There is something quietly moving about Ben Affleck choosing a low-key dinner in Santa Monica as one of his first public outings since the death of his mother. No red carpets, no fanfare — just the 54-year-old actor, his 20-year-old daughter Violet, and 17-year-old Fin, settling in for an evening at Fia restaurant on 22nd August.
Family first
The trio kept things relaxed and unpretentious. Affleck arrived in a light blue button-down shirt and black trousers, while Violet — now a university student who has previously spoken publicly about the importance of public health — turned heads in a purple sweater paired with a knee-length red skirt, running shoes and a cross-body bag. Fin, ever the laid-back younger sibling, went for dark overalls layered over a striped long-sleeve shirt, finished off with Vans and their own cross-body bag. Youngest child Samuel, 14, was not at the dinner.
The outing came just a week after a rather more significant family gathering — a birthday celebration for Affleck at Farmshop, a gourmet restaurant in Los Angeles, on 15th August, where his ex-wife Jennifer Garner joined him and all three of their children. The image of a divorced couple choosing to mark birthdays together speaks volumes about the relationship the former pair have built since their marriage officially ended in 2018.
A co-parenting partnership that works
Garner has been characteristically open about how that dynamic has evolved. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, she credited Affleck with stepping up significantly as she took on more professional commitments.
"My kids are a little bigger now. Their dad has become this incredible co-parent. He's wonderful. He takes care of them. He's a great partner in that way. And that's very freeing."
Affleck has been equally warm in return. In a separate interview with Access Hollywood, he reflected on his children with visible emotion.
"I could not be more proud of my children. I can't even tell you. It's the joy of my life, and I'm just very, very lucky. And it makes me happy every day."
For anyone who followed the turbulence of their split — announced in 2015 after ten years of marriage — this version of events is genuinely heartening. The pair have managed something many divorced couples with children only aspire to: a stable, functional, and by all accounts affectionate co-parenting arrangement.
Grief, and getting back out there
Overshadowing the warmer moments of recent weeks has been the loss of Affleck's mother, Chris Affleck, who died peacefully in her sleep in June at the age of 83, following a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in December 2025. According to her obituary in The Boston Globe, Chris had one final wish after her diagnosis — to see her grandson Atticus graduate from high school. She made it, attending the ceremony with her family on 31st May 2026. She died two days later.
It is the kind of detail that stops you cold. A woman who spent her life as a public school teacher, a Harvard graduate, and a Freedom Rider during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, holding on just long enough for one more family milestone.
Ben was famously devoted to her. When he and Matt Damon won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting in 1998, both young men had brought their mothers to the ceremony. He later recalled the moment to Vanity Fair with characteristic candour: "We were sitting next to our moms, and we won, and we kind of hugged our moms... Of course our moms were gonna go. That was really innocent and not faked."
A dinner at a Santa Monica restaurant with two of his children, then, feels less like a celebrity sighting and more like a man finding his footing again — one quiet evening at a time.
