Video of Ben Affleck Speaking Spanish Goes Viral—'Legit Fluent'

A video of Ben Affleck speaking Spanish has gone viral.

The actor surprised fans while promoting his R-rated sports movie Air, a true story based on Nike salesman Sonny Vaccaro's successful signing of Michael Jordan. Affleck directed the film and also stars as businessman Phil Knight.

Jordan, now 60, skyrocketed to fame while playing for the Chicago Bulls and went on to become one of the greatest sportsmen of all time.

Spanish radio network Cadena SER first posted the clip of Affleck to TikTok, which has since been viewed more than 2.4 million times. Variety editor Clayton Davis, who boasts nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter, also shared the video, which has been watched another 213,000 times.

"Ben Affleck speaks better Spanish than I could ever hope to achieve," Davis said, adding the hashtag, "AIRMovie."

"So smooth, dare I say fluent?" one person wrote on Twitter. "This really encourages me to try learning Spanish again because maybe I can succeed in grasping it, too. What a gift to speak more than one language."

A second said, "Homie is legit fluent. Beyond talented."

Another added, "Okay... that was super impressive," while a fourth chimed in, "J-Lo taught him well," referring to Affleck's wife, Jennifer Lopez.

However, the director learned Spanish long before he met the Latina superstar. Despite the internet's surprise, Affleck has been open about his Spanish proficiency.

During an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show in March 2020, the dad of three—who shares kids Violet, 17, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 11, with ex-wife Jennifer Garner—said his daughter inspired him to brush up on his skills.

Affleck first learned Spanish as a teenager while shooting a television show in Mexico, but Violet's fluency in the language prompted the Deep Water star to do a bit of learning himself.

"I don't mind that I can't do your math homework," he told Clarkson on the talk show of the teen. "But you are not going be better at Spanish than me."

As for what Affleck said in the TikTok clip, he explained in Spanish why Jordan won't appear in the movie.

"The important thing to understand is that this is not Michael Jordan's story, and Michael Jordan also does not appear in the movie," he said.

"He's so big, so important, so magnificent—there's not an actor in the world who could lead the audience to believe, 'Look, it's Michael Jordan.' Immediately, they are going to think, 'All of this is s***. It's a s*** movie. I don't believe it.' And it destroys (the movie) entirely."

Jordan agreed to the film being made as long as Viola Davis portrayed his mother in the flick.

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