Ben Affleck has said that he was snubbed as director and lead actor of Argo at the Oscars because he “fucked up”.
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The tense biopic about a US hostage crisis in Iran scooped up Best Picture at the 2013 Academy awards as well as Best Adapted Screenplay and Editing.
However, Affleck was not nominated for Best Director or in any acting categories. “It was the big snub, right? That really taught me a lot,” he said on a recent episode of The Howard Stern Show.
Affleck went on to detail how he committed to the entire awards campaign for the film in the hopes of getting nominated. “I schmoozed everybody in the world right,” he explained, before saying that multiple industry folk assured him that his name would be called out on nominations day.
When his name was ultimately left off the list, Affleck said that he called up the film’s distributors, Warner Bros., and told them: “I’m done. I’m never going to do it again. No handshaking. I don’t give a fuck.”
The actor and filmmaker went on to say that the snub felt like a personal attack on him. “We had Editing, Score, Picture. The only guy who fucked up was the lead and the director? I can do the math on who the asshole is here,” he said.
Elsewhere, it has been revealed that Stephen Sondheim voted for Team America to win Best Picture at the Oscars.
Following the recent death of the Broadway legend, a letter he wrote Team America: World Police and South Park co-creator Trey Parker has emerged.
“I would have written you sooner, but I’ve had trouble finding your address,” the letter began. “I hope this reaches you, because it’s another fan letter. I saw Team America and voted for it as the best movie of the year (a fat lot of good it did you).”