Casey Affleck

Casey Affleck is an American actor whose screen presence is built around restraint. He often plays men who hold more inside than they say, letting hesitation, unease and buried emotion do the work that a louder performance might hand to dialogue. Born on August 12, 1975, in Falmouth, Massachusetts, Affleck began acting professionally as a child, appearing in local commercials, the television film Lemon Sky and the miniseries The Kennedys of Massachusetts. High-school theater helped turn acting from an occasional job into a serious pursuit. After moving to Los Angeles at eighteen, he made his first film appearance in Gus Van Sant’s To Die For. Supporting parts in Good Will Hunting and Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy followed, while Van Sant’s sparse, experimental Gerry gave Affleck room to explore a quieter and more demanding kind of performance. His career shifted decisively in 2007. As Robert Ford in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Affleck made insecurity, envy and self-consciousness feel dangerously intertwined, earning an Academy Award nomination for supporting actor. That same year, Gone Baby Gone established him as a compelling leading man through his performance as a private investigator searching for a missing child. Affleck has repeatedly returned to conflicted outsiders and emotionally cornered men, including roles in The Killer Inside Me, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Out of the Furnace and The Finest Hours. His performance as the grief-stricken Lee Chandler in Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea became the defining achievement of his career, winning the Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Award for best actor. His collaborations with director David Lowery have also shown his appetite for unusual material, from Ain’t Them Bodies Saints to A Ghost Story and The Old Man & the Gun. Beyond acting, Affleck has worked as a screenwriter, producer, editor and director. He directed the mockumentary I’m Still Here, then wrote, directed and starred in the survival drama Light of My Life. Whether carrying a film or working from its edges, he remains most interesting when the character’s real struggle sits just beneath the surface.