Casey Affleck

Caleb Casey McGuire Affleck-Boldt was born on August 12, 1975 in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to Christine Anne "Chris" Boldt and Timothy Byers Affleck. The surname "Affleck" is of Scottish origin. He also has Irish, German, English, and Swiss ancestry. Affleck's maternal great-great grandfather, Heinrich Boldt, known for the discovery of the Curmsun Disc, emigrated from Prussia in the late 1840s. Casey's mother was a Radcliffe College- and Harvard-educated elementary school teacher. His father worked sporadically as an auto mechanic, a carpenter, a bookie, an electrician, a bartender, and a janitor at Harvard University. In the mid-1960s, he had been a stage manager, director, writer and actor with the Theater Company of Boston. During Affleck's childhood, his father was "a disaster of a drinker". Affleck first started acting by "reenacting what was happening at home" during role play exercises at Alateen meetings.

While studying at Columbia, Affleck had a supporting role in Van Sant's Good Will Hunting (1997), written by his brother and their childhood friend Matt Damon. Despite arranging a first meeting between Van Sant and his brother to discuss the project, Affleck was reluctant to leave college temporarily to act in the film. He was eventually persuaded to play one of four friends living in South Boston – a role written specifically for him – and improvised many of his lines. Jay Carr of The Boston Globe praised the "emotional subtleties and variety" of the performances, and singled out "Casey Affleck's junior member of the quartet, dying to be taken as seriously as the others." Following the critical and commercial success of the movie, Affleck's career opportunities did not significantly improve. At the same time, his life became exposed to the public and parts of his life became "part of pop culture and public life." Also in 1997, he had a small role in Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy, starring his brother. He returned to university for a semester before quitting to focus on his acting career.

Affleck's career entered a "dark" period, with a series of supporting roles in critical and commercial failures. He later remarked: "It dawned on me late that I should be selective about what I do." In the independent comedy Desert Blue (1998), he starred opposite Kate Hudson as a small-town jock. Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle felt that, while "interesting", his character was "entirely underdeveloped". In 1999, he made an uncredited cameo in the teen comedy American Pie and appeared as a punk rocker romantically involved with both Gaby Hoffmann and Christina Ricci's characters in the New Year's Eve ensemble comedy 200 Cigarettes. In the comedy Drowning Mona (2000), starring Danny DeVito, Affleck played a shy gardener suspected of murder. Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times acknowledged, in an otherwise negative review, that his role was "well played". Also in 2000, Affleck had a small role in the comedy Attention Shoppers and played Fortinbras in Ethan Hawke's Hamlet. He appeared as the brother of Heather Graham's character in the romantic comedy Committed (2000), with Emanuel Levy of Variety praising a "terrific" performance. Also in 2001, he had a small role in American Pie 2 and appeared in the teen slasher film Soul Survivors. Robert Koehler of Variety found him "bland" while Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle said that he did not make "much of an impression, [but may] have been too depressed to really act." One positive experience Affleck had during this period was working with Van Sant and cinematographer Harris Savides on Finding Forrester (2000) as Van Sant's assistant and technical consultant: "Can you imagine a better film school than that? Gus is not only somebody who I love a lot but is also who has taught me, maybe more than anybody else in film."

Affleck was introduced to actress Summer Phoenix by her brother, Joaquin, in the late 1990s. They began dating in 2000, and acted together in both the 2000 film Committed and a 2002 stage production of This is Our Youth. The couple became engaged in January 2004 and married on June 3, 2006 in Savannah, Georgia. They have two sons, Indiana August (b. May 2004) and Atticus (b. January 2008). By November 2015, they had privately separated. They publicly announced their separation in March 2016. On August 1, 2017, Phoenix officially filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences", and it was finalized later that year. Affleck has said it was an amicable divorce and that they remain friends.

