Ben Affleck’s Gone Girl shower scene has been a topic of conversation for more than a decade, and Jennifer Garner had one of the best reactions to it. When the actress appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2014, she joked that audiences could thank her for her then-husband’s full-frontal moment.
© GettyIt's followed Affleck for years, and he has once again been asked to revisit the scene. For a brief moment, Affleck's flaccid Affleck is in full view, and it quickly prompted prosthetic rumors. If you look at Reddit pages, there are commenters who are confident it's fake.
But according to the Animals star, that's all natural. “I wore no prosthesis,” Affleck told Variety in an interview published October 7, 2026. He revealed he's only ever worn one in the film Hollywoodland. "It was a nose," he said.
It’s a straightforward answer to a question that has followed the actor since David Fincher’s psychological thriller hit theaters in 2014. But Affleck has never exactly shied away from the subject. From his infamous “IMAX” joke to Garner’s reaction on daytime television, here’s what he has said about the scene over the years.
He made the ‘IMAX’ joke during the 2014 press tour
© Vera AndersonAffleck was already having fun with the conversation before Gone Girl even arrived in theaters. During a 2014 interview with MTV, he explained that Fincher wanted the movie to show the characters without the usual Hollywood polish.
“David said to me from the beginning, ‘This is a warts and all movie. It can have no vanity. You have to see the naked underbelly of this character,’” Affleck recalled. “There’s some brief, very brief nudity, I think.”
Then came the line that would follow him for years. “The penis is in there,” Affleck joked. “It costs extra. It’s IMAX penis! You’ve gotta pay fifteen bucks to see it in 3-D.”
He also pointed out that the set was freezing, adding another layer of humor to a scene that had already become a talking point during the film’s promotional run,
Jennifer Garner had a memorable response on ‘Ellen’
© GettyGarner, who was married to Affleck at the time, had her own take on the scene when she appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in October 2014.
After DeGeneres joked about whether Affleck’s revealing moment might have helped Gone Girl open at No. 1, Garner played along.
“What I have to say is, ‘You’re welcome,’” she said. “I just try to consider myself a charitable person, and I wanted to give back. You give me so much, I wanted to give something back to all of you.”
Garner also explained that the couple hadn’t discussed the scene beforehand. According to her, Affleck told her afterward that Fincher had talked him into coming out of the shower. She responded with “Oh, cool. Well, I hope he had on a wide lens.”
Affleck kept the jokes going at the Hollywood Film Awards
© GettyLater in 2014, Affleck continued poking fun at his Gone Girl shower scene while accepting the film’s top award at the Hollywood Film Awards.
“There are a lot of people to thank, but first I want to take this opportunity to thank David Fincher for the way he treated me,” he said. “In particular, we had a shower scene in the movie, and David assured me - because trust is essential with directors and actors - ‘Listen, if we tilt down we’ll never go far enough to see anything.’”
Affleck then thanked Fincher for keeping the set cool, adding, “If you’re going to have one chance for America to see your junk, you want it to be cold.”
He credited David Fincher for making him comfortable with the scene in 2026
© GettyAffleck has also spoken about how much he valued working with Fincher. In a Letterboxd interview published October 6, 2026, the actor reflected on their time together. “Working with David was, like, the great privilege of my life,” Affleck said, praising Fincher as one of the greatest filmmakers ever to live," he said.
The Air star said, "I was willing to do anything for him… like be naked."
