Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actor Casey Affleck.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
Caleb Casey McGuire Affleck-Boldt is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Satellite Award. He began his career as a child actor, appearing in the PBS television film Lemon Sky (1988) and the miniseries The Kennedys of Massachusetts (1990). He later appeared in three Gus Van Sant films: To Die For (1995), Good Will Hunting (1997), and Gerry (2002), and in Steven Soderbergh's comedy heist trilogy Ocean's Eleven (2001), Ocean's Twelve (2004), and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). His first leading role was in Steve Buscemi's independent comedy-drama Lonesome Jim (2006).
I like studio movies; I love big commercial movies.
I get offered a lot of the same type of thing... The teenage slasher movies.
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 didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.
I moved out to LA, got an agent, started auditioning. I didn't know anything about how it worked. And since I was really bad, luckily, I didn't get any of those parts.
I have a very bad relationship with mice.
I love getting ready to do a scene, and thinking about it, and talking about it. But the rest of the time, I'm so nervous and obsessed. I'm just tearing my hair out in the trailer. The whole time I'm really tense.
My family would be supportive if I said I wanted to be a Martian, wear only banana skins, make love to ashtrays, and eat tree bark.
Movies are collaborative, and that's part of what makes it a great experience. They're different from a lot of other art forms, but also it makes it seem like when you see the final product, you go, 'I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have done this.'
What is acceptable in our culture, I think, is really detrimental. I think we ought to have a little more ownership over the kind of material and the content that we put in front of people, especially young people.
I don't really care that much about being a matinee idol.
For people who have... had curve balls thrown at them, it is easier to digest change and digest change in other people. Change only scares the small-minded. The small-minded and me.
All cultures are different. Some commit genocide. Some are uniquely peaceful. Some frequent bathhouses in groups. Some don't show each other the soles of their shoes or like pictures taken of them. Some have enormous hunting festivals or annual stretches when nobody speaks. Some don't use electricity.
A lot of the times, I end up having to do jobs to sort of pay the bills.
Celebrity never really served me that well; it serves other people well.
I am in the process of starting a nonprofit organization that gives rescued animals a home in a simulated wild environment and, for those who have been tested on, who are disabled, aggressive, etc., their own space to live out their days.
We obsess about celebrities. We create them, build myths around them, and then hunt them and destroy them. I don't know where it's taking us or what it means, but I know we do it. I have seen a lot of it myself.
Does celebrity interest anyone? It's definitely not appealing to me. I think anyone who's had any real exposure to it would probably regret ever having even entertained the idea.
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.
If I can't see the humor in it, how am I going to be funny?
I believe veganism can be beneficial for the individual and the world, and of course the animal, but belief is like laying in the dark with someone and telling them you love them and hearing nothing back. So I've never had the confidence to get on a soapbox and tell someone else what to do.
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?
After I left LA... it was like waking up. And so I moved back east and stopped auditioning.
I don't want to be known as someone who is deliberately trying to do things that are not commercial! That is not a good reputation to have when you're trying to be a working actor.
My mom has a good way of engaging me in a conversation about the choices I make, listening, being objective and open-minded, and respecting those choices so long as they don't put me in danger.
I have friends who remember seeing fish hauled onto a boat's deck and beaten to death.
I do think people do pick movies that reveal something about them that they aren't always aware of. If you ask them what kind of an actor they think they are, they'll probably tell you something different than what they've actually done.
The first dog I had was owned by an abusive couple. He was very skittish. He wouldn't let me hold him. It was explained to me that it was because of how he was treated.
The first movie was mostly about George and Julia. This one is mostly about me and Catherine and our love story and our whole history. So it's a very different movie.
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.
People should try eating no animal products for just one day a week.
They wanted me to do Scream 2, and I hate talking about movies I turned down, because it sounds judgmental. There's nothing wrong with horror movies. I enjoy watching them. The main reason I turn a part down is if I think I won't be good.
I think David Letterman is a genius. Night after night he is funny and smart. He seems to really enjoy his jokes. They seem connected to who he really is. I like watching him, and there is no one better at turning an awkward moment into something very funny.
I'm tired of playing the brat.
When I like someone a lot, I get scared that I'll let them down. My fear of sucking is worst when I feel like someone thinks I'm good.
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.
If you look at the paths of other actors, most people have a curve where you hit it and there's a time where you make a lot of money and they let you make your movies, and then they take it away and it's gone.
I had a public school education - 3,000 kids when I was there. And there were a lot of teachers who would just sit there. You'd come in and sign your name and the teacher would just sit there at the head of the class and you would literally just have to stay in your seat for 40 minutes and that was the only thing you'd have to do in class.
I have no desire to be famous at all.
After high school, I drove out to L.A. with a friend of mine who had just graduated also, and I started auditioning. I got an agent, but it was all 'Saved By the Bell' auditions.
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.
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'm tired of answering questions about myself.
It's really fun when a scene doesn't work.
The way people appear in the gossip papers, as they're depicted as celebrities, it's not often much like who they are. The more people I meet, the more that's true. Sometimes, they're worse.
In my movies, there has been little to do in the way of animal rights. I have never worked in a movie with animals. No horse-riding, no trained dogs, lions, bears. A few actors, but what could I do? We had to have them.
Why can't people just say they were moved? Why do they have to say it's sappy?
The four movies I can remember seeing as a kid were 'The Elephant Man,' 'The Magnificent Seven,' 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' and 'Mad Max!' Two of those are westerns. So the western genre is emblazoned on my memory from childhood, and those are two great movies.
If you have kids, you feel everything stronger. It's like someone turning the lights on in your inner room.
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'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.
In a movie we try to deceive. In theaters, as they say, the deceived are the wisest.
When a performance isn't working, it's usually because the actor is trying to do something and they're not able to express their idea very well. It's a muddled expression.
You sleep with people all the time that you hate.
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.
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.
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 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.
It seems like they never say anything bad about actors, they just pump them up.
The idea of someone not liking me or not liking my movie was always easier to deal with than someone really liking it. I don't know why.