One-on-one with Casey Affleck

By Elisabeth Marshall

When Casey Affleck was surrounded by movie stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in 1997's Good Will Hunting, he looked like your typical, cynical, college-age kid, cracking jokes in the back seat of a beat-up car. But when this younger, less famous Affleck brother was actually surrounded by college students at the Thurs., Nov. 16 Calhoun Master's Tea, he looked, well, like a movie star himself. His clothes seemed especially well tailored, his features exceptionally chiseled, and his weary demeanor a far cry from the star-struck eyes following him around the room. 

During the talk, Affleck resisted efforts to discuss his most recent movie Committed, joking that the money that the Yale Film Society would make by screening it later that evening would exceed the profit it made in the theaters last summer. Continuing to invoke such wry, self-deprecating humor as he discussed everything from his two years at Columbia University, to his future plans, to his hometown of Cambridge, MA, Affleck spoke with the Herald after the Tea. 

Yale Herald: I just wanted to ask, is there a reason why you told a previous interviewer that you were majoring in eugenics while at Columbia?

Casey Affleck: That was just a joke. I was doing an interview, and this person had this glazed-over look in her eyes. I knew that she wasn't listening to me and she was just tape recording, kind of like you are now [laughs]—but you're listening, of course—and so when she said, "and-so-what-are-you-majoring-in," I said eugenics and she didn't even bat an eyelash. 

But also, because, I don't know, I guess it's just indicative of my attitude towards college. I feel like I'm reluctant to talk about it in the self-important tone that a lot of people do. Y'know, they think like, "now I'm in college and I'm majoring in such-and-such," and in actuality they just take a few notes, and go to their class, and, like, go home and do bong hits. And they're like: "whatever, ohmigod, let's go to Delta-Fucka-Fricka-Phi!" You know what I mean?

YH: [laughing] Yeah, yeah.

CA: And so I think that there's this prejudice, that people that have a college education are more intelligent than people that don't. And I bristle, I guess, when people ask me questions about that and I can tell that they're privately judging me based on the answer I give. It makes me flippant, I guess.

YH: You seem fairly dismissive of your college experience, but then you also said that you would probably be teaching if you weren't acting. Is there some distinction you see between the two?

CA: Well, I hope I didn't really sound that way, because those two years [I spent at Columbia] were really...I'll never forget them, y'know. I went to a public high school, a really good school, but there wasn't a lot of discipline and I didn't have to work that hard. When I got to college, it was a very different experience. I really cared and I was really interested in everything that was happening in the classroom. I spent like 15 hours a day in the library just reading and doing all my work. I'd never done that much work, y'know, studied like that before in my life. It really changed me. I really felt like I learned a lot. 

And so I have I really respect what happens in college. I don't mean to be dismissive. But I also feel like there's a self-importance that is attached to what's happened to private schools in America. It's like they've become a product, and the actual education part has been regulated to the second or third priority. So that's why I sometimes have that tone of voice when I'm talking about my college experience. 

YH: During the Tea, you sounded ambivalent about the body of work you've created since leaving school. Overall, have you been satisfied with what you've done, and where you are now?

CA: Um, yeah, I'm really happy. I mean, there's always...[pause]

This is the nastiest trick that I witnessed in this year's election—a trick that actually started with Reagan, when he said of Jimmy Carter, asking the American people, "are you happier than you were four years ago?" And I think that that's so manipulative, because everyone remembers the past fondly, you know what I mean? Unless you have some horrible traumatic thing in your past, people just tend to be nostalgic and the hardships of your present situation always seem much greater than the ones of the past.

And so I feel like I'm really happy with all the stuff I've done, but, you know, I always tend to feel like: "God, it always seems so much easier before. This script isn't as good as the ones I've done before." It always seems like a struggle in the moment. But, in fact, I've been really lucky, and I'm really grateful. And I would like to keep on doing this. 

YH: Are you at all involved with Pearl Street Productions?

CA: Not really. They haven't really done anything. You know, a lot of those production companies are set up to keep up good relations with actors and studios. And Pearl Street is a production company that is financed by Miramax and they haven't actually produced anything yet, except this one film called Third Wheel, which they haven't finished shooting. But I haven't done anything with them. I don't know if I will. But I mean, it's the production company that is affiliated with my brother [Ben Affleck] and Matt Damon, and because I like to work with my friends and stuff, maybe in the future I'll do something with them. But they're not really actually doing anything; they're off doing their own movies and stuff. 

YH: You said earlier that you were looking for a role to "showcase your abilities." Do you have a role specifically in mind?

CA: Um, probably a remake of the Elephant Man. [laughs]

I don't know. Let's see...no, I don't have anything really in mind. I mean, there are books that I'd love to do, that's the only thing I can really think of. 

YH: Any specific books?

CA: Yeah, I'd like to do The Sirens of Titan. It's Kurt Vonnegut. I think that it would be really difficult, but I'd love to do that. Let's see, also, The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy. The Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. So there are different things that I'd love to do. But there are no scripts that are out there right now that I'm dying to do. 

YH: You said that you felt that Hollywood was a meritocracy. How would you define the sort of merit that Hollywood rewards? 

CA: I guess that's complicated, because what they reward, in fact, is box office success. But there are actors out there who are enormous movie stars that actually haven't been in huge successful movies. In fact, their movies continue to be kind of mediocre, mid-level successes, or else failures, and they continue to work because people really like them, because the directors always want them. 

YH: Do you have certain actors in mind?

CA: Sure, even [someone like] Johnny Depp. I mean, all he does are these independent artistic movies, but he remains this big movie star. Or Jeff Bridges. Those two guys are good examples of people who are really good actors and who get work because everyone else recognizes that they're really good and talented, even though their movies don't make very much money. 

But the studio, I guess, the way that they measure things is by whether an actor's movies have made money or not. And that's pretty much all they care about. It's understandable because there's a great financial risk involved in making a movie, you know; they can put upwards of a $100 million on the line and they want to make sure that they have some guy in there that the kids want to see. 

YH: I'm not sure you know this, but about half of the Yale student body will be in your hometown of Cambridge this weekend—

CA: For the Harvard game?

YH: Yeah! So, is there anywhere we should go while we're there?

CA: Yeah, you should go to Leo's for lunch. And then you should go...uh, to the Sports Grille. It's a bar. 

YH: The Sports Grille? My friend had his ID taken away there once.

CA: Really? Well, that's the spot I went to when I was sneaking into bars. [laughs]