Now Why Did Ben Affleck Look Like That In J.Lo's New Movie?

There’s a lot going on in Jennifer Lopez’s dizzying new movie This Is Me... Now. Like, a lot. Part visual album, part biopic, part steampunk dream fantasia — the project aims to depict the highly publicized ups and downs of Lopez’s love life. So, naturally, viewers will spend much of the movie waiting for her one true love, Ben Affleck, to make an appearance. He’s listed as one of the stars in the trailer, after all. Well, he does show up... but not how you might expect him to.

A lot of viewers will probably make it to the very end of This Is Me... Now having totally missed Affleck’s part. No, I’m not talking about his faceless, largely unseen role as a motorcycle driver at the beginning and end of the movie. He actually pops up throughout the saga as a newscaster named Rex Stone.

Yep — underneath all that fake tan and questionable wig is Affleck. The aggressive anchor character shows up on television screens throughout Lopez’s odyssey, complaining about how modern society has lost its ability to love. It’s not clear why, but the character seems to be at least a partial parody of Donald Trump in terms of appearance.

The decision to use Affleck in this way is... pretty confusing. A more conventional love story would have Affleck play the romantic hero who swoops in to save Lopez from her heartbreaks in the end. But no — instead, the love of Lopez’s life is shown fuming about the downfall of society in a Fox News-esque environment.

Aside from his unrecognizable appearance, Affleck’s cameos also get a bit lost due to the deluge of bombasticly over-the-top scenes that envelop them. The almost-supernatural movie sees Lopez fueling a giant metal heart with flower petals, doing interpretive dances at a love addicts anonymous meeting, and seeking the aid of a celeb-filled council of personified zodiac signs.

While Affleck’s part may not be the one viewers were expecting, real fans of the couple know how their love story really goes. The two first started dating in the early 2000s, but ended things in 2004 due to the intensity of the media coverage of their relationship. Two decades later, they found their way back to one another and finally got married in 2022.