{"id":2461,"date":"2014-09-18T07:56:21","date_gmt":"2014-09-18T07:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shows4.com\/entertainment\/?p=2461"},"modified":"2014-09-18T07:56:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T07:56:21","slug":"ben-affleck-admits-to-counting-cards-while-gambling-but-slams-jennifer-garners-disapproval-as-tabloid-s-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/?p=2461","title":{"rendered":"Ben Affleck Admits to Counting Cards While Gambling but Slams Jennifer Garner&#039;s Disapproval as &#039;&#039;Tabloid S&#8211;t&#039;&#039;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/blog_hollywood\/article575_thumbnail.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/blog_hollywood\/article575_slide.jpg\" \/>Want to know the truth about Ben Affleck&#8217;s gambling habits? Apparently, you just need to ask Ben Affleck. <\/p>\n<p>In a no-holds-barred interview with Details magazine, the 42-year-old actor, along with his Gone Girl director David Fincher, opened up about the highly anticipated flick based on the best-selling book of the same name as well as the web of lies often spun by the media\u2014a central theme in upcoming film to which the Oscar-winning actor can undoubtedly relate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m accustomed to all kinds of absurdity, so I expect that. No matter what,&#8221; the Argo star tells the publication when asked if he felt weary taking on the role of Nick Dunne\u2014who finds himself at the center of a media circus after he becomes a suspect in his wife&#8217;s disappearance\u2014due to the scrutiny that may possibly be placed on Affleck&#8217;s own marriage to wife Jennifer Garner as he begins to make the press rounds. &#8220;So I know some people will react in a ridiculous way. And I&#8217;m just at a point now where it could have been about anything, it could have been about the most painful thing in my life\u2014which this doesn&#8217;t happen to be\u2014but to me it&#8217;s just all about the director. Who you work with&#8230;Are people going to ask me asinine questions, from the press? You just can&#8217;t get away from that. I can promise you that will happen.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>And while Affleck has years of experience shooting down those absurd press requests, he also knows when to set the record straight, opting to provide a refreshingly honest response when asked about the recent claim that the actor has been caught counting cards in casinos.<br \/>\n&#8220;That is a true story. I mean, that took place,&#8221; he confessed. &#8220;I took some time to learn the game and became a decent blackjack player. And once I became decent, the casinos asked me not to play blackjack. I mean, the fact that being good at the game is against the rules at the casinos should tell you something about casinos.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Asked why he got so good at the game, the father of three replied, &#8220;I had always liked blackjack. I don&#8217;t play any other games of chance. I don&#8217;t bet on football games, and I don&#8217;t gamble at all, really, outside of that. But I knew with blackjack that there&#8217;s a way you can improve your odds. And so I started trying to learn. And then I just got to a point in my life where I&#8217;m like, &#8216;If I&#8217;m going to do something, I&#8217;m going to try and do it really well.&#8217; It was sort of presented like I did something illegal. You know what I mean?&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>As for the rumors that he was kicked out of the casinos? Affleck says that, unfortunately, those stories are only tabloid tales.<br \/>\n&#8220;I wish I could say they were afraid of me in every capacity, but they only said, &#8216;No blackjack,'&#8221; he shared, adding &#8220;That would be awesome [if they threw me out]. &#8216;Get him outta here! He&#8217;s a magician!&#8217; Unfortunately, they just came up and said, &#8216;We can&#8217;t let you play blackjack. But we have other table games! We have Chinese poker!'&#8221;<br \/>\nClearly, the Batman vs. Superman star isn&#8217;t hesitant to chat about his supposed hush-hush habit in hopes of clarifying a few misconceived perceptions. &#8220;I get to correct the impression that there&#8217;s something wrong with it or that it demonstrates some, like, compulsive activity. Usually, when you&#8217;re a compulsive gambler, the casinos don&#8217;t ask you to leave because you&#8217;re beating them. You know?&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>The author then cited one report which claimed Affleck look &#8220;disheveled and upset,&#8221; causing the A-lister to mock the incessant media rumors. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/br>&#8220;That&#8217;s the thing: It&#8217;s really hard for people to understand\u2014it would be hard for me to understand\u2014that people can freely write that s&#8211;t, almost completely fiction, and pass it off and run it. And you&#8217;re going, like, &#8216;I can&#8217;t f&#8211;kin&#8217; believe this! Not only do they invite me over there, then they don&#8217;t let me play, then they said I was, like, gambling, which also is not true, and then they said my hair was f&#8211;ked up. When will the indignities end?'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>However, rumors with regards to his family are an entirely different story as Affleck didn&#8217;t hold back while slamming the false divorce reports that were supposedly tied to his gambling habits. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;See, that&#8217;s tabloid s&#8211;t. That&#8217;s all bulls&#8211;t,&#8221; he said of the notion that his wife &#8220;can&#8217;t take it anymore.&#8221; &#8220;They completely lie. I mean, I can show you 10 articles of Star and OK!\u2014those magazines feel totally comfortable absolutely fictionalizing every single element of the story. And there&#8217;s nothing you can do about that. My only hope is that people with any common sense recognize that those stories are false. And, I don&#8217;t know, there&#8217;re worse stories&#8230;&#8221;<br \/>\nStill, Affleck&#8217;s experience with the media circus has supplied him with the tools to play the charming, yet suspicious Nick Dunne. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I did not want to entrust that character to somebody who doesn&#8217;t understand what that [the tabloid media] is,&#8221; Fincher told Details. &#8220;Nobody signs up for this. If you showed people how absurd this kind of attention is, they would never sign up to be a movie star. They would go, &#8216;Thank you, but no thank you.&#8217; What&#8217;s Nick Dunne&#8217;s mechanism? His mechanism is, &#8216;I want you to like me, and I will use my charm to disarm any situation that starts to feel uncomfortable for me.&#8217; And you had to have an actor who understands what a slippery slope that is.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/blog_hollywood\/article575_slide1.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/blog_hollywood\/article575_slide2.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"\/blog_hollywood\/article575_slide3.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div style=\"width:600px;margin:0 auto\">\n<div><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.polyvore.com\/ben_affleck_10_biggest_celeb\/set?.svc=copypaste&amp;id=38952124\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" alt=\"7. Ben Affleck - 10+ Biggest Celeb crush challenge\" src=\"http:\/\/cfc.polyvoreimg.com\/cgi\/img-set\/.sig\/OLtr5oH8rBNeTTztezCw\/cid\/38952124\/id\/gO1wP0UF4RGzYRDyPWiMmg\/size\/c600x603.jpg\" title=\"7. Ben Affleck - 10+ Biggest Celeb crush challenge\" height=\"603\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Want to know the truth about Ben Affleck&#8217;s gambling habits? Apparently, you just need to ask Ben Affleck. In a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}