Ben Affleck reveals what still surprises people about him

Ben Affleck says the texts he got after winning Who Wants to Be a Millionaire all carried the same underlying tone.

The 54-year-old actor was recently speaking on GQ's One More Question with Zach Baron, where he revealed how people reacted with surprise, as if asking how he could possibly do that.

“I was telling somebody, the texts I got are all kind of like … The underlying tone is one of slight bafflement,” Affleck revealed, further quoting them, "Like, ‘How the f*** does this guy do that?'"

In July, Affleck teamed up with Jeopardy! champ Jamie Ding, and the two won the top prize. They answered the 15th and final question correctly, which was about the names of turkeys pardoned by a US president at Thanksgiving. 

The money went to Affleck's foundation, the Eastern Congo Initiative.

Affleck said the episode reminded him of a belief people have about Good Will Hunting. 

“To me, that episode was really interesting,” Affleck recalled, further joking that, by riding a much smarter person's coattails to success, he fit what many assumed was the real story behind the 1997 film's writing.

“That actually was, in terms of me riding a much smarter person’s coattails to great success, I think what people assumed was the real story behind the writing of Good Will Hunting.”

He noted he didn't graduate from college or go to fancy schools. In truth, he and Matt Damon wrote the film together. 

Damon started the script for a playwriting class during his fifth year at Harvard, then brought it to Los Angeles and showed it to Affleck. 

Damon said on The Tonight Show in 2021 that they were like "unemployed, broke guys" and took forever to finish it, writing thousands of pages.

“We didn’t really know what we were doing, and I think that kind of put us off writing again because we never thought we’d have the time,” he added.