Caleb Casey McGuire Affleck-Boldt[1] was born on August 12, 1975, in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to Christine Anne "Chris" Boldt and Timothy Byers Affleck.[2][3][4] The surname "Affleck" is of Scottish origin.[5] He also has Irish,[6][7] German,[8] English, and Swedish ancestry.[9][full citation needed] Affleck's maternal great-great-grandfather, Heinrich Boldt, known for the discovery of the Curmsun Disc, emigrated from Prussia in the late 1840s.[10][11] His mother was a Radcliffe College- and Harvard-educated elementary school teacher. His father worked sporadically as an auto mechanic,[12][13] a carpenter,[14] a bookie,[15][16] an electrician,[17] a bartender,[18] and a janitor at Harvard University.[19] In the mid-1960s, he had been a stage manager, director, writer and actor with the Theater Company of Boston.[20][21][22] During Affleck's childhood, his father was "a disaster of a drinker".[23] Affleck first started acting by "reenacting what was happening at home" during role play exercises at Alateen meetings.[24]
After his parents divorced when he was nine, Affleck and his older brother, Ben, lived with their mother and visited their father weekly.[23] He learned to speak Spanish during a year spent traveling around Mexico with his mother and brother when he was ten.[25] At the time, his brother Ben was filming The Second Voyage of the Mimi, which was set in Mexico. The two brothers spent "all of our time together, pretty much. Obviously at school we were in different grades, but we had the same friends."[25] When Affleck was fourteen, his father moved to Indio, California, to enter a rehabilitation facility, and later worked there as an addiction counselor.[17][26][27][28] He reconnected with his father during visits to California as a teenager: "I got to know him, really, because he was sober for the first time... The man I knew before that was just completely different."[23][29]
Growing up in a politically active, liberal household in Central Square, Cambridge,[15][30] Affleck and his brother were surrounded by people who worked in the arts,[31] were regularly taken to the theater by their mother,[32] and were encouraged to make their own home movies.[33] The brothers sometimes appeared in local weather commercials and as film extras because of their mother's friendship with a local casting director.[18][29][34] Affleck acted in numerous high school theater productions while a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School.[29][35] He has said he "wouldn't be an actor" if not for his high school theater teacher Gerry Speca: "He kind of turned me on to acting, why it can be fun, how it can be rewarding."[35]
At age eighteen, Affleck moved to Los Angeles for a year to pursue an acting career, and lived with his brother and their childhood friend Matt Damon.[36] Despite having "the best possible first experience" while filming To Die For,[37] he spent much of the year working as a busboy at a restaurant in Pasadena. He decided to move to Washington, D.C., to study politics at George Washington University.[18] He soon transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he followed the Core Curriculum for a total of two years.[38][39][40] However, he did not graduate: "I would do a semester of school, go do a movie... Opportunities kept presenting themselves that were hard for me to turn down... By then, I didn't really have roots at the school or a group of friends."[37]
Career
1988–2006: Early work
Affleck acted professionally during his childhood due to his mother's friendship with a Cambridge-area casting director, Patty Collinge.[37] In addition to local weather commercials and film extra work,[41] he appeared as Kevin Bacon's brother in the PBS television film Lemon Sky (1988), directed by Collinge's husband Jan Egleson,[37] and as a young Robert F. Kennedy in the ABC miniseries The Kennedys of Massachusetts (1990).[42] These early acting experiences "meant nothing more than a day off from school" to Affleck, and he only began to consider a career as an actor when in high school.[41] When he later moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career in earnest, his first film role was as a sociopathic teenager in Gus Van Sant's 1995 satirical comedy To Die For. During filming in Toronto, Affleck shared an apartment with co-star Joaquin Phoenix and they became close friends.[33]Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised Affleck's performance, saying he "skillfully capture[s] the pang of adolescence among no-hopers."[43][44] However, Affleck then had a "disappointing" experience while making the 1996 drama Race the Sun and, "as soon as the film finished, I went to school."[39]
While studying at Columbia, Affleck had a supporting role in Van Sant's Good Will Hunting (1997), written by his brother and their childhood friend Matt Damon.[18][37] Despite arranging a first meeting between Van Sant and his brother to discuss the project, Affleck was reluctant to leave college temporarily to act in the film.[39] He was eventually persuaded to play one of four friends living in South Boston– a role written specifically for him[36]– and improvised many of his lines.[45][46] Jay Carr of The Boston Globe praised the "emotional subtleties and variety" of the performances, and singled out "Casey Affleck's junior member of the quartet, dying to be taken as seriously as the others."[47] Following the film's success, Affleck's career opportunities did not significantly improve. At the same time, his life became exposed to the public and parts of his life became "part of pop culture and public life."[18] Also in 1997, he had a small role in Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy, starring his brother. He returned to university for a semester before quitting to focus on his acting career.[39]
Affleck's career entered a "dark" period, with a series of supporting roles in critical and commercial failures.[36][33] He later remarked: "It dawned on me late that I should be selective about what I do."[37] In the independent comedy Desert Blue (1998), he starred opposite Kate Hudson as a small-town jock.[48] Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle felt that, while "interesting", his character was "entirely underdeveloped".[49] In 1999, he made an uncredited cameo in the teen comedy American Pie[50] and appeared as a punk rocker romantically involved with both Gaby Hoffmann and Christina Ricci's characters in the New Year's Eve ensemble comedy 200 Cigarettes.[51][52] In the comedy Drowning Mona (2000), starring Danny DeVito, Affleck played a shy gardener suspected of murder.[53]Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times acknowledged, in an otherwise negative review, that his role was "well played".[54] Also in 2000, Affleck had a small role in the comedy Attention Shoppers and played Fortinbras in Ethan Hawke's Hamlet.[55] He appeared as the brother of Heather Graham's character in the romantic comedy Committed (2000), with Emanuel Levy of Variety praising a "terrific" performance.[56] Also in 2001, he had a small role in American Pie 2 and appeared in the teen slasher filmSoul Survivors. Robert