Casey Affleck

Who is Casey Affleck?

Casey Affleck is a popular American actor, director, and animal rights activist. He happens to be the younger brother of successful actor Ben Affleck. Casey is known for taking up unconventional roles, so unconventional that many Hollywood A-list stars would hesitate to portray such roles. He started his career in the late-80s with the TV movie ‘Lemon Sky’ and gained mainstream Hollywood popularity with his 1995 film ‘To Die For.’ Thanks to his impressive performance in the movie, he became one of the favorite actors of ‘To Die For’ director Gus Van Sant, who prophesied Casey to be the next big thing in Hollywood and went on to cast him in back-to-back films. Subsequently, Casey started landing more prominent roles. But unlike most of his contemporaries, he chose his roles with caution, which resulted in him being termed as perfectionist. His hard work paid off, and he was nominated for an ‘Academy Award’ for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for the 2007 film ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.’ His career was then dominated by respect-worthy roles in some critically successful films, such as ‘Gone Baby Gone,’ ‘I’m Still Here,’ and ‘The Killer Inside Me.’ The biggest turning point of his career came with the release of ‘Manchester by the Sea.’ For his role of a grief-stricken man in the film, Casey swept almost every major acting award that year, from an ‘Oscar’ to ‘Golden Globe.’

Career

As a teenager, Casey Affleck had already appeared in a TV movie titled ‘Lemon Sky.’ He secured this acting role on the back of his mother’s recommendation. He got his first movie role in the 1995 film ‘To Die For.’

The film was a satirical comedy directed by esteemed filmmaker Gus Van Sant. His portrayal of a psychopathic angry teenager received praises from the critics and Gus Van Sant openly claimed that he had become a fan of Casey, the actor. The film went on to become a hit.

The failure of his second film ‘Race the Sun’ compelled him to quit acting. However, he could not refuse when Gus Van Sant cast him in ‘Good Will Hunting,’ which was written by Casey’s brother Ben Affleck and starred his childhood friend Matt Damon. The film was a huge critical and commercial success and catapulted Casey to fame. However, he was not completely convinced and disappeared from the Hollywood scene when his movie ‘Chasing Amy’ failed to make an impact.

Once out of the university, he continued working in films by taking up minor roles. Thus began a ‘dark’ phase in his life, during which he was part of many unsuccessful films, such as ‘American Pie,’ ‘200 Cigarettes,’ and ‘Drowning Mona.’ In 2001, he worked with director Steven Soderbergh for the film ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ which revived his career to an extent. The film, starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, was a big success and earned Casey praises for his role as one of the ‘Mormon Brothers.’

Casey reprised his role in the following two installments of the film series, titled ‘Ocean’s Twelve’ and ‘Ocean’s Thirteen’ respectively.

In 2002, Gus Van continued his collaboration with Casey by casting him in the lead role for the film ‘Gerry,’ which also had Matt Damon playing a pivotal role.

The following few years produced mixed results for Casey, but the year 2007 had a big surprise in store for him. He starred in the drama film ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.’ The Western drama film had Brad Pitt playing the titular role of ‘Jesse James,’ while Casey played the other titular character ‘Robert Ford.’

For his negative character in the film, Casey received nominations for an ‘Academy Award,’ ‘Golden Globe Award,’ and ‘Screen Actors Guild Award’ under the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ category. ‘Robert Ford’ turned out to be the biggest breakthrough role of his career and made Casey a part of Hollywood A-listers.

In 2007, his older brother Ben was going through a tough career period. When Ben thought of trying his hand at direction, Casey supported him and played the lead role in his film ‘Gone Baby Gone.’ The film was a major critical success and a modest box office hit. The critics were astonished after seeing Casey’s performance and called him the ‘new big thing in Hollywood.’

In the 2010 film ‘The Killer Inside Me,’ Casey played the role of a serial killer, which earned him critical success. In 2011, he played a supporting role in the heist comedy film ‘Tower Heist.’ During that time, Casey announced that he was working on his debut directorial venture titled ‘I’m Still Here’ and that he was putting his own money into the making of the film.

In 2014, Affleck played a supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s science fiction epic ‘Interstellar.’ He then went on to play a detective in ‘Triple 9’ and then played an engineer in Disney’s disaster movie ‘The Finest Hour.’

He reached the pinnacle of his career after playing the leading role of an alcoholic loner in the film ‘Manchester by the Sea.’ His performance was termed ‘best in recent memory’ and Casey ended up winning several honors, such as the ‘BAFTA Award’ and an ‘Oscar’ for his performance in the film.

Casey then took a slightly controversial path as he starred in the experimental psychological drama ‘A Ghost Story.’ The film premiered at ‘Sundance Film Festival’ and became one of the attractions of the festival, although it was criticized for being ‘way too slow for a mainstream film.’

Affleck then started concentrating on his directorial career and came up with his film ‘Light of My Life’ in 2019. He also produced the film and played an important role. In the meantime, he also starred in the biographical comedy film ‘The Old Man & the Gun.’

In 2019, it was announced that Casey would produce and act in a film titled ‘The World to Come.’ Directed by Mona Fastvold, the film is slated for a September 2020 release. Meanwhile in October 2019, Casey was cast to play the lead role in Vaughn Stein's film ‘Every Breath You Take.’ The principal photography of the film started in December 2019.