By Lisa Yi
(October 2007) Reporter: A big part of this movie is the Boston community. How does the Boston community react to you and Ben?
Casey Affleck: Everyone has been very supportive in Boston because of the movie, and has been really nice about it. The people that I know and love - family and friends - are there. I also lived there for 18 years...I may very well end up living there. Reporter: What is your Boston experience?
Casey Affleck: My Boston experience as a kid was not unlike the neighborhood or the scene in the movie where the little girl lives. It's Cambridge, Massachusetts, just one of the towns just across the river from Boston proper. My memories of Cambridge and my life in Boston look a lot like how this movie looks. So in that way it was great to go back there and shoot in the neighborhood that we shot in. It was all like my childhood; it was all very familiar to me. Every part of it. The surface, the way people dress, the accents. Just as deep as you want to go. What people's attitudes are like, where they come from, how they relate to their neighbors, what jobs they do... Reporter: You came from that neighborhood, and so did your brother. Were there any days when you didn't want your brother telling you what to do?
Casey Affleck: Well, I don't really want anyone to tell me what to do. But it was much easier with Ben, because we're very comfortable. You're someone's brother and you spend 32 years fighting, disagreeing or just getting along. Actually, I wasn't sure going into it, but our comfort level made things a whole lot easier. If only conversations happen faster, which is great because often with a movie there is not a lot of time. We could disagree and agree, and we could do it with a kind of shorthand, and we could kind of speed things up. There was a kind of honesty. I never worried about stepping on his toes or hurting his ego. When you're doing a movie, taking direction and trying to work with somebody you met just a few weeks ago, you've got to be a little careful on the things you say. Reporter: How do you think he did as Director?
Casey Affleck: Great. I was really proud of him. I think he's kind of a natural-born leader. That quality turned out to be a huge asset. People kind of follow him, want to support him and do what he says. He [has a] very inclusive, very collaborative directing style, and that paid off. You know, John Tolls won an Academy Award, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris...all these guys have been working for a really long time, and have done really great stuff. They really respected him, clearly. You know, it happens quickly - you sit down and you have one conversation with somebody and they find out whether you know what you're talking about, or whether you respect them and whether or not you're gong to listen to them. And obviously he did that with all them, because they just completely got on board. Reporter: Was it a completely different experience because you were working with family? You had your family there - did that add a unique element to filming this movie compared to others?
Casey Affleck: As I said, it only made things easier. It was great because you get to go home, and my mother lives in Boston, friends...my mom would've liked it to have been like work three days, then come sit around the house for four days. But she did still baby-sit; she's very good at that. Reporter: Because you are a dad, did it add a different element?
Casey Affleck: I didn't have a choice. I mean, I remember when I was a kid seeing a movie, or anytime before I had my son a few years ago - I realize now how numb I was to those kinds of issues. How not very sensitive I was to things about children. I mean, this movie obviously is sad with how children are treated. And that was very upsetting, doing those scenes and to read the script. I think I was much more in touch with the emotions of the story than I would have been if I didn't have a kid. You know, it's just a parent's worst nightmare, the things that happen in this movie. It definitely influenced my part in the movie. Reporter: Madeleine in UK - have you followed this case? Are celebrities helping?
Casey Affleck: What are the celebrities doing?...um, yeah, it's a horrible story. I don't know; this movie was based on a book. They decided to postpone the movie out of a sense of common decency. I feel sorry for the kid. It seems like a smart move, and it's the least that anyone can do. It's someone's life... One of the things that I became aware [of] while doing this movie, talking to the people from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children, is just how much children are not protected by the services that are supposed to protect them, how much we kind of let them down. It's really scary and very depressing and awful. Reporter: What was your emotional state of mind when you were filming the scene when you shoot the child molester?
