Ben Affleck Talk Harbor

What can you tell us about 'Pearl Harbor'? Do you cry in that?
I do cry in that movie, but only for a moment. Men didn't cry in the '40s, I don't know if you knew that. That's an interesting movie in the sense that in some ways it's the opposite of this movie. This movie was inside out, that movie was outside in, everything is representative, you're doing an historical movie. Having been an American history major, I found it very interesting. You're telling a socio-political epic tale and you're speaking to these larger themes of innocence in America, the price of war, the sacrifice a generation made. That's what was satisfying about that movie. I really learned a lot about myself and pushed myself as an actor. That movie was satisfying because the Pearl Harbor survivors and veterans visited the set every day. You definitely had a sense that you owed history and this story the best possible work you could deliver. It's very different than doing something fictional because there's no one there to say, "I was there and that wasn't how it was, and I care deeply about it." I felt a sense of urgency with that movie because so many of these guys are old now, many of them have passed on just from old age. So I felt a sense of urgency to preserve that. There's only so much oral history you can get and then that generation is gone.

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