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- [00:00]
A
Hello. You're about to drift into an episode.
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Of the Nightly a podcast designed to.
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Help you unwind and relax.
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For the full phone free immersive light experience, visit Hatch Co Enjoy.
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A
Hi everyone, this is Josh Gondelman from the Nightly. I'm one of the co hosts that you know and hopefully love. It is such a pleasure to be here with you. I hope you're having a restful holiday season and we at this time of year we're re airing some of our favor episodes from 2025 and I got to choose one that I'm very excited to present to you. This episode is called Ben Affleck's Back Tattoo and Rom Coms. And it is a conversation that I had with my co host Sophia about Ben Affleck's enormous phoenix back tattoo and Gone Girl and what makes him such a compelling public figure and what makes a great rom com. So if you haven't heard this episode before, I hope that you enjoy it for the first time and if you did hear this one when it aired initially, I hope you enjoy it again. This is truly one of my favorites and I'm excited to re listen to it and I hope that you enjoy it as you drift off to sleep tonight. So good night and enjoy.
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B
Hey there. I'm Sophie. Sophia.
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A
And I'm Josh. Welcome to the Nightly on Hatch where every side is your good side.
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B
Period.
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A
How are you, Sophia?
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B
I'm okay. I'm okay.
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A
Okay.
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B
I've had a busy couple weeks and I'm like, hopefully moving soon. So that's like my whole brain is being like, taken up by like, apartment.
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A
But I find that to be like an extraordinarily unpleasant task every time.
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B
Of course, of course I'm trying to keep a like, horrifyingly positive attitude about it, but sometimes I get like. But for the most part, whatever, it's just waiting around and then whatever. It's just. Yeah, but it's okay.
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A
Are you moving far within the city?
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B
No, I'm just like waiting to hear back about an apartment. So I'm literally just like waiting, waiting. If I move, it won't be far. It will be moving just one neighborhood over. So not far.
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A
Oh, very nice.
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B
It'll be interesting. I've lived in my place that I live in right now for like three and a half years. So I'm like, it'll be like so crazy to live somewhere else.
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A
Yeah, I've been in the place that I am now for eight, I think now. And just like the idea of having to pack up the Whole apartment and move it to somewhere else is like, I'll just be here for my entire life. Perhaps just through inertia.
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B
Yeah, no, it is like, it's just so easy here. I mean, when you find a place in New York that you like living or even like don't mind living, it's like, yeah, we're going to be here for like straight up at least four years because like God forbid I have to put anything into a box.
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A
Truly, I'll never use a box.
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B
I also was like, damn, I used to have so many boxes that I've just like given away over the years, which is like totally fine. But there's just so many things where I'm like, I need that. But whatever, in the end, if all goes to plan, it'll be amazing and I'll live alone, which will be like a dream come true. So fingers crossed.
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A
Oh, that's really exciting.
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B
Yeah, I hope that it all works out. I'm like, let's see.
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A
Cool.
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B
Yeah, I found like a rent stabilized place so I'm like, oh my God, I really hope that I move there.
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A
That's huge.
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B
Yeah, could be awesome. All my dreams could come true.
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A
Fingers crossed.
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B
We'll see. How are you, Josh?
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A
I am okay.
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B
We're both okay.
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A
Yeah, I'm like waiting on some work stuff that has been kind of like got me a little frazzled. But last weekend I, I'm like trying to hold on to this completely idyllic day that I had where I did a little work in the morning. On Sunday a friend who lives two blocks from me was like, oh, I just got back from vacation, got you a little present, I'm gonna come drop it by. So we like hung out just chatting in front of my apartment for a while. A different friend came and we had ice cream who we I hadn't seen in a few weeks. And we had a nice, like just ice cream ketchup. A third friend who lives one block away from me was having a stoop sale and so we went over to the stoop sale. My friend Ashton and I each bought a piece of art that my other friend Rose had painted and we just had such a beautiful.
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B
That's amazing afternoon.
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A
And then Maris, my wife and a few other friends and I went out that night and unsurprisingly to listeners of the nightly, we did like two and a half hours of karaoke, your favorite.
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B
That is literally your perfect day, huh?
