Ben Affleck shares untold story of escaping teen mugging by future killer: ‘I was scared’

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Ben Affleck is looking back on a frightening incident from his adolescence, when he was confronted by two teenagers while walking home from high school.

The 'Gone Girl' actor recalled the encounter during an interview with Kerry Washington on her podcast, 'Street You Grew Up On.'

Affleck also reflected on the rough community he grew up in and how his childhood experiences have shaped the way he parents his own children.

Ben Affleck recounts childhood knife robbery

Affleck said he was around 15 when he was walking home from high school and noticed two teenagers wearing hoods on the other side of the street. He recalled that the pair crossed the street to confront him, leaving him to decide whether to run or stand his ground.

“It’s that thing where you’re like, ‘Okay. I’m either gonna run—’ but of course, the worst thing you could do is run,” Affleck recalled.

He said that although running would have been the sensible thing to do, he decided against it because he did not want to appear afraid.

The two teenagers then passed him, grabbed him and pulled out a knife while demanding money.

“Immediately, they pass me, grab me, take a knife out: ‘Gimme your money, and I was like, ‘Oh!’ I was scared,” Affleck recalled.

However, the situation changed when Affleck recognized the two boys from playing baseball. He realized they were older boys he knew, which meant he was not harmed. “Out of the corner of my eye, I realized who they were!” he said.

“I recognized them from playing baseball.” Affleck recalled that the boys then greeted him, leaving him feeling that he was “off the hook.” He said one of the teenagers later committed a serious crime.

“That kid who robbed me ended up three or four years later killing somebody with a knife and going to prison for 20 years,” he said.

Ben Affleck opens up about childhood and parenting

The actor also recalled that he never told his mother about the incident at the time.

He said he would never tell her about anything bad that happened to him because he did not want to worry or scare her. He eventually told her about the attempted mugging, and she asked why he had not told her earlier.

Affleck said his reluctance to share troubling experiences from his adolescence with his mother has “haunted” him now that he is raising his own children.

He recalled repeatedly reassuring them that they could tell him anything, while joking that they sometimes react as though they wish he would stop saying it.

The actor also reflected on the diversity of his peer group while growing up.

He said there was “a very intense and real awareness of ethnicity” and various groups or “little tribes,” but that being around people from different backgrounds meant friendship could still take precedence.

“And friendship kind of superseded that,” he said. Affleck also described the community around his high school as fairly rough during his childhood.

He began attending the school in 1986 and recalled that a student had been killed there in a race-related fight in 1981. “It was very much a lot of working class and poor people feeling like they were fighting it out,” Affleck said.

He added that he remembered his childhood on Cottage Street as being “colored by that.”