We Finally Know Why Sad Ben Affleck Was So Sad In 2016

Is there a celebrity with a more complex public arc than Ben Affleck?

Over the last decade, the actor has gone from worn-out leading man, to walking meme, to redeemed and accomplished performer, to award-winning director, and just about everything inbetween. Most of our public figures get pigeonholed fast, turned into representations of a very particular part of our psyche. But Ben Affleck means something different to just about every person on the planet. When we talk about Affleck, really, we are talking about ourselves, in all of our multitudinous wonder.

But if there was one era of Affleck that will go down in history as the most famous, it’s probably “Sadfleck.” The year was 2016, and Affleck was best known for playing the Batman, gearing up to deliver his final performance as the Caped Crusader in Justice League.

And he wasn’t happy about it. In interviews, and across press tours, the actor seemed to be struggling under the weight of the iconic character, frequently gazing off into space and looking like he wanted to be talking about anything but the masked vigilante.

Now, Affleck has opened up both about the Sadfleck meme itself, and has explained exactly what was going on that made him so morose.

“Even the ‘Sad Affleck’ meme – that was funny to me,” the actor said in an interview with the LA Times. “I mean, there’s nobody who hasn’t felt that way at a junket. But then my kids see it and I think, ‘Oh, are they going to think their dad is fundamentally sad or they have to worry about me?’ That’s really tough.”

As to the reason behind that sad face? The experience of shooting Justice League. “It was really Justice League that was the nadir for me,” said the actor.

“That was a bad experience because of a confluence of things: my own life, my divorce, being away too much, the competing agendas and then Zack’s personal tragedy and the reshooting. It just was the worst experience. It was awful. It was everything that I didn’t like about this.”

So there we have it — an ancient meme, explained.