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A
It was really spectacular. I was telling a, a different friend not to brag. Four total friends, whatever. But I Was telling another friend and she was like, that's more socializing than I can handle. And I was like, not me. That's like an ideal day. Anytime I can be around people that are great. And then I, you know, that I'm happy to see and I don't have to sit around with my own thoughts. Huge for me.
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B
Yeah, totally. I'm trying to think if that's too much for me, I might not be able to do the dinner. But like, it also just is so dependent because it feels like what you explained was a very organic thing where all the little hangouts kind of bled into one another, which is a lot less energy than being like. And then I have to go see this person for an hour, and then I have to go see that person for an hour.
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A
Honestly, I think that's part of what made it so nice, which is that the ice cream and the karaoke were on the schedule, but they were several hours apart. And then the other stuff all just kind of broke. Plunked itself down into my day. And I was like, oh, I'm busier than I thought I would be. There was no pressure of like, oh, I've gotta go here and then here.
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B
And then here and then here. Totally.
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A
Yeah, it was really nice.
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B
No, that is so nice. It is like so awesome when you live near your friends too and you're like, oh my God, we can just go over here and see this person or whatever.
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A
It's really lovely. And I think that's one of the things I like about living in a city. I don't think it's New York specific, but living in a place where there's a great density of cool people is really a joy.
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B
I know, it's so nice. It's like, oh my God, it is awesome. I was like walking to my friend's house last night and I'm like, everyone is walking here, cuz we all live so close by. And that is a dream.
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A
That is really a dream. Amazing.
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B
It's so sweet.
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A
Cool.
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B
Oh, okay. That's literally amazing.
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A
Thank you.
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B
Friendship is beautiful.
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A
Love, friendship.
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And it heals. Okay, well, I feel like karaoke is one of your Roman empires.
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A
I do think about it a lot.
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B
It's one of your favorite things in the world.
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A
Yeah, absolutely.
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B
I thought we could talk about some other Roman empires tonight. And I'm wondering if you have something random that you've been thinking about a lot recently.
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A
Yeah. So the Red Sox and the Yankees recently played in the major league baseball playoffs. And so, you know, Hollywood's Ben Affleck of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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B
Yes.
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A
Okay.
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B
Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ben Affleck, that's correct.
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A
And do you remember the film Gone Girl?
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B
Of course. Is that we're going to talk about.
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A
Yeah, we're going to talk about Gone.
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B
Girl, because that's one of my Roman empires, actually. For real?
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A
For real. Okay. This is slightly apocryphal and, like, kind of a legend more than it is a real story. But on the commentary for Gone Girl, David Fincher kind of famously tells a story, and he's being a little tongue in cheek with it. But there's a scene in the movie where Ben Affleck is. Is at one of the New York City airports, and he's like on all the TVs, because they think he has gone to the girl, but she gone herself.
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B
And she gone her. She's alive and she gone herself. Spoiler alert.
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A
Spoiler alert. But he's trying to lay low. And so he buys a hat at, like, a Hudson News to wear, like, down low over his eyes.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
And they were like, well, you're at, like, LaGuardia or JFK Airport, so get a Yankees hat. And he was like, I will not. And they were like, but this is, like, the movie. And he's like, not gonna do it even in a movie.
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B
That's so funny.
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A
Yeah. And so the apocryphal version of it is that this was a fight that cost three days of filming because they were at an impasse and neither one of them would cave. And then they ended up with the compromise of him wearing an FDNY hat.
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B
Okay, okay.
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A
In the movie. As his disguise. Cause you know how you can get hats celebrating the fire department and the police at the airport?
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B
Thank God. Yes.
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A
And I just think about that so often because that feels to me a little overblown. Like, I don't think they probably stopped filming for three days over this, but I do wonder, like, what the kernel of that story is. Was it like David Fincher was like, oh, just give me Yankees hat. And Ben was like, I don't want to do that. Can we do FDNY hat instead? And he was like, yeah, though, of course. Who cares? Or was it. Was there a fight that just was resolved quickly? I don't know. But I, like, I wonder. I want the behind the scenes of that so badly.
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B
I don't know, because it kind of seems like you would be like, okay, then let's just do a hat.
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A
I need to correct the record because I'm hearing from our producer that it was a Mets hat was the compromise.
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B
That's a funny compromise also, but I guess it's just because the Mets have less of a rivalry with the Sox than the Yankees do, I suppose.
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A
Yeah. But I think that's it.
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B
It's funny that it was still a New York team hat and they were like.
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A
Because they could have just gone, fdny. They sell those hats at the airport.
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B
They could have gone with anything. But also, like, actors and directors and people are crazy, so who knows?
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A
This didn't come from nowhere. You know what I mean? So it's like, how much of this is real and how much of it is legend? Because it is like, they're both very professional. You know what I mean? Like, this wasn't, like, a kid hired for his first acting job, and he doesn't know how to act on set. And David Fincher isn't, like, some director who has anything to prove by the time he's making Gone Girl. So it's not like he has to, like, win this fight to prove that he has control over the set.
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B
I know. It's really interesting, and I do wonder. Cause. Yeah, wait, I'm like, has Ben Affleck ever been reported to be, like, difficult to work with?
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A
I don't know. I mean, like, I know that he had some chaos years, but I don't know if that extended to. On the set.
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B
That was mostly just the back tattoo, right?
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A
The Phoenix, famously.
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B
That was private. That was all private. That's so funny. Sorry.
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A
No, it's so funny.
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B
He did that, and then he was like, I don't have a back tattoo. And then everyone was like, but there's all these photos of you with a giant dragon on your back.
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A
We've seen pictures of the back. And then didn't he try to say, like, it was for a role and then.
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B
Yeah, he did. What role he did. I don't. I think he might have eventually admitted it.
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A
Yeah, I think he did.
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B
Wow, that is so crazy to, like, really go through a hard time and get a massive color back tattoo takes up all of the real estate on.
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A
Your back, and then to be like, nah.
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B
No, literally, it's like, stand on that.
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A
My birthmark. No, bad. The giant tattoo.
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B
And also someone who, like, doesn't really have tattoos.
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A
Right, Right.
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B
Really crazy. And, like, must have taken a long time.
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A
A long time.
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B
It also is like that. It's not like you get drunk and, like, go out one night, and you're, like, going through a divorce, and then you end up with a tattoo. It's like that Was like, days and days of getting a tattoo.
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A
Yeah, right. He probably had to go more than one session.
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B
No, like, literally 100%, like, a handful of times he had to go. It's so big. It's, like, huge.
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A
It's really big and really detailed. Like, it's not like a art. It's, like, really filled in.
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B
It's fully colored in.
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A
It's so funny. That tattoo is like another Roman Empire. I have, like, a great tenderness for Ben Affleck in my heart.
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B
I know, I know. Well, his life.
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A
Did you see he and Jlo again?
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B
Wait, are they back together again?
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A
No, no, no. Not together, I don't think. But they were together, as in. In the same place and being, like, friendly and affectionate at the premiere of Kiss of a Spider Woman. And everyone's like, here.
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B
Well, they have literally, like, a soul tie to one another, clearly.
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A
I know.
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B
That is so funny.
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A
It's really good.
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B
I know them. I'm like, what is going on there? I never, like, watched any of the documentary stuff that she did, but people were saying that the relationship was seeming really interesting.
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A
Yeah, I watched a little of the one that was like, music videos.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
And that was pretty wild. My wife watched it and was like, you gotta see some of this. It's tremendous.
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B
I know. That is so, like, something I need to watch.
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A
I bet with a little distance, it's even more delightful. There's like, a song, like, a full music video. And then, like, hard cut to. She's talking to her therapist, who is Fat Joe the rapper.
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B
Right. And that is her therapist in real life.
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A
Yeah, yeah, he's licensed. They call him Empathetic Joe now.
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B
Yeah. Wait, can I say a couple things about Gone Girl?
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A
Of course.
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B
Okay, so I just have a couple things to say about Gone Girl because I love that movie.
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A
Yeah, it's really good.
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B
I actually recently read the book as well. I read a bunch of Gillian Flynn novels. All of them. Even though I'd already seen basically all of the film adaptations of them. Gone Girl as a movie is so interesting to me because, first of all, it is literally three hours long.
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A
It's so long.
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B
It's so long. And then, like, the thing that I really am like, fixated on in that movie is the stunt casting.
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A
Oh, yeah. Tyler Perry.
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B
Tyler Perry. Emily Ratajkowski.
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A
Neil Patrick Harris.
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B
Neil Patrick Harris. And I'm like, what the heck?
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A
Yeah.
