- What would it be like if we ended up writing the script
that became the hugest hit?
What does it feel like now?
I-- I can't really wrap my brain around it actually.
It just feels-- it's just so amazing.
You know, if you could have seen us a couple years ago, yeah,
we really had nothing.
We had nothing.
OPRAH WINFREY: OK, what's nothing, nothing?
Well, he was living on my couch, and--
and we just--
I'm still living on the couch, you know?
[LAUGHTER]
We couldn't really make the rent, and--
OPRAH WINFREY: You've been-- you've been friends since you
were, what, eight, I hear? - Yeah.
BEN AFFLECK: Yeah.
That is the sweetest thing.
[APPLAUSE]
I was 8, Robin was 32, and he and the rest of the NAMBLA guys
took us there.
[LAUGHTER]
So you were-- you've been like buddies
and lived in 10 different apartments, I hear, right?
Yeah. Yeah, about that.
And you wrote the script when? You were in school.
Yeah, I was in college, and I wrote it--
started writing it for an English class
and didn't know what to do with it.
So I showed it to Ben, and we kind of
decided to write it together.
And we-- we really wanted to take our time with it,
so we put it on the shelf for about a year.
And then eventually one night, we were up
and I'm probably doing nothing productive.
And we just started talking, and the script
poured out from there. - Really?
Yeah.
And so how then--
how did you start the process, Ben, of trying to sell it?
You know, the process of trying
to sell it is sort of like it either happens or it doesn't.
We already had agents as actors, and, you know,
I think we weren't the first actors
to tell their agent like, you know, we wrote a script.
I was thinking he was going to be like,
you don't say, you have a script, wonderful.
OPRAH WINFREY: Everybody does. Right.
So-- but luckily, he was a nice enough guy to-- to read it
and then decided like, well, you know,
it's-- it's not any worse than any of the other scripts,
and so he just decided to try to sell it.
And it's not-- you know, I guess it's like publishing
or a lot of things, you know?
The agents just sort of send it out to people.
And then, you know, through, you know, using smoke and mirrors
and lying to them and going, you know, this is great,
you got to read this, eventually they get somebody to read it
and then, you know, they do whatever
it is they do to get people--
Where were you guys when you found out it was sold?
We were at-- we were at our house.
Yeah, we were at-- we were at our house in-- in Los Angeles,
and--
and our agent actually came to the house.
It was like such a big thing.
He was there and he was kind of finishing it up--
the deal on the phone in our house.
And the phone rang, you know, and we thought it was them.
And, you know, we picked up the phone like, (ANXIOUSLY) hello?
And-- and there was--
it was a call for our friend from high school,
and, you know, it was some girl.
And he gets on the phone and he's like, (CHARMINGLY)
hey, how you doing?
You know?
We're like, hang it up!
Hang up the phone!
I mean, we-- you know, we were--
thank god for these agents, too, because we
really would have taken anything that we saw-- that was offered.
So they stopped telling us kind of what
was happening until the very end,
because it happened over a four-day period.
OPRAH WINFREY: Really? - Oh yeah.
So we were--
OPRAH WINFREY: And you would've taken anything?
Oh, anything.
OPRAH WINFREY: Like what?
Like a piece of chicken.
[LAUGHTER]