A father-son bond! Ben Affleck has opened up over the years about raising his son, Samuel, with ex-wife Jennifer Garner.
Affleck and Garner originally met on the set of Pearl Harbor in 2001 before reconnecting three years later. After exchanging vows in 2005, the pair welcomed daughter Violet in December 2005. The Alias alum gave birth to daughter Seraphina in 2009 and son Samuel in 2012.
Following one decade of marriage, Affleck and Garner announced their decision to part ways. “After much thought and careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to divorce,” they said in a joint statement in 2015. “We go forward with love and friendship for one another and a commitment to coparenting our children whose privacy we ask to be respected during this difficult time. This will be our only comment on this private, family matter. Thank you for understanding.”
A source later exclusively told Us Weekly that coparenting has always been “a work in progress” for Affleck and Garner. “Things come up between them, but they are committed to doing the best they can for the kids,” the insider revealed in March 2020. “They stay on top of things and have a lot of meetings and check-ins. They want to be the best parents they can for the kids. If they have differences, they keep it to themselves and don’t let it have an impact. They always put on happy faces for the kids and put their well-being first.”
At the time, the director offered a glimpse at his relationship with his son as Samuel becomes more aware of his father’s career in Hollywood.
“My son knows that I do movies that are kind of fake, and his mom does movies, and that’s all pretend,” the Academy Award winner shared during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that same month. “But he also knows that Star Wars is real. He knows there’s guys out there fighting the emperor and that job needs to get done, and I can do my fake bulls–t, and some people can do an important job.”
He continued: “I told him, ‘I’m actually in this movie with Kylo Ren [Adam Driver]’ and his mind opened in two. He was like, ‘But Dad! But how? How do you know Kylo? Are you going to space? Will he have his lightsaber?’”
Even though his kids are familiar with his roles, Affleck joked that they still don’t consider him cool. “You might think so, but you would be wrong,” he told Extra in December 2021. “I don’t think I’m that cool anyway but whoever you are, if you’re somebody’s parent, you’re not cool to somebody in the world. … That’s part of life. You realize there’s something kind of healthy about embarrassing your kids.”
The actor also gushed about the impact that fatherhood has had on him through the years.
“My life is better, and I am happier the more I am around my kids,” he shared during an interview with Good Morning America in December 2021. “We all want to pass on the best of ourselves to our children. I don’t care who you are, I’m quite sure you feel at some point in your life you’ve taken missteps, nobody wants to transfer that to our children and that is a real task that everybody faces, whatever those issues are. … I will be long dead and someone will ask my kids, ‘What was your dad like?’ and that is when I will know what my life was worth.”
Scroll down for Affleck’s sweetest quotes about his son: