Surviving Hurricane Jennifer

He tosses a baseball in the air, faster and faster. "I'm not that interested in assigning blame, because I think it's illusory, anyway," he says, although he does agree with his ex-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow's recent comment that he makes life hard for himself. "She's probably right about that," he says. "I trust her opinion about most things. Not all, but most. I think I probably do get in my own way."

That said, he maintains that he is an easy person to live with. "I'm a very pleasant, low-maintenance guy," he says. "I'm not picky about things, like the house has to be this way or that way. I don't have some particular way I like to eat, or 'We have to go to this restaurant.' " He lights a cigarette and takes a vigorous drag. "But really living with somebody is about more than who does the dishes and if they pick up after themselves. And in some ways I'm probably not the easiest guy in the world." He is restless, for instance. "I have lots of interests, lots of energy, but there's definitely a negative side to that as well."

He and Lopez first lived together in Philadelphia during the filming of Jersey Girl, then afterward in Los Angeles in Lopez's house. Now that he has moved out, he is staying with friends while he searches for a place to rent. He was interested in one house, but someone else had put an offer on it first. "It was Nelly," he says ruefully. "Me and Nelly, vying to rent a house. Nelly got it, by the way."

Affleck is self-effacing, without actorish false humility, and will beat you to any punch line about himself, making jokes about his save-the-world film roles and calling Gigli a "bomberoonie, the Ishtar of our time." The phone rings in his office.

"I can't pick up," he bellows at his assistant. "The light isn't flashing."

"It is, too," she hollers back.

"Quit talking about the light flashing," yells another employee.

"You see the respect I get around here?" he says, punching the phone buttons.

In person, Affleck is deeply likable. Quick-witted, with a ribald sense of humor, he's an excellent mimic, endlessly entertaining with a stream of constant "bits." An equal-opportunity flirt who loves bantering back and forth, he's the sort of guy who leaves a party and everyone else trails out five minutes later.

"He's not completely obsessed with himself, like other people in his profession," says his pal Chris Moore. "He can talk about who should be the next president, or why he thinks it's OK that the Red Sox didn't get A-Rod. And he's just been a real loyal friend. He's always found time to be there when I needed to talk to him."

Affleck is fully aware of the schadenfreude directed toward him and studiously avoids reading magazines or watching any TV shows in which he might be featured. "Otherwise I'll just get bent out of shape," he says. "I'm not even going to jump up and down and send letters to the lawyers anymore. I tried suing. It doesn't work."

Affleck is used to sniping -- a minibacklash occurred after Good Will Hunting, with gay rumors and whispers that he and Matt Damon didn't write the script (in Matt and Ben, an off-Broadway play about the pair, the script falls from the sky). Some fans have been upset with Affleck's subsequent roles in big-budget popcorn flicks such as Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, preferring that he stay on the Chasing Amy path as a John Cusack for Generation Y -- a smart, sensitive everyguy.

But it was his union with Lopez that really rankled, particularly when her glittering lifestyle drew him in, and he traded his scruffy jeans and Red Sox caps for slicked-back hair and velour tracksuits (although who among you has not had a wardrobe tweaked by a new love?).