Ben Affleck Explains the Reason Why His Ex-Wife Jennifer Garner Dropped Out of His Psychological Thriller ANIMALS

Around three years ago, Ben Affleck was casting his upcoming film Animals, which he was set to direct from a script he co-wrote with Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray. His longtime friend and collaborator Matt Damon had signed on to star in the movie alongside Affleck’s ex-wife Jennifer Garner.

Affleck talked to EW about the casting process, and explained, “I thought, God, Jen Garner would be amazing for this role. It also has the added benefit of, like, both of us will see our kids more because we do a week and a week and back and forth. I thought, well, we can coordinate our schedules around it.”

With Animals, Affleck thought, “She can bring something interesting that she hasn’t [done], that I kind of know she can do, that I don’t think she had a chance to do in one movie.”

But then, two weeks before production, Affleck heard from a friend that Spike Lee and Denzel Washington were making the movie Highest 2 Lowest (2025), and it dealt with themes similar to Animals.

Even though Animals is an original script, Affleck wanted to avoid any mistaken perception that he was creating a “competing version,” joking, “I’ve already been in one of the two asteroid movies” (referring to his 1998 movie Armageddon, which premiered the same year as Deep Impact). After a lot of contemplation, Affleck canceled the project.

But after a couple of months after he stepped away from the film, Affleck said, “I was like, God, this is really sticking with me, and I actually wanna do this.” But by that time, Matt Damon was no longer available. He was off to make a “smaller” film, as Affleck joked, with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

So Affleck stepped in to take on the lead role himself, which landed him in the awkward position of playing the husband of his ex-wife in a movie about a rocky marriage. “I talked to Jen, and she was like, ‘We don’t wanna do that. You just get baggage,’” he says.

“I would love to work with her, frankly,” he continued about Garner. “She’s fabulous, and we’re really good friends, and I’m profoundly grateful to her, and we have a great thing. I still would wanna work with her in the future, but what you don’t wanna do is take the audience’s baggage and have it work against you, you know?”

Then with Garner’s blessing, Affleck recast her role with Emmy winner and Golden Globe nominee Kerry Washington. The film also stars Gillian Anderson and Steven Yeun.

Animals will be available theatrically in select cities and streaming on Netflix on October 9th.