Ben Affleck has officially convinced his toughest critic — and young daughter.
The Oscar-winning actor admitted Friday on the red carpet for his latest film, “Hypnotic,” that he’s finally gotten familial approval. Affleck, who shares three children with his ex-wife Jennifer Garner, said the thriller had garnered him the first positive review.
“My kids constantly make fun of me, and they won’t watch any of my movies, but I showed them some clips from this, and my daughter was like, ‘That actually looks kind of interesting!’” Affleck told ET. “So I thought that was the best review that I could get.”
Affleck added he hopes others are just as enthused and “come away from it having really enjoyed the movie.” The Robert Rodriguez film centers on a detective tracking his abducted daughter, only to uncover a secretive brainwashing project led by the government.
“He really wanted to do a kind of homage to [Alfred] Hitchcock,” Affleck told ET about Rodriguez. “He wanted to make this movie like the classic Hitchcock films — letting the concept and directing be the special effects, in a way.”
Rodriguez, who burst onto the scene as an independent filmmaker in the early 1990s, has since gone on to direct massive genre movies like “The Faculty” (1998), “Sin City” (2005), and the “Spy Kids” franchise. His films have reportedly grossed a total of over $1.5 billion.
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Affleck revealed last month that he’s only recently shown two of his children “Good Will Hunting,” which earned him and co-writer Matt Damon a Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1998 — and launched his enduring image as a working-class Bostonian.
“It was interesting for me to watch them watch the movie and see how different their childhood is from what my childhood looked like,” he told The Hollywood Reporter, “and to wonder about what that must seem like to them and how distant from their life and reality.”
While it remains unclear which daughter he showed “Hypnotic” to, Affleck told the THR that his young “Good Will Hunting” fans were “engaged and interested” in the coming-of-age drama — and that it was “probably the most gratifying experience of my life.”
On Friday, however, the former “Batman” star was focused on his latest film. Affleck, who said Rodriguez had a “bold style,” told ET the thriller exemplified “old-fashioned filmmaking” and “relied on the story.” Garner, meanwhile, recently said their kids are over their parents.
“They don’t mind watching their dad, but they kind of want me to be their mom,” Garner told Allure earlier this week. “They don’t want to see me upset, and women cry more in what we do. And they don’t really want to see me in a romantic thing.”