How Ben Affleck Used His Own Experience to Portray an Alcoholic in ‘The Way Back’

variety.com:

Ramin Setoodeh New York Bureau ChiefIn “The Way Back,” Ben Affleck received some of the strongest acting reviews of his career for playing Jack Cunningham, a high school basketball coach who struggles with alcoholism.

It was a part that hit close to home for Affleck, who is now sober.“With a role like that, I am an alcoholic, so I understood to a certain extent the alcoholism,” Affleck says in a conversation with Sacha Baron Cohen for Variety’s Actors on Actors, presented by Amazon Studios. “This guy’s had a very different life from mine, but what was interesting about the story was I hoped people would find some catharsis in watching him go through something very difficult.