Ben Affleck, the 54-year-old actor, said his mother and father died two months apart this year, speaking about the back-to-back losses in a GQ interview published Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026.

“It’s a big year of life. My brother [Casey Affleck] and I, our parents died just two months apart, beginning of April and June,” Affleck told GQ. “That’s a lot, man.”

His father, Timothy Affleck, died in April at age 76, two months before the June 2 death of his mother, Chris Affleck. The cause of Timothy Affleck’s death still has not been revealed.

Ben Affleck and his brother, Casey Affleck, are both reflecting on the loss of their parents as they premiere new films.

A Mother’s Final Months

Christopher Anne Affleck died June 2 at age 83 at her son’s Los Angeles home. Her death certificate lists cardiopulmonary arrest as the cause, with pancreatic cancer among other conditions leading to it. Her death did not become public until July.

Doctors diagnosed the pancreatic cancer in December 2025 and gave her six months. She wanted to see her grandson graduate. The ceremony took place May 31, and she died two days later.

Affleck recalled that near the end his mother told him she had lived a good life and regretted nothing, and then added a line he has not shaken. “But I thought 83 years would feel like longer,” she said, he recalled.

Chris Affleck graduated from Harvard University and taught in public schools for 35 years before retiring in 2008. She sat in the audience at the 1998 Academy Awards with her son and actor Matt Damon when “Good Will Hunting” won Best Original Screenplay. Ben Affleck won a second Oscar as a producer of 2012’s “Argo,” and Casey Affleck won Best Actor for “Manchester by the Sea.”

The Venice Disclosure

Casey Affleck, 51, the Oscar-winning actor and director, told reporters at a press conference for his directorial feature “Company” at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival on Tuesday, Sept. 8, that the film is dedicated to both of his parents. The remark was the first public disclosure that the brothers’ father had also died.

He said he had wanted to show his parents the movie and never got the chance. “I think they would’ve liked it,” he said.

A Complicated Bond With His Father

Timothy Affleck had ambitions as a playwright and performed with the Theater Company of Boston alongside actors Dustin Hoffman and the late Robert Duvall. He also worked as a janitor, a mechanic and a bookie.

Ben Affleck described in a 2022 interview a childhood in Cambridge, Mass., built around his father’s jobs in Central Square. His father took bets at the Prospect Buffet bar and later worked at the Cantab Lounge, where the brothers were constantly around before and after his shifts.

The parents married in the early 1970s and separated in 1984, when Ben Affleck was 11, and their mother raised the brothers primarily. Timothy Affleck struggled with alcoholism and stopped drinking in 1990. Ben Affleck, who has spoken openly about his own drinking, told People in 2020 that his father’s three decades of sobriety was the central lesson of his life.

He told GQ that his relationship with his father in Timothy Affleck’s final years was complicated and not close, for reasons he does not want to discuss publicly. His takeaway, he said, is that problems left unaddressed stay unaddressed.

“Often the end of life isn’t full of wisdom and resolve,” Affleck said in the GQ interview.

What the Losses Left Him

Affleck first discussed the deaths publicly in a Sept. 30 appearance on Kerry Washington’s “Street You Grew Up On” podcast. He said the losses sent him back through his own childhood and gave him a deeper appreciation of his mother’s sacrifices.

He told GQ that his mother was extraordinary and brave and that her death pushed him to understand her life more fully. He described the grief as horrible without being tragic, because his parents died in old age, the order things are supposed to follow. Outliving his own children is the worst outcome he can imagine, he said. He added that it is still really sad.

After his mother’s death, Affleck traveled with his three children — Violet, 20; Fin, 17; and Samuel, 14 — whom he shares with ex-wife Jennifer Garner. “You realize, yeah, we only get so much time,” he told GQ.