Ben Affleck to Receive Honorary Doctorate from Brown University

Brown University will confer six honorary doctorates during its 245th Commencement Sunday, May 26, 2013. According to the school's web site, actor and director Ben Affleck will be among the honorees.

In addition to the Oscar winner, the other recipients include: Junot Díaz, author and editor; Stanley Falkow, bacteriologist; Beverly Wade Hogan, president of Tougaloo College; Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, physician and foundation president; andEduardo J. Padrón, president of Miami Dade College.

About Ben Affleck:

Ben Affleck is a two-time Academy Award winner who has been recognized for his work as a director, actor, writer, and producer.

Affleck most recently directed, produced and starred in the award-winning Argo, a fact-based drama about the then-classified mission to rescue six Americans trapped in Iran during the hostage crisis. The most acclaimed film of 2012, Argo swept the year's top honors, including the Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Picture. Affleck also won Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Critics' Choice Awards for Best Director, and was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor. In addition, he won a Directors Guild of America Award; a Producers Guild of America Award, shared with George Clooney and Grant Heslov; and a Screen Actors Guild Award as a member of the film's ensemble, which won for Outstanding Motion Picture Cast. The cast also garnered Best Ensemble Awards from the National Board of Review, Hollywood Film Awards, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Among its many other honors, the film won Oscars for Best Screenplay and Best Editing, earned four more Oscar nominations, and was named one of the top 10 outstanding films of the year by the American Film Institute, as well as numerous critics.

Affleck Made his directorial debut in 2007 with the feature Gone Baby Gone, for which he earned several critics groups' awards, including the Best Directorial Debut Award from the National Board of Review. Additionally, he won the Breakthrough Director of the Year Award at the 2007 Hollywood Film Festival. Affleck also co-wrote the screenplay for the film, adapted from the Dennis Lehane novel.

In 2010, Affleck directed and starred in The Town, in addition to co-writing the screenplay. The film was named among the top 10 films of the year by the American Film Institute, and the cast won the National Board of Review Award for Best Ensemble. Affleck received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for The Town, which also brought Oscar, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations to co-star Jeremy Renner.

Affleck first came to prominence in 1997 with the acclaimed drama Good Will Hunting, which he starred in and co-wrote with Matt Damon. The two won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, as well as a Golden Globe Award and Humanitas Prize. The Following year, Affleck starred in John Madden's Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love, sharing in a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Motion Picture Cast.

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