By Jeannette Walls

Ben Affleck fans – if there are any left – shouldn’t hold their breath waiting to see him on “Degrassi: the Next Generation.”

Affleck’s buddy, director Kevin Smith, had told fans he was trying to get the “Gigli” star to appear in the popular Canadian teen TV show. Affleck, it seems, nixed the idea.

“Affleck, honestly, could use the work right now,” Smith joked to the Edmonton Journal when he announced his efforts to persuade Affleck to do the cameo.
“What better way to reboot your career than starring in a Canadian melodrama?” Smith himself is appearing in three episodes of the show and also persuaded
singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette to appear.

But Affleck apparently thinks that the public has had enough of him for right now. “He was just like, ‘You know what, dude? I’m a little too high profile
right now. I’m trying to scale back,’” Smith told MoviePoop.com. “He was just feeling the burn. It’s been a bad [bleeping] year for him, and he keeps
getting the [bleep] kicked out of him. I’m not gonna add to this dude’s misery right now, where you know the episode would air and people would be like,
‘Affleck winds up in Canadian teen soap opera.’ And they’d somehow tie it into Jennifer Lopez.”