Ben Affleck struggled with fame

He said: "I’d always had a strong idea about my values and the direction I wanted to be headed in, then I ran into getting famous and it totally spun me around and I flailed around for a few years. When you’re a young man in your 20s, part of that is making mistakes and learning from them.

"I just made those in front of everybody, rather than privately. There’s stuff I look back on and kind of cringe at but I always tried to treat other people well. My parents imbued that in me and the mistakes I made were mostly just of the embarrassing kind."

And the 44-year-old actor - who has Violet, 11, Seraphina, seven, and Samuel, four, with his estranged wife Jennifer Garner - is keen for his children not to experience the same fate and hopes he can help them grow up outside of the spotlight.

He told The Observer newspaper: "I think becoming a father makes you see the world differently and it’s good.

"I’m at peace with paying my own price, what I’m not at peace with is when it invades on my kids’ space and time. They didn’t make any bargains. I try to shelter them as best I can. That’s my only real gripe."

It comes after Ben admitted he feels "vulnerable" ever since he became a father.

He explained: "When you have kids, what's that expression, 'Your heart is outside your body,' all of the sudden you feel so vulnerable and this fear of a child being vulnerable is very very powerful."