Jen Garner is a big reason 'The Way Back' got made after Ben Affleck’s relapse

It’s no wonder Ben Affleck has been showing nothing but love for his ex-wife Jennifer Garner in interviews leading up to The Way Back’s premiere on March 6; apparently she’s a pretty big reason why the movie was made at all after Affleck relapsed in 2018. In a new interview, director Gavin O’Connor revealed that at the time, the people with the money figured that Ben's struggle with his sobriety meant the end of the film.“So, what happened was, just as we started prepping the movie, Ben fell off the wagon,” O’Connor told the University of Pennsylvania’s student publication, 34^th Street Magazine. “So he ended up going to rehab, and I didn’t know if the movie was over. The studio certainly thought the movie was over.” But then the unexpected happened, and Garner got on the phone.“His ex-wife Jennifer Garner called me up, and told me that when he went to rehab, he took a basketball with him,” O’Connor said. “She said, ‘Gavin, he’s asking you, please don’t pull the plug on the movie, he really wants to do this.'”[video_embed id='1913092']RELATED: Ben Affleck on how much on his own life influenced his character in 'The Way Back'[/video_embed]Apparently the director wasn’t able to speak with the star himself until about a week of serious detoxing later, but when he did, he was convinced. “We spent half a day together and figured out a way to do this that will work for him, because most importantly he needed to recover and needed to get his sobriety on track,” O’Connor said. “That overtook everything. And then he got out the day before we started shooting. So we had a very raw, vulnerable guy showing up for our first day.”

His own way back

Vulnerable or not, it sounds like doing the movie may have been one of the best things for the 47-year-old, as he tried to find his own way back. This movie is a case of art imitating life; Affleck stars as an alcoholic construction worker named Jack Cunningham who finds inspiration after becoming a coach for his former high school’s basketball team.“There are some things about this character I really could connect to—being a recovering alcoholic, going through family strife, a divorce,” Affleck told People. “You try to bring your own life experience to the parts that you can, use your imagination on the other parts.”“It's almost a counter–intuitive thing with acting, because he's doing scenes that were obviously painful. Really intense and dark and bleak and suffering,” O’Connor added in his 34^th Street Magazine interview. “And capturing that, to watch him do that was hard at times, but it also was euphoric, because that's your job as an actor, is to access these emotions and to go to places that are honest and deep and truthful. So, it always felt really good, even though it was painful, because he was doing his job really well.”During Affleck’s recent press tour he’s been open and honest about his struggles with addiction, about how filming the project helped him to reconnect with his love of making movies, and how he regrets his divorce to Garner, which was finalized in 2015. While Garner has stayed away from responding in the press, sources recently told Us Magazine that Garner’s new beau, John Miller, isn’t cool with all of the comments because he’s worried about Garner being thrust back into the spotlight.Wonder if Miller will have similar feelings towards O’Connor for shedding light on how instrumental Jen was in making this all happen.[video_embed id='1913976']BEFORE YOU GO: How social media star Sarah Nicole Landry keeps it real online'[/video_embed]