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B
It's so crazy.
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A
People who are in, like, probably on screen for, like, five to eight minutes literally, and it's like, big, big name people yes.
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B
Tyler Perry is so crazy being in that movie. It's all insane. And yet the movie's good is what's so crazy.
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A
It is good. You go. You watch Tyler Perry in that and you go, oh, he's just, like, good at acting.
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B
Yeah, he is. He just does something completely different.
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A
Right. Like, his career is, like, auteur who makes, like, his own genre, essentially, of film. And then it's just fascinating to see him in someone else's project.
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B
Yes. Putting him in a different context is crazy.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I think what is so impressive to me about that movie is how much it seems like it should be, like, really bad. Yeah. But it's actually, like, completely good. But, I mean, it's, like, soapy. It's not like a joke, which is kind of what it almost seems like it would be because of all the random people who are in it.
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A
Yeah. I think it really holds together. Like, a few years ago, my wife, who is a book critic and an author, wrote about how, like, Gone Girl, the book is the thing that all these other books have been chasing since then. Oh, there are so many worse versions of this that came in the wake of, like, a soapy story. Intense, dark, with, like, a huge twist baked into it that kind of sells the whole thing. But it's also well written and propulsive around the. It's not just like, oh, a twist. That's why we watch it.
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B
No, it's really good.
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A
Good through and through. Yeah. It's pretty impressive.
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B
Yeah. I read all of her books. I read Gone Girl, Sharp Objects.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Which is so hard to not see. Sharper Image. Of course. They're really good, though, because I basically fell into this thing, like, last year where I was reading a bunch of thrillers, and it really is. There is a huge ch between the good and bad ones. There's some really good ones and some really bad ones. And hers are really good. Hers are super compelling.
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A
She's good. Yeah. It's really fascinating to see someone do something at that level. And then the imitations give the original thing. They kind of take away the shine of it because everyone's like, oh, it's this genre.
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B
Yeah, but no, she invented that.
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A
Yeah, exactly.
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B
And also, it was so female hero villain thing, which is so obviously in vogue, or maybe even, like, was really in vogue and now is kind of less so. But that, like, archetype.
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A
But that cool girl monologue, too, of like, how.
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B
Yeah, I mean, that is, like.
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A
Yeah, it's, like, legendary. Yeah.
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B
Yeah. That's like, Tumblr bait.
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A
No doubt. That's exactly what it is.
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B
Like. Yeah, people love that.
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A
What have you been thinking about lately? Like what's been on your mind other than also Gone Girl.
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B
Okay. Well, mine is kind of related in that it's also a book or books. It's a universe which is that basically something I think about a lot is, you know Emily Henry?
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A
Yes. A romance writer.
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B
Yeah, I think about her a lot. So actually like similar to the thrillers, I went through a breakup like actually almost exactly a year ago and I started reading like really weird books like that I wouldn't normally read.
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A
Go on.
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B
They were thrillers. And then I also started reading these like rom com books, which is like really funny because it's like you'd think that that isn't soothing, but it actually was incredibly soothing. And she has all these books. She has like beach Read, People we meet on vacation. I can like literally list them. Let's see, Happy Place, Book Lovers, Funny Stories. She just came out with one that was called Great Big Beautiful Life. And I haven't read every single book of hers because I think at some point they like popped off and they're like very, very formulaic. Like really, really formulaic.
- [17:54]
A
Oh, interesting.
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B
And she's like, has like a like, kind of like poppy way of writing. It's literally as like if Taylor Swift wrote books like that is like the most apt comparison I can find in that.
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A
It's like, that's very funny.
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B
She's talented, but she's also doing a very specific thing.
- [18:10]
A
Right, right, right. Not every artwork is about like stretching and innovating.
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B
No, no. But I'm like, you're doing this similar to. I would not say it's like as good as Gillian Flynn in terms of like actual wr. She's doing this thing like well, like, because there are also like horrible romance books obviously. And I'm like, these are like compelling and engaging and like even they're funny. They're all like two people who like for some reason can't be together, of course. And then they have like really big they're like feelings for each other. And then like in the end, of course they end up together. The men in particular are always the same, which is like kind of like brunette men who are like kind of. They seem brooding, but they're actually like quite nice. Of course.
