Ben Affleck Will "Live Below the Line" on $1.50 a Day

Actor-director joins Tom Hiddleston on campaign to fight global hunger

By Josh Grossberg Apr 23, 2013 8:23 PMTags
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Ben Affleck has always put his money where his mouth is when it comes to causes he cares about—see the Eastern Congo for instance.

But in this case, not having cash might be a good thing as well.

The Oscar winner is the latest Hollywood star to take up the challenge to voluntarily feed himself on $1.50 a day as part of the Global Poverty Project's Live Below the Line campaign, which raises funds and awareness to fight extreme poverty.

"1.4 billion people live on less than $1.50/day. I'm joining Live #BelowTheLine on behalf of @easterncongo. Will you?," Affleck tweeted on Monday.

Affleck is taking part in the project to support the Eastern Congo Initiative, an advocacy group he founded with the goal of creating more opportunities for economic and social development for the people of that African country.

The Argo star joins fellow actor Tom Hiddleston, who played Loki in Thor and The Avengers, who earlier this month spent five days living off that meager amount and posted a video about the experiment, whose guidelines call for participants to adhere to a budget of only $7.50 for five whole days. (In Hiddleston's case, lunch was one whole baked potato.)

Other celebs participating this year in Live Below the Line include actresses Debi Mazar and Sophia Bush, E! News correspondent Alicia Quarles and singer-songwriter Josh Groban who is returning for an encore and was so taken by the initiative that it inspired a song on his new album.

"It's amazing how much we take for granted not having to live in hunger, and I am honored to have been asked to help spread the word about this eye-opening campaign again this year," the musician said in a statement.

Hugh Jackman also tried it out back in April 2011—and no, it wasn't to get his weight down for filming Les Misérables.