In 2002, Affleck and Damon starred in Van Sant's experimental drama Gerry, playing two men who get lost while hiking in the desert. Affleck, Damon, and Van Sant conceived of the idea and wrote the screenplay together while living in neighboring New York apartments. The film, which had minimal dialogue, received mixed reviews. Affleck, who rarely watches his own movies, said of Gerry in 2016: "That was an incredible experience. I saw one scene recently out of context at the Telluride Film Festival and I can't believe anyone ever sat through the whole thing. It probably works better as a whole but one scene lifted out – I thought, 'This is unbearable!'" Also in 2002, Affleck starred with Damon and then-girlfriend Summer Phoenix in a West End stage production of Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth. Lonergan and Affleck became friends during rehearsals, and Affleck later acted in workshop productions of Lonergan's plays in New York.

Affleck's first leading role was in 2006's little-seen independent comedy-drama Lonesome Jim, directed by Steve Buscemi. He played a depressed writer who returns from New York to live with his parents in Indiana, and begins a relationship with Liv Tyler's character. Buscemi has said he knew Affleck would be able to carry the movie after watching his performance in Gerry. Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post remarked: "Affleck's interesting .. He probably can't be a star in big movies because his drawback is a voice that sounds like a snivel drawn through a wet nasal passage into a whine ... And yet in certain kinds of films – this kind – he's 100 percent authentic." Ty Burr of the Boston Globe said Affleck "gets so far under the skin of this semi-charming jerk that the performance becomes both brave and aggravating." However, Stephen Holden of The New York Times felt it "would be a stronger movie if Mr. Affleck had the wherewithal to bare more of the passive-aggressive rage inside ... a more resourceful actor would have used this blank slate to scrawl a thousand telling details." Also in 2006, he had a supporting role in the romantic comedy The Last Kiss as a friend of Zach Braff's character.

Affleck had a breakthrough year in 2007, with the release of two films featuring critically acclaimed performances. The first of these performances was in the Western drama The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, in which he played Robert Ford to Brad Pitt's Jesse James. Affleck auditioned repeatedly for the role. While the director Andrew Dominik had seen Affleck in Gerry, he cast him partly because of his "beautiful-sounding voice. The voice is the thing that really gets you." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times described Affleck's performance as a "revelation" which "manages to make the character seem dumb and the actor wily and smart." Similarly, Claudia Puig of USA Today declared him a "real revelation [who] perfectly inhabits the role" while Todd McCarthy of Variety said Affleck made "an indelible impression as the insecure, physically unprepossessing weakling." Dana Stevens of Slate said "the movie belongs to Affleck [who] goes for broke in a wonderfully brave and weird performance as the craven naif Bob. Somehow he makes us want to flee this creep at top speed, even as we pray no harm will come to him." For his performance, Affleck was nominated for the Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

In 2008, Affleck filmed an episode of documentary series 4Real, in which he visited the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, and remarked upon the progress they had made due largely to "their own resourcefulness and determination and their character, and not because of the goodness of our collective heart." During the 2016 presidential campaign, Affleck supported Hillary Clinton and characterized Donald Trump as "a dangerous fool." In 2017, multiple financial contributions to Trump were made by Affleck's production company, which he co-founded with John Powers Middleton. In a statement, Affleck denied involvement: "I had no knowledge of it, was never asked, and never would have authorized it ... The policies of the Trump administration, and the values they represent, are antithetical to everything I believe in."

Affleck denied the allegations and threatened to countersue; his lawyer described both claims as "total fiction" and "completely fabricated." His lawyer claimed, "Both women left the film in April 2009 and both were refused when they wanted to return," and "there was no mention of sexual harassment before June [2010]." The film's associate producer Nicole Acacio and an unnamed female editor both defended Affleck's conduct on set, saying that "I never saw anything out of the ordinary either on or off set," and "nothing I've ever witnessed would lead me to think he could ever do anything like that." The lawsuits were later settled out of court. Both women received credit for their work on the project; no details of any financial settlement were released.

