Ben Affleck Had Food Poisoning Filming ‘Armageddon’s Emotional Scene with Bruce Willis

It turns out that one of the most emotionally charged scenes of Ben Affleck’s career also saw the actor battling a bout of food poisoning. Working through an illness is never a treat, and the actor admitted he “wasn’t an experienced enough actor” at the time, which kept him from calling in sick. The scene Affleck was filming was also no walk in the park, as it would see him breaking down in tears, delivering a heart-wrenching performance alongside Bruce Willis.

Affleck and Willis starred in 1998’s Armageddon alongside a star-studded cast, bringing gravitas to the sci-fi blockbuster, which delivered bombastic thrills under director Michael Bay. Yet, amid the apocalyptic thrills, many fans remember the emotional scenes late in the film between Affleck and Willis, which bring many to tears. Still, it was a memorable scene for Affleck in a completely different way, as he told Jake Hamilton in a recent interview, explaining, “When we shot that scene, I had food poisoning.”

While the scene had the audience crying over the emotional exchange, Affleck notes, “they had a garbage can” the actor utilized between takes, continually vomiting while filming it. The Armageddon star also quipped, “And it probably made the scene better,” which had him and The Rip costar Matt Damon laughing. Thanks to Affleck’s revelation, fans now have a new perspective on a famous scene.

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Affleck’s Armageddon DVD commentary has become something of a legend among fans, with the actor openly talking about how Bay told him to “Shut the f**k up” when he brought up perceived plot holes. The actor saw it as a potential plot hole, so he asked why it would be easier to train oil drillers to be astronauts than to teach astronauts how to be oil drillers, which is a valid question. Bay was rather brash in his response, and Affleck ended his time attempting to understand the script further. When it came to recording the commentary for Armageddon’s DVD release, Affleck opened up about the experience. When listeners heard his statements about Bay, the commentary track went viral, offering a candid look into the production.

Armageddon was a production already noted for its early-era “Bayhem,” in which the director makes the most action-packed, explosive films he can. That style has only continued throughout the director’s career, with the scale of the cast and the destruction on display in the disaster epic proving to be a massive box-office success, earning $553 million worldwide. Still, it has also been notoriously picked apart by NASA scientists, who have used Armageddon with recruits, asking them to point out as many inaccuracies as possible in the sci-fi disaster film. Beyond simple science, the movie sacrifices logic in several places, as Affleck pointed out, leaving it with a unique legacy of success and illogical avenues that are only furthered by Affleck’s revelation of his on-set illness.