While before the cameras Affleck plays out a publicist’s and parent’s nightmare, behind the cameras it’s been a dream for Kevin Smith. Ben loves babies. Ben loves Jen. Jen loves Ben. Kevin loves Ben ‘n’ Jen.

Kevin loves his Jen – spouse Jennifer Schwalbach, who has a supporting role in the film as Ollie’s assistant. And Kevin loves his daughter, Harley Quinn, age 3, a moon-faced imp in a Dutch-boy bob.

It doesn’t hurt that the most successful director to come out of Red Bank, N.J., is close pals with Affleck, whom he gave a small part in Mallrats (1995) and a star-making turn in Chasing Amy (1997).

“We don’t share the standard political friendship most directors working with high-paid actors maintain,” Smith, 30, wrote in an August e-mail.

“We don’t handle one another with kid gloves. After a bad take, I feel free to hit him with a good-natured ‘Why can’t you be a better actor?’ without fretting for my job. And he’ll smile and shoot back, ‘Because you’re not a better director,’ without fretting how I’ll make him look once I get to the editing room.”

Does he repeatedly cast Affleck to serve as his cinematic alter ego, as Alfred Hitchcock cast Jimmy Stewart?

“Hmm, slim, charismatic movie star standing in for tubby, balding director,” Smith muses. “Where the comparison falls a bit short is that Hitchcock was the genuine article and I’m an ersatz director, at best.”