In 2010, two of his former co-workers from I'm Still Here filed civil lawsuits against Affleck. Amanda White, one of the film's producers, sued Affleck for $2 million with multiple complaints including "sexual harassment" and "breach of oral contract". She detailed numerous "uninvited and unwelcome sexual advances" in the workplace. White alleged that Affleck refused to honor the terms of the production agreement, including her fee, in retaliation.

Affleck used his own money to fund I'm Still Here and, after running out of cash, filming was paused for a month to allow him to play a Texan serial killer in Michael Winterbottom's crime drama The Killer Inside Me (2010). Affleck later expressed regret over the movie's graphic violence. Philip French of The Guardian found him "disturbingly brilliant" while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised "a mesmeric, implosively powerful performance." Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times said Affleck "showcases his uncanny ability to project a person holding two thoughts in his head at once, as he often gives away nothing in his face to convey the firestorm obviously raging in his soul." Affleck then had a supporting role in the heist comedy Tower Heist (2011) and voiced a character in the 2012 animation ParaNorman.

After spending "a big chunk of time" directing I'm Still Here and dealing with the subsequent backlash, Affleck returned to regular acting work in 2013. "It was ugly for a minute ... I sort of remembered why I liked acting and I missed it." In David Lowery's Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013), Affleck and Rooney Mara starred as outlaw lovers in 1970s-era Texas. Affleck was drawn to the opportunity to play a character who "was a much better person than anyone thought," after a string of roles as "assassins or murderers or just creeps." Shannon M. Houston of Paste Magazine described him as the movie's "standout actor": "Down to his very jawline, Affleck captures the physicality and feeling of a sincerely romantic outlaw." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times remarked: "Affleck plays conflicted souls so very well ... Here you wish for a criminal's redemption." Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune said: "He has great instincts when it comes to morally compromised anti-heroes, and without trolling for our sympathy, Affleck's Bob is more than just a collection of behaviors; it's a smartly considered performance." Sebastian Doggart of The Guardian said he "shows himself again to be a master of the criminal outsider" while Chuck Wilson of The Village Voice found him "flat-out heartbreaking."

The opportunity to act opposite Christian Bale in the drama Out of the Furnace "reinvigorated" Affleck and reminded him why he enjoyed acting. Claudia Puig of USA Today found his performance as an Iraq War veteran dealing with posttraumatic stress disorder "completely captivating ... The chemistry between Bale and Affleck is powerful, intensifying the credibility of their brotherly bond." Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune said Affleck "finds something fierce and noble in uneven material and in his character's rage. He's not like any other actor in American movies." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post described the performance as "a searing portrayal of a young man who pushes himself to the punishing physical limit in search of both money and catharsis." Manohla Dargis of The New York Times remarked that Affleck "can come across as intensely vulnerable on screen, which nicely works for a broken man like Rodney." In 2014, Affleck and Jessica Chastain had supporting roles in Christopher Nolan's science fiction film Interstellar as the grown-up children of Matthew McConaughey's character, with Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter describing his character as "thinly developed". Also in 2014, Affleck and producer John Powers Middleton launched the production company, The Affleck/Middleton Project.

While The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone were a financial failure and a modest box office success, respectively, Affleck's acting career was widely believed to be at a turning point. However, he lost career momentum while directing I'm Still Here (2010), a divisive mockumentary about the musical career of his friend and then brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix. While Affleck later clarified that it was "a planned, staged and scripted work of fiction," there was much media speculation during filming about whether Phoenix's public behaviour was performance art or a genuine breakdown. Claudia Puig of USA Today remarked that, "whether truth or folly, it's not particularly well made. Even in the midst of Phoenix's most oddball and obsessive torment, it's boring ... What, exactly, is the point of a joke that nobody really gets?" Ty Burr of The Boston Globe described it as "an interesting but half-baked exercise in persona deconstruction, celebrity politics, and meta-meta-entertainment ... Parts of it are close to genius; most of it is actively torturous to watch." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said the film "turns out to be much more interesting to speculate about than to actually watch." Reflecting on the experience in 2016, Affleck said: "We never thought people would actually think it was real ... In hindsight, we should have had a press junket and done talk shows and said how it was a mockumentary."