- [18:55]
A
Of course. You know, this is a thing that I think about all the time is how when someone is like a little gruff but like secretly nice, people love that. People go wild for that.
- [19:05]
B
People go wild for it. Of course.
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A
Are they secretly nice? And then when someone is like, almost always nice and then sometimes a little mean, they're like, oh, secretly, you're a bad person. No, it's what it is. Most of the time.
- [19:18]
B
Yes, of course.
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A
Anyway. But I think about that a lot.
- [19:22]
B
No, for sure. And it's like, I don't find the relationships to be modeling kind of really, like, problematic behavior. It's just like, really romantic. And then something that I actually found out in the pillow fort from one of our amazing teammates is that within the universe, she has little. And this is also Swiftian, she has little Easter eggs. And so, like, they will be. The books will be connected where it's like in one book, the protagonist is a famous author, and then in another book the protagonist is a famous literary agent and she goes to a reading.
- [19:55]
A
That's fun of the author.
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B
Stuff like that.
- [19:57]
A
I think that's fun.
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B
It is cute. It's really cute. And a bunch of them, like, bought and are now, like, being turned into movies, which I am, of course, excited to see. I don't know how good they'll be.
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A
It's so interesting that there's so many big romance authors that are, like, doing not only good work, but prolific work. Both. Right? Like, some people are more prolific, some people are more good. But there's so much. And it feels like we could be in a real era of, like, classic rom coms adapted from those.
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B
No, that's so true.
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A
But, like, they haven't all made it to the screen yet. And the ones of the kind of romance book to screen recently that is most famous was the one that became such a flashpoint of all this weird, gross stuff was the Colleen Hoover one with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
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B
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
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A
I'm really fascinated. I was thinking about romance, which is not a genre I read really the other day, because I was like, it feels like so much art is in such a difficult place, right? Like, just, you know, there aren't that many big studio comedies coming to theaters for film. And it feels like pop music is kind of in one big specific lane. And then there's the big other country lane for what's popular. And I was asking friends, like, what do you think is big? And that is like, we're in a real boom time for what kind of art? And someone was like, oh, like romance with all kinds of different points of view, like queer romance and, like, fun romance. And we're just like in this golden age of romance novels, which is so interesting.
- [21:31]
B
And people love, like, Romantasy ones too, which I haven't read, but, like, those are huge. I know, it is interesting. Like, I hope the movies are good because to me, the most iconic romance adaptation in the past, whatever amount of years has been normal people.
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A
Oh, sure, yeah. Yeah.
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B
Good.
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A
Totally.
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B
And then they did, like her other book, they did Conversations with Friends, which wasn't as good, but I still enjoyed. But I love Sally Rooney. I don't know if people even put her under the romance category, but it's certainly not a rom com either way. Like, it's not funny at all, really.
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A
There's a heaviness to it.
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B
Yeah. I feel like the books can be funnier than the adaptations, actually, but.
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A
Oh, interesting.
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B
But it'd be so fun if they did adapt, like, the rom coms into good rom coms. I feel like we have a major lack of good rom coms for a while.
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A
Yeah, we got like a little flurry of them on Netflix and stuff a little while ago and then even that quieted down and now it's like, you know, the Summer I Turned Pretty. But that's a series. It's like, give me 95 minutes of like a fun journey.
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B
Yeah. Oh, my God. I know. I just want to see two people who have really good chemistry on screen together.
- [22:39]
A
I know.
- [22:40]
B
It's so fun and it's like they kind of forget about that. But I did, of course, watch all of the Summer I Turned Pretty, so. And I actually read those books as well.
- [22:49]
A
Shout out to Jenny Han. Who's great.
- [22:51]
B
Shout out to Jenny Han. I love Jenny Han. That was awesome.
- [22:55]
A
Oh, this is such a delightful conversation and just thinking all these happy thoughts about romance and Ben Affleck, it's just. It's got me feeling really sleepy. So I think I'm gonna turn in.
- [23:08]
B
I'm pretty sleepy too. This has really put me out. So I'll talk to you next time. Good night, Josh. Goodnight, Sofia.
- [23:21]
A
Sa. Sam.
- [24:14]
B
To learn more about our phone free.
- [24:16]
A
Light and audio experience, head to Hatch.
- [24:18]
B
Co. You can also follow us at Hatch Podcasts.