Casey Affleck: That was shot in sequence, so we went through the whole thing, which makes it a lot easier to arrive at that scene...you know, going through all that we did in the scene, where I go into the bathroom, and I see this blood and this very realistic prosthetic child. Even if you know these things aren't real, it's horrible. So that made it come about. It was about disgust more than anything, and anger and sadness - that was my state of mind. I don't think the movie represents what the character does in that moment as something that justifies the defendant. It tortures the character, Patrick, afterward about whether or not he did the right thing. So it wasn't a kind of heroic moment, nor was it ever intended to be depicted that way. But I've sat in audiences where people cheer, which is kind of a strange reaction when someone shoots somebody else in the back of their head, when they are on their hands and knees. The audience erupts and applauds. It's unnerving, but I think it's such a release, kind of a second-hand cathartic reaction, because the audience is so disgusted by what they've seen. He's the boogeyman, and you get to see in a movie someone had extinguished the boogeyman. It's disturbing. Reporter: Do you think your relationship with Ben has changed after making the film?
Casey Affleck: Not really, to be honest. You know, sometimes you do a movie with someone you haven't met before, and you spend months working with them every single day, and it can be a very intense bonding experience. But it pales in comparison to 33 years of brotherhood. It's just a drop in the bucket. But it definitely was a great experience. Reporter: How do you feel about the ending of the movie?
Casey Affleck: I'm not sure I would have done the same thing, but I think it's the right thing to do. I don't think you can very simply dumb down that question. Two wrongs don't make a right. People can't just go around taking other people's kids just because they think they'll make better parents. In some of my research, I learned that something like 80 - an overwhelming - percentage of the children that are taken, are taken by people who think they are doing the right thing for the kid. To do anything else in this movie would have made me very uncomfortable because it would have felt like a defense of that kind of thing, which is wrong. The way to protect children is not to just yank them out of the house they live in with their parents and give them a better house in the suburb with nice parents. Reporter: This has been the best year of your professional career. How does it feel to have stepped out of Ben's shadow?
Casey Affleck: It's definitely been a very good year. I've had a lot of years where people didn't like the movies I was in, or didn't even pay attention to me, so it feels nice. On the other hand, you spend so much time saying, "Oh, I'm not as bad as they say," or, to be fair, with good responses, you're not as good as they say. I sort of try to deal with that attitude. Sometimes people get this, "This is it! Everything's going to change for you!" pep rally and nothing happens. I think it's kind of mysterious the way that some people suddenly become. Like everyone wants to work with them - they're popular, they've become famous - and other people don't. I know people who've become very successful actors and they never have popped in that pop media, pop culture kind of a way. You know Matt Damon can walk down the street, and he's done fantastic movies. He is arguably one of the best actors of his generation. Then there are people who have done a few things and they get mobbed. I don't understand. I would never claim that I've controlled it or prepared for it. Reporter: What about, with all your success, stepping out of Ben's shadow?
Casey Affleck: It's great, but it's only the outside world. People from the outside perceive it as a change, but I don't know anyone who ever goes around in their life thinking, "God, how am I going to get out of this shadow?" I'm kind of in my own universe, living my life, doing my thing. And other people kind of go like, "Hey, you're good now, you're doing great! Look at you, this is a good moment for you." Nothing is different for me except how people are acting, or I'm in a two movies that people are actually watching that I also like. I also think this is a fantastic start for Ben's directing career. This is a great year for him. You get one chance at being a director, as far as I can tell. A lot of people have directed one movie; a very small percentage of people get to do more than one. So I know it's big. You get one shot. Reporter: what did you think about the reaction in Toronto?
Casey Affleck: I had seen reactions like that before, yeah, but not from the inside. It was a little chaotic, kind of strange, a little over the top, but film festivals tend to be like that, some of them. You get to Sundance or Toronto, and it gets a little bizarre, and kind of weird feeling. But I think it's because, like, there are so many people at Toronto; like, so many movie stars show up at once, like George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Everyone's there all at once and it just attracts a ton of people, and you know it's crazy. Return to intro to access interviews with Casey Affleck and Amy Ryan.
Click HERE for Moving Pictures' review of Gone Baby Gone. |
