in history.

Speaking to friend and fellow actor Matt Damon for Entertainment Weekly’s February cover story, Affleck said: “There was wonderful stuff in there. There are things where my daughter will be like, ‘This is ableist and disgusting,’ and, OK, the way we see stuff has changed a little bit, or a lot in some cases.

“And there are things that seemed they could work at the time and don’t in retrospect.”

He added: “But really, the truth about that movie and what it taught me was how much everything around a movie sort of dictates the way people see it. But for being a movie that’s such a famous bomb and a disaster, very few people actually saw the movie. It doesn’t work, by the way. It’s a sort of horse’s head in a cow’s body.”

Affleck said that because he and Lopez had started dating during the making of the film, the studio latched onto the idea of creating a romantic comedy.

The actor added: “I remember talking to [director] Marty Brest the Friday it came out and I was like, ‘It’s just spectacular, it’s a tsunami, it couldn’t be worse. This is as bad as it gets.’”

He said: “I thought my job was to be a cipher. I can see now how people looked at me and thought of this person as some callow frat guy who’s cavalier, or has too much. It engendered a lot of negative feelings in people about me.

“There’s that aspect of people that I got to see that was sad and hard, it was depressing and really made me question things and feel disappointed and have a lot of self-doubt. But if the reaction to Gigli hadn’t happened, I probably wouldn’t have ultimately decided, ‘I don’t really have any other avenue but to direct movies,’ which has turned out to be the real love of my professional life.

“So in those ways, it’s a gift. And I did get to meet Jennifer, the relationship with whom has been really meaningful to me in my life.”

In June last year, the pair – who were one of Hollywood’s most high-profile couples in the 2000s – confirmed rumours that they were dating once more, after being pictured sharing a kiss while on holiday in Malibu.