ITALY: Ben Affleck in Venice for the premiere of his latest film, "Hollywoodland"

Ben Affleck, Adrian Brody, Diane Lane, and Bob Hoskins arrived in Venice on Thursday (August 31) for the world premiere of "Hollywoodland" - a new film that uses the mysterious death of 1950s Superman star George Reeves to examine the pitfalls of Hollywood fame. Ben Affleck said he drew on personal experience to play the role. "Nowadays I think it's become more and more, people pay attention to actors' private lives or personal lives or even the most mundane aspects of their everyday lives in a kind of parallel track alongside their movies or even where the movies sometimes become like certain incidental pitstops and commercial breaks in the soap opera of their lives," he said. "Hollywoodland", is the second "film noir" detective story to hit the annual film festival. "The Black Dahlia" kicked of the 11-day cinematic marathon on Wednesday (August 30). Affleck, who has famously enjoyed as many lows to his movie career as highs, acknowledged he had plenty in common with Reeves, but stopped short of describing his performance as a "comeback" after a string of critical flops in recent years. "(Some people) truly do anything to get ahead including die which is sort of the ultimate effort to be famous as a matter of, if I'm even here to enjoy it, because there are people who crave success, celebrity so much and again something the movie is kind of about is the extent to which every character is ambitious," he said. Affleck appeared keen to distance himself from his recent past, marked by obsessive tabloid interest in his relationship with singer Jennifer Lopez with whom he made the critically panned "Gigli". Early reaction to "Hollywoodland" suggests the critics will be kinder to Affleck this time around, although co-stars Adrien Brody and Diane Lane have been singled out for the strength of their performances. Affleck, married to Jennifer Gardner with whom he has a young daughter, said fame was hard to avoid in today's celebrity-obsessed age.

ITN Source | September 4, 2006

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