Affleck starred in three films in 2016, the first two of which underperformed financially. In John Hillcoat's crime thriller Triple 9, Affleck played an uncorruptible detective. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said he "arrests our attention. I wonder if any other screen actor has ever seemed so focused and so distracted at the same time. He thinks more than he says, and so we listen, trying to get the part he's leaving out." Justin Chang of Variety described him as "one of the most persuasive leading men of his generation" while Brogan Morris of Paste Magazine declared him "maybe Hollywood's best offbeat leading man ... Few actors can suggest so much with such quiet precision, and even here Affleck is compulsively watchable despite his undercooked character." In Disney's disaster drama The Finest Hours, Affleck played a taciturn engineer on board a sinking ship. David Sims of The Atlantic said he "gives the kind of measured, thought-out performance he's so eminently capable of, even if the film isn't complex enough to rise to his level ... He animates an introverted character with subtle mental busywork whenever he's on the screen." Sheri Linden of The Hollywood Reporter noted that he "manages to turn his man of few words into the movie's most compelling figure."

In 2016, he began a relationship with actress Floriana Lima.

In a 2016 interview, Affleck said that he had been sober for "almost three years ... My father was a disaster of a drinker, my grandmother was an alcoholic, my brother spent some time in rehab – it's in our genes."

Affleck addressed the allegations when speaking to The New York Times in 2016; he stated: "It was settled to the satisfaction of all. I was hurt and upset — I am sure all were — but I am over it. It was an unfortunate situation — mostly for the innocent bystanders of the families of those involved." The resurfaced allegations attracted scrutiny during the 2016–17 film awards season after Affleck received acclaim for his role in Manchester by the Sea, which culminated in further controversy after his win at the 89th Academy Awards. The following year, amid the Me Too movement, Affleck pulled out of presenting the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 90th Academy Awards.

After dropping out of Lowery's Pete's Dragon in order to star in Manchester by the Sea, Affleck reteamed with the director to star opposite Rooney Mara in the experimental drama A Ghost Story, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2017. Affleck's character dies suddenly at the outset and he spends much of the film covered by a white sheet with two eye-holes, haunting his former home. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter said Affleck's performance managed to resonate despite limited time onscreen. Peter Debruge of Variety said Affleck "has never been an easy actor to read. He's a low-charisma mumbler who tends to keep his characters' emotions bottled up, making him the rare performer who can convey as much with a sheet over his head as he does without." Jordan Hoffman of The Guardian described him as "cinema's finest mumbler ... I can't even tell if he's speaking or just emitting high-pitched vibrations anymore." In 2018, Affleck starred opposite Robert Redford in the outlaw drama The Old Man & the Gun, his third collaboration with Lowery.

In 2017, Affleck supported the 37th Annual National Veterans Wheelchair Games hosted by Paralyzed Veterans of America. In January 2019, he attended the 4th Annual Veterans Awards as a presenter.

In 2019, he directed, wrote and starred in the survival drama Light of My Life. It had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 8, 2019 and received positive reviews from film critics. Affleck next starred in Our Friend, opposite Dakota Johnson and Jason Segel, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, based upon a true story revolving around a couple, whose best friend moves in for support, following a cancer diagnosis. which had its world premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. Affleck will next act and produce The World to Come, directed by Mona Fastvold alongside Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby.

In June 2020, Affleck, with his mother Christine, founded a fundraising effort called ‘Stories from Tomorrow.’ The initiative was co-sponsored by Room to Read, WriteGirl and New Earth, an organization where Affleck is a board member. ‘Stories from Tomorrow’ matches original writing by children ages 5–18 with celebrities who read their work, which is then presented in video form. The money raised will be used to ensure that children around the world have access to education and food.

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Happy 44th birthday to Casey Affleck, born on this date in 1975.