Ben Affleck Calls Justice League ‘Worst Experience’ of His Career

It’s tough being Batman.

Just ask Ben Affleck. He faced skepticism before he even put on the suit, and then got plenty of flack for his DC movies, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and especially Justice League. The negative attention was bad enough that Affleck backed out of a planned solo film for his Batman that he would have both starred in and directed.

But it wasn’t just the bad reviews that got to Affleck; he says that the actual experience of making Justice League was so miserable, it was the reason he quit The Batman. Here’s what he told The Hollywood Reporter about the situation:

But I was going to direct a Batman, and [Justice League] made me go, ‘I’m out. I never want to do any of this again. I’m not suited.’ That was the worst experience I’ve ever seen in a business which is full of some s—y experiences. It broke my heart. There was an idea of someone [Joss Whedon] coming in, like, ‘I’ll rescue you and we’ll do 60 days of shooting and I’ll write a whole thing around what you have. I’ve got the secret.’ And it wasn’t the secret. That was hard. And I started to drink too much. I was back at the hotel in London, it was either that or jump out the window. And I just thought, ‘This isn’t the life I want. My kids aren’t here. I’m miserable.’

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Affleck blamed the issues on Justice League on “production to bad decisions to horrible personal tragedy.” But he did eventually agree to shoot a few new scenes for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which he joked he was worried about because they filmed his material in Snyder’s backyard. “And now [Zack Snyder’s Justice League] is my highest-rated movie on IMDb,” he added.

Affleck will appear as Batman in The Flash is scheduled to open in theaters on June 16. His next film as a director, AIR, which is the story of the creation of the original Air Jordan sneaker at Nike, is scheduled to open in theaters on April 5.