TORONTO – While zooming up a hotel elevator recently with his brother, Ben, Casey Affleck stood quietly while bystanders teased Ben about his beloved Boston Red Sox. Ben good-naturedly fought back.
There is no question who the more public face of the Affleck brothers is – but Casey is finding the spotlight in Big Brother’s shadow. He provides critical support for Brad Pitt in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” and carries the lead in Ben’s directorial debut, “Gone Baby Gone” (opening Friday).
Over the summer, Casey put another notch in his popcorn tub as the bumbling Virgil in “Ocean’s Thirteen.” Casey Affleck’s presence is often unassuming. He never commits grand larceny of a scene, and he has lived comfortably off-screen without fanfare. Casey previously appeared with his brother in “Chasing Amy,” “Good Will Hunting” and “200 Cigarettes.” Like Ben, he co-wrote a film with Matt Damon, the experimental “Gerry.” But it is Ben who has been perennial catnip for the tabloids and at times has risen to – and notoriously plummeted from – the label of movie star.
Asked if the years in show business have divided the brothers at times, Casey replies, “We fight too much for something to come between us, you know what I mean? We’re too close. We spent much of our first 14 to 17 years sort of looking after each other, hanging out every day together. We’re too close; we too easily disagree.
“When things come up we just talk about it, or argue about it. Or fight about it. Or make up. The answer is no.”
In “Jesse James,” Casey is receiving warm notices for playing the stammering Ford, vilified for being the James Gang groupie turned traitor.
“He’s a little bit of a coward at times, but he’s also very brave at times,” Casey said. “He’s also kind of strong and smart. Guys are all things at all times. I thought he was cowardly to shoot Jesse James in the back but he’s also doing what he has to do. People forget that the governor told him he had to do it, or he was going to jail.”
In “Gone Baby Gone,” Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan are private investigators on the trail of a kidnapped 4-year-old girl in a scuzzy Boston neighborhood. The girl’s mom is a drug runner and the cops are also on the case. In Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard’s screenplay adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s book, Casey also narrates.
“I was honored that Ben wanted me to be in the movie, and he trusted me because I’m sure he was anxious about directing his first movie, and I know that it’s actually very hard to do that,” he said. “He probably felt he had to get people who he knew he could rely on to be good, while he was having to make all the other decisions and pay attention to all the other stuff that directors have to pay attention to.
“It was nice to spend time with him. It was nice to get to watch him go through it, kind of bloom in the way that he did,” he said.
Casey’s private life stabilized long before his brother’s. He has a second child on the way with wife Summer Phoenix, Joaquin’s sister.
While declaring that “stability is the antithesis of anything good,” he wishes for momentum. A writers’ strike looms, with possibly an actors’ walkout to follow.
“I would like to work because the muscles get weak and the tools get rusty and you just gotta,” he said. “I don’t wanna wait too long. On the other hand, I don’t ever want to do anything that I don’t like. I’ve done a handful of movies that I really didn’t like from the outset. I don’t want to do that again.”
Perhaps Little Bro has learned watching Big Bro try to live down “Gigli” and “Daredevil.”
Casey has sold an animation script to Warner Bros., “Ardvaark Art’s Ark,” about the animals who didn’t make it onto Noah’s ark.
“It sounds a little dark,” he said, “but it’s also kind of funny.”
