Ben Affleck Details Being Held At Knifepoint As A Teen — And The Surprising Reason He Got Away

Ben Affleck is recounting a terrifying encounter from when he was in high school.

Affleck joined his Animals costar Kerry Washington on the September 30 episode of her Street You Grew Up On podcast where he opened up about growing up on Cottage Street in a "working class" area of Cambridge, Massachusetts, per People. When Washington asked if he had ever been robbed as a kid, Affleck detailed narrowly avoiding tragedy when he was a teenager.

"I remember I was walking home from high school, I was 14 maybe, and I saw these two kids in like literal hoods from the other side of the street," he said. "And, you know, it's kind of one of those things where you're like, 'All right.'"

When he saw the pair cross the street, the Argo director decided to play it cool rather than run away, but the guys grabbed him anyway. He said they took out a knife and demanded he give them his money, but in a strange twist of fate, he was able to get away after he recognized who they were.

"I was scared," he said. "But then out of the corner of my eye, I realized who they were. I recognized them from playing baseball and they were like older boys that I knew and they were like, 'Oh, yeah, what's up?' And so I guess I was like, I guess I'm off the hook."

While Affleck was able to get away unscathed, others weren't quite as lucky as he said that one of the guys went on to kill someone with a knife a few years later and be to prison for 20 years.