It's really fun when a scene doesn't work.
— Casey Affleck
There isn't any sibling rivalry; I think we have very different, very individual career paths and have never really thought that way. He's my brother. I only have one, and we're very close. We wouldn't ever allow that stuff affect our relationship.
I get very sentimental, I get very nostalgic, and when I live in a place, I instantly put down way too many roots.
The first thing that I remember auditioning for was a weather commercial in Boston, and I got the job. The idea of the commercial was that you ought to watch the weather in the morning so that you know what's gonna come later in the day.
I think there's a certain amount of pressure depending on how demanding the part is, depending on how great the material is. I feel a certain amount of pressure to rise to the occasion.
Truth is, there's never really been anything so horrible said about me that I haven't either thought of or said to myself.
I feel like I've been picky through the years and would do one movie a year or one movie every two years, and I want to work a lot more. So if I can find something that just happens right away as a director, I'll do it if I really love it, but otherwise, I want to keep working as an actor and getting better.
Part of the criteria for doing a project is that it's scary or challenging because at some point you go, 'It's too scary; it's too challenging. I don't want to do it.' But things that seem easy are never any fun.
I love to think about and therefore talk about why people do what they do. That's kind of why I like being an actor.
I've chosen the parts that have interested me and parts that I thought I could do a job with but also were challenging and a little bit scary.
I sort of fell in love with it when I was in high school doing theater. And so, as sometimes happens when kids - they graduate high school, and people turn to them and say, 'So what are you going to do with your life?' I thought, 'Well, I like being onstage. I like being an actor.'
Most of my acting jobs have resulted in a series of mortifying revelations spread over years and years following the shoot.
One thing I don't do anymore is read or pay attention to the critical response, which is a bummer because when I started, and when I was in school, I loved to read old film criticism.
Sometimes you read something, and there's a part of you that remains in an analytical actor place. Am I going to do this movie? Is this a good part for me? Is it not? Can I bring something to this?
I live in New York full time. I can't live in L.A., because I fear people think I'm a vagrant there. If you show up in L.A. with your shirt inside out or socks mismatched, people start putting change in your cup.
When other people say, 'Oh you're so-and-so's friend, brother, or husband,' it's reductive to the point of being white noise.
I was 14 years old when my dad went into rehab, and he stayed there for a long time - I don't know, 10 or 12 years maybe. He first was there as a resident, as someone trying to get sober, and it took a long time; and then he stayed on helping people get their GED.
It's part of the actor's job to show up with a head full of steam, to have their own take on this. So that way, you're not relying on, 'OK, tell me how to do it.'
I feel like there's an obligation - this sounds terribly pretentious - if you're an artist, to share your own experience in a way that's truthful and honest: 'This is what I have to share; this is my life.'
You can start with a great director and great actors and have a great script - and it still just doesn't work. It's kind of a mystery how that happens.
Lots of movies don't kind of work as well as they do on the page.
Sometimes being an actor is kind of demanding in very different ways.
I've written some love letters in my life, I can say.
When you're the younger brother, usually it's not that common that you're having these experiences that your older brother is in awe of.
Is it really every 10 years that you get to work on a great movie? That can't be.
I've seen 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' about 25 times each, so I like all kinds of movies, but I'm drawn, as an actor, to dramas about humans living lives I can relate to.
I believe that any kind of mistreatment of anyone for any reason is unacceptable and abhorrent, and everyone deserves to be treated with respect in the workplace and anywhere else.
My first exposure to TV, film, theater, the idea of what acting was, is I was a little kid, and my mom's best friend was a local casting director in Cambridge, Mass. Her name was Patty Collinge.
What I learned on 'To Die For,' I learned over the years that followed, when some memory from the shoot would bubble up to the surface of my mind, and I could see it from a new perspective. I would usually cringe when that happened.
I knew it would be hard work, but that's the reason you're an actor. If you're a bricklayer, you don't want to just show up at someone's house and put a little row of bricks around their garden. You want to build a building.
I was really short in high school. I was stuck on the bench in the baseball team, so I just thought I'd try out theater, and that was the last time I did sports.
I'm tired of answering questions about myself.
A lot of the times, I end up having to do jobs to sort of pay the bills.
I've done so many movies that are bad, with material that's so shallow, that you instantly scratch the surface, and there's nothing underneath.
If you're a director and someone shows up and asks how I do it, I'd imagine, as a director, you're like, 'Man, I've got a million decisions to make; can you show up with an idea for the scene?'
Talking to other people about a part is not helpful for me. It's such an internal and complicated and still kind of mysterious process.
When I was a kid, we didn't really leave Cambridge, which was the town where I grew up in.
Things are never crystal clear, but at some point, they reveal themselves to you. You just hope it happens when you're still on set.
I guess people think if you're well-known, it's perfectly fine to say anything you want. I don't know why that is. But it shouldn't be, because everybody has families and lives.
I feel really lucky to have been able to not only have him as a brother - because I love him and he's such a smart guy and an interesting, fun guy - but also have a friend to go through and chart and navigate the waters of Hollywood, which can be kind of alienating and lonely at times just because everyone is always... you know what it's like.
Some people go to their job. That's the job they have; they have to do it. They hate their boss and their coworkers, this and that. It's hard to get along.
I find that I kind of have to sink into the character.
I wish I had more control over my career, but making movies is something you do with lots of people.
When I was young, I asked my priest how you could get to Heaven and still protect yourself from all the evil in the world. He told me what God said to his children. You are sheep among wolves. Be wise as serpents, yet innocent as doves.
I have been lucky enough to work with people who inspire me, who I admire and respect, and who have made films - before working with me - that I continually return to over the years because they are so good.
There was no one moment when I decided I would spend my life acting. I am not certain that I will. Acting has never been a consistent passion. I have done it since I was young - so I have been acting for 30 years - but intermittently. I always had other jobs, joys, and creative outlets.
Sometimes I pick parts because I think, 'OK, it scares me,' and that's an indication it's going to be a good movie for me to do. Sometimes that leaves me in a terrible... Well, it doesn't always pan out, you know?
In New York, as long as you're not peeing in someone's doorway, everyone thinks you're a gentleman. I feel like my behavior goes over better on the streets of New York.
I've run into people who say, 'I know what you're like: You're a Boston guy.' That's so weird. This person who doesn't know anything about me thinks they know a lot because of the city I grew up in, which, to me, is a meaningless label. There are all kinds of people from Boston.
I feel like whenever I do a movie, people think, 'Well, that's good, but that's probably the best he'll do.' I sort of bang and bang and kick in a door, and people say, 'Now a million doors will open for you.' And they don't.
