More Jen heroics
August 21, 2006 12:00am
Article from: Sunday Herald SunFont size: + -
BEN Affleck has a new alias for wife Jennifer Garner - Supermum.
"My wife is incredible," he says of Garner, who gave birth to their daughter Violet last December.
"She's still up all hours of the night, at 4am, feeding, pumping, diapering, everything.
"It's really hard, as it turns out, to have a newborn. It's trying and she puts a tremendous amount of effort into it."
Even after 34-year-old Garner has gone back to work making the drama The Kingdom opposite Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx, Affleck says his role in bringing up baby remains limited.
"I try not to be in the way," he says, gesturing helplessness. "She does everything. She's like Supermum.
I realised what she thinks of me the other day when I was trying to feed our daughter. I don't want to bore you with the details of this, but I was going to mix a little jar of prunes with one of grapes, or something like that, and Jennifer wanted me to put a little oatmeal in it.
"She says, 'Just get the prunes and the grapes and then you want to take a little oatmeal, like a spoonful'. And then she looks at me and goes, 'Is this getting too complicated?'
"How inept have I demonstrated myself to be when she genuinely feels that mixing three food items is beyond my capacity? That story illustrates, I think, my life at home.
"But my wife is an incredible mother and I adore her."
Affleck, 34 last Tuesday, obviously adores his daughter, too. Having spent his 30th birthday in a rehabilitation facility for alcoholics, he says becoming a father has made him focus much more on his own behaviour.
"You can make all manner of a fool of yourself if, ultimately, the only consequence is you, right?" he says.
"You pay the price and you live with it when you make mistakes. But looking at myself in the context of being her father, caring so much about what she sees and wanting her to be proud of her dad and wanting her to see a responsible, healthy, present and loving father has changed me a lot."
The actor and Academy Award-winning screenwriter now is awaiting the US release of his next movie Hollywoodland, in which he plays George Reeves (1914-1959), who won fame, if not fortune, via a long-term, low-paying contract to star in the half-hour television series The Adventures of Superman.