Ben Affleck, Matt Damon Working Together Again in ‘Air’

In the early 1980s, Michael Jordan was a great college basketball player at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

No one was sure he would become one of the world's most famous athletes.

At the time, the shoe company Nike was best-known for running shoes. Nike was not famous for basketball shoes.

When Jordan left college to become a professional basketball player, he did not have dreams of wearing Nike shoes. But 40 years later, Jordan and Nike are known as a team.

The new film, Air, tells the story of how Nike recruited Jordan to endorse¹ its shoes.

The famous acting² team of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon reunited to work on the film.

Damon plays Sonny Vaccaro, who looked at all the college players for Nike and decided³ on Jordan. Affleck plays Nike co-founder Phil Knight⁴.

Affleck directed the movie and Damon plays one of the main characters. Viola Davis plays one of the other main characters, Jordan's mother, Deloris.

Damon and Affleck became famous when they made the 1997 movie, Good Will Hunting. The pair won an Academy Award, or Oscar, for writing the movie. In over 25 years since then, they have not often worked together.

It was not until they worked on The Last Duel⁵, which came out in 2021, they understood that they missed each other.

Damon said his wife told him that he laughed differently with Affleck than anyone else.

So, Damon and Affleck decided they should "make it a priority" to work together.

Amazon Studios helped make Air, but the film is the first to come out of the production company started by Affleck and Damon. It is called Artists Equity⁶. Affleck is the chief executive and Damon is the content leader. Their goal is to give the people who work on movies a greater piece of the profits.

Affleck said a lot of people who work on movies "are underappreciated and undervalued and make a huge difference in the quality of the experience in a film."

He said his company wants to "recognize" those people in the same way Nike recognized Michael Jordan for "generating the art, the beauty, the majesty⁷."

Artists Equity helps keep Affleck and Damon together and it permits them to work with people they enjoy spending time with, including Davis.

Davis said working on Air was one of the best experiences she has had on the job. She said she knows acting, directing and running a production company takes a lot of work, because she does it herself. Her production company, Juvee Productions, worked on last year's The Woman King.

Davis said being in charge is what all actors want once they have been in the business for many years.

"What they're doing is what our fantasy is as actors, especially once we've reached a certain level," adds Davis. "We want autonomy and agency."

The production company has two more movies coming out soon: The Instigators, with Damon and Affleck's brother, Casey; and Unstoppable, with Affleck's wife, Jennifer Lopez.

The story of Air has to do with how Jordan and Nike helped each other build their brands. A brand can be two things. It can be a recognized line of products, or it can also be a person's public image, what they are known for. People came to expect Jordan to do surprising things in basketball games. They expected Nike to create nice sports shoes.

Both Affleck and Damon have a brand, too. They are a creative team and best friends. People go to their movies because they expect them to be interesting.

Affleck said having a brand is "a hard thing for me to reconcile." That is because, in his words, he is "complicated, contrary, and nuanced, and brands are simple."

But life is different for them than it was in the 1990s when they established their brands.

The men are both in their 50s now. They have been in many movies. Affleck was once married to actor Jennifer Garner⁹, but is now married to Lopez. Photographers who follow movie stars follow him and sometimes catch him looking sad, but he says he is happy.

"I have a good life. I'm very lucky," he said.

Words in This Story

recruit –v. to find someone to joint¹⁰ an organization, a company or the military

endorse –v. to publicly say you like or use something in exchange for money

character –n. a person in a book, play, TV show or movie

priority –n. something that is more important than other things

underappreciated –adj. not valued enough

generate –v. to cause to happen, to create

majesty –n. the condition of being very impressive

fantasy –n. a wish or hope

autonomy –n. when a person is able to do things on their own

agency –n. being in charge of one's life

reconcile –v. to fit things or ideas together

contrary –adj. disagreement

nuance⁸ –n. a small idea, a small difference between two things

1 endorse   

vt.(支票、汇票等)背书，背署；批注；同意

参考例句：

• No one is foolish enough to endorse it.没有哪个人会傻得赞成它。
• I fully endorse your opinions on this subject.我完全拥护你对此课题的主张。

2 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 knight   

n.骑士，武士；爵士

参考例句：

• He was made an honourary knight.他被授予荣誉爵士称号。
• A knight rode on his richly caparisoned steed.一个骑士骑在装饰华丽的马上。

5 duel   

n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争

参考例句：

• The two teams are locked in a duel for first place.两个队为争夺第一名打得难解难分。
• Duroy was forced to challenge his disparager to duel.杜洛瓦不得不向诋毁他的人提出决斗。

6 equity   

n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票

参考例句：

• They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
• To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值，墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。

7 majesty   

n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权

参考例句：

• The king had unspeakable majesty.国王有无法形容的威严。
• Your Majesty must make up your mind quickly!尊贵的陛下，您必须赶快做出决定！

8 nuance   

n.(意义、意见、颜色)细微差别

参考例句：

• These users will easily learn each nuance of the applications they use.这些用户会很快了解他们所使用程序的每一细微差别。
• I wish I hadn't become so conscious of every little nuance.我希望我不要变得这样去思索一切琐碎之事。

9 garner   

v.收藏；取得

参考例句：

• He has garnered extensive support for his proposals.他的提议得到了广泛的支持。
• Squirrels garner nuts for the winter.松鼠为过冬储存松果。

10 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。