Ben Affleck
Born: 15 August 1972
Where: Berkeley, California
The former child actor knows both the highs and lows of Hollywood - from being on the receiving end of an Oscar for Good Will Hunting to being the laughing stock for the woeful Gigli.
Along the way, it could be argued he ditched his strongest suit - screenwriting - in favour of increasingly bland screen presences in the likes of Daredevil and The Sum of All Fears.
However, he surprised critics with a subtle turn as the ill-fated TV Superman George Reeves in Allen Coulter's thriller-mystery Hollywoodland in 2006.
The son of a schoolteacher and drugs counsellor, as a youngster he featured in a Burger King advert before landing a role aged eight in the TV series The Voyage of the Mimi in 1980.
That same year he met Matt Damon , a boy two years his senior who lived down the street in Boston. The two became best friends and, of course, eventual collaborators.
After a fling with higher education at both the University of Vermont and California's Occidental College, Affleck set out for Hollywood and began appearing in made-for-TV movies.
On the big screen, he played the heavy in features like School Ties, (a football-playing anti-Semite) to Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, (a high school senior terrorising freshman students).
In 1995 he worked with indie filmmaker Kevin Smith, appearing in Mallrats, and then enjoyed a career break as a comic book artist who falls in love with a lesbian in Smith's Chasing Amy.
What really brought the actor to public consciousness was a script he and childhood friend and actor Damon had written about a troubled maths genius which Miramax purchased in 1996.
Good Will Hunting in 1997 was filmed with Gus Van Sant directing, Damon in the lead and Affleck in the major supporting role of Damon's best friend.
The film established him as a Hollywood leading man, and was nominated for ten academy awards, winning a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for the pair.
His soaring status also got a leg-up with a heavily publicised relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow, who was to star alongside him in the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love.
Next up was the big-budget disaster caper Armageddon followed by the indie 200 Cigarettes, an errant groom in Forces of Nature and a city head hunter in The Boiler Room.
Finally, Affleck reunited with Smith and Damon for Dogma , starring with the latter as a pair of fallen angels in one of the year's more controversial films.
He re-teamed with Armageddon director Michael Bay again in 2001 for the critically reviled but commercial hit Pearl Harbor, a historically suspect chronicle of the Japanese WWII attack on the US Navy.
In more altruistic fashion, he and Damon spearheaded the innovative Project: Greenlight and then returned to Hollywood with roles in Changing Lanes and The Sum of All Fears, where he played the old Harrison Ford character Jack Ryan.
Next he suited up for a frankly dull turn as the lawyer-turned-superhero - who also happens to be blind - in Daredevil.
Things took a plunging turn for the worse when Affleck hooked up with Jennifer Lopez - both professionally and romantically - for the ill-fated Gigli.
The resulting turkey is now a regular fixture in the Hollywood Hall of Shame, with some of the dialogue destined to go down in cinematic history for all the wrong reasons.
Affleck atoned for his sin somewhat in John Woo's flashy adaptation of the Philip K Dick sci-fi thriller Paycheck, and the likeable Kevin Smith comedy, Jersey Girl. ALthough even that comedy was tainted by J-Lo's small cameo role.
In 2004, he appeared as a lonely but wealthy executive in the lamentable festive comedy Surviving Christmas and reunited with Smith for Clerks II.
However, it was the role of Reeve alongside Adrien Brody in Hollywoodland and as a doomed bail bondsman in Smokin' Aces that showed him playing to his strengths once again.
