Before Ben Affleck was famous, he was in college. However, that didn't work out so well. In the new issue of Parade magazine, Affleck reveals that he attended the University of Vermont for half a semester, which he calls "the worst two and a half months of my life!" The breaking point came when he fractured his hip in an intramural basketball game. "I was now on crutches in the coldest university in America, living in the dorm farthest from the main campus, and I didn't know a soul, nobody!" Affleck tells the mag. Luckily, his childhood pal Matt Damon, who was a student at Harvard at the time, was more than happy to bail him out. "Obviously, things weren't panning out. I hadn't been to Spanish class in five weeks. I didn't have a car. I called Matt. 'You've got to pick me up! I can't walk that well. Come and get me now!' Matt was there in six hours. That was the last I ever saw of the University of Vermont." A few other highlights from the interview:On growing up: "I grew up in a home environment where I wasn't getting esteem for anything I did. I played sports, but I wasn't great at them, so it wasn't like I was super-athletic and getting a huge amount of praise for that. There was alcoholism at home because of my father. I changed schools [at 8 years old], and I didn't really know the kids at the new school. I felt alone."
On fame: "Fame makes you crazy. It was like being in a car accident - spinning around, out of control. Things moved very, very fast. I never even saw it coming. I was overwhelmed. It was a sudden transformative shift in my life... I went from being unknown to being part of this giant publicity machine. In about six months, I lost myself and turned into someone who, in retrospect, I didn't like very much."
On being overwhelmed by his breakup with Jennifer Lopez: "I took a year off. I needed time to get my head straight and figure out if I even wanted to work in this business anymore. I was tired of being lied about and taken advantage of. I was really disgusted."
On life: "Life is very good. Am I a happy man? I am when I'm around my daughter. Then I'm a very happy man."
On 2-year-old Violet: "She is happy as hell and talks like crazy! She has the ability to make me smile and feel so good and be so charmed that when I'm not with her for a while, all I want to do is go home, just to be around her again."