It turns out Ben Affleck was a child actor, and our heads are spinning

Ben Affleck appeared on The Tonight Show to promote his new film, The Accountant, and his interview definitely surprised us. While host Jimmy Fallon and the actor took some time out to delight us by performing plays written by kids, it’s the interview that was really the most informative.

Fallon mentioned that he had a clip of Affleck as a child actor, and we were like, “whaaaaat?!”

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It looks like Affleck got his start way earlier than Good Will Hunting: “It was a PBS series called Voyage of the Mimi. It was for kids. Educational, kind of, he says of his first big acting gig.

Affleck continues to describe it, saying, "You're laughing, but it's not a joke! It combined science and math topics with an interesting adventure that a young man took with some scientists."

Apparently, Affleck’s character was traveling with his grandfather, a fisherman, and doing a lot of learning on the way. Honestly, this sounds so much like the plot of a Wes Anderson movie to us, we can’t even handle it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqapqlBUScY?feature=oembed

The clip Jimmy Fallon showed is hilarious, mostly due to young Ben Affleck’s strooooong Boston accent. Fallon thinks so too, and the pair poke fun at it. (FYI, we’d love to see a video of Batman talking in an exaggerated Boston accent in case you’re bored in between takes of the upcoming Batman movie, Ben.)

Seriously, though, we had no idea Ben Affleck was a child actor; maybe it’s because he seems so, well, normal. He comments on that as well: "I did do some child acting... I had a normal childhood. My mother let me go do this thing and then forced me to come home.

It sounds like Affleck’s mom really kept him grounded; that, and potentially the fact that the series wasn’t hugely popular – it ran for only 13 episodes in 1984. Either way, the clip of young Ben Affleck acting is ADORABLE and we’re so glad we know it exists.