This is one group chat we wouldn’t mind joining.
In a recent appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Ben Affleck complained that he was blocked from joining Matt Damon’s celebrity word-game group chat with Bradley Cooper, Jason Bateman, and Will Arnett.
“I’m trying to get into it. I’m being velvet-roped by the bouncer here,” Affleck told Clarkson.
Damon explained that the the celebrity group chat was not just for normal word games such as crosswords or The New York Times’ daily Wordle. He explained that they compete by playing a combination of games and adding their scores together: Octordle, which is eight words; Quordle, which is four words; and Wordle, which is one word.
“Alright, Will Hunting,” Affleck interjected, referring to the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting that they collaborated on in 1997.
“It’s very, very competitive,” Damon continued. He later told Affleck, “You’re welcome to join… You can join the ‘nerdle league’ but you might want to get your scores down.”
Affleck later admitted that it wasn’t just Damon who was keeping him from formally joining the group chat. Turns out getting a high score on three different word games every day is not as easy as it appears to be.
“They told me what their scores were and I was like, ‘I can get in,'” he said. “And then I did it a couple times and I was like, ‘I might need to train.'”
This seems to be a touchy subject for Affleck since he’s mentioned it before in interviews. He recently told The Hollywood Reporter, “I was invited to join a cool little red velvet rope celebrity Wordle group.”
“I used to do the crossword compulsively in the mornings and think I was good at word games. And let’s face it, going up against actors, it’s not a high bar. I expected to do fairly well, so I was seriously humbled,” he said at the time. He later added: “It’s fiercely competitive, and there’s a lot of mockery and derision. So I’m in training.”
The pair of filmmakers were joined by Chris Tucker, who stars alongside them in their upcoming film Air, which chronicles the story of Nike forging its historic deal with then-basketball rookie Michael Jordan.
Air premieres in theaters April 5.
The Kelly Clarkson Show airs on weekdays at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.