The fear of poverty has prompted Ben Affleck to take movie jobs he really regrets, confessing he has obsessed over his father's desperate days a little too much.

The Argo star's dad had a promising acting career until a series of family tragedies turned him into a troubled soul who sought solace from alcohol and was rendered homeless by Affleck's mother - and Oscar winner admits he is still haunted by the memory of his father struggling to survive on the streets of Boston, Massachusetts.

He tells Playboy, "Once you start drinking too much, it's hard to fulfil your ambitions. He (my father) became a pretty serious alcoholic. He's sober now. He's been sober for 20 years... but when he was drinking, he fell apart. My mom kicked him out, and then he was kicking around and living on the street.

"That was a formative period for me. It caused me to obsess about success and money, because my dad ran out of money and got kicked out of his house. I obsessed about how important money was. It got wired into my Dna, and that obsession probably caused me to do some movies I shouldn't have."