Typecasting ¡ª that's what Ben Affleck says he has in common with George Reeves, the tragic Superman actor he portrays in the new drama Hollywoodland.

Reeves saw his career diminish when audiences couldn't imagine him without a cape and costume. Affleck says he was typecast, too ¡ª as Ben Affleck.

"Modern typecasting isn't about, 'I think of you as the captain from Star Trek, therefore I can't watch you in X-Men,' " says the actor, 34. "Now it's, 'I think of you as yourself, therefore I can't watch you in a fictional story.' "

Hollywoodland is Affleck's first major film in almost two years. He retreated a bit after the Bennifer craze, the non-stop media coverage of his engagement to Jennifer Lopez and their breakup.

There were also some bad movie choices that hurt him, most notably the bomb Gigli.

The actor, an Oscar-winning screenwriter for Good Will Hunting and one of the biggest box-office draws of his generation with movies as diverse as Chasing Amy and Pearl Harbor, retreated from the paparazzi lenses. He began dating Alias television star Jennifer Garner (they co-starred in the movie Daredevil), and last year, they married quietly and had a daughter, Violet.

Now he's back onscreen, with a surprise best-actor prize from the Venice Film Festival.

It was such a surprise, he had already left the festival for Los Angeles when it was announced he won. "If I thought for a second that there were going to be awards for anybody, I would have stayed."

Hollywoodland explores Reeves' mysterious gunshot death and the role his unfulfilled ambition played in his demise.

"He was an unhappy guy. That's what he was trying to fix by becoming a famous leading man," Affleck says. "Everybody falls for it. If I just get that job, promotion, marry the right girl or guy ... if I just get rich, or get famous. ... But none of that stuff is actual happiness. Your happiness is a sense of self."

Deciding that his own ambitions were no longer worth it was a matter of "maturity, or fatigue or just being disgusted to the extent that I felt exploited."

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