Ben Affleck began his successful acting career at the age of 8 in the PBS television show The Voyage of Mimi. From there, he went on to appear in several television movies including the 1987 NBC miniseries Hands of a Stranger. By 1993, Affleck had grown into a tall, well-muscled and darkly handsome young man and was given the role of the football playing Joe Willie Clemmons in the NBC series Against the Grain (1993). The following year he played Aaron Henry, a young man who becomes addicted to steroids, in an installment of the HBO series Lifestories: Families in Crisis titled "Body to Die For: The Aaron Henry Story." Affleck made his feature film debut in the early 90s also and was frequently cast as a jock or teenaged villain in such films as Dazed and Confused (1993). In 1995, he appeared in Kevin Smith's Mallrats and two years later carried the lead in Smith's Chasing Amy. In 1997, he also appeared in three other major feature films Going All the Way, Phantoms, opposite Peter O' Toole and in Good Will Hunting, for which Affleck co-wrote the screenplay. Affleck has directed one short film, the provocatively titled "I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meathook and Now I Have a Three Picture Deal at Disney." The son of an educator and drug/alcohol counselor, Affleck was born in California but was raised in Massachusetts. He later attended Occidental College. His brother Casey is also pursuing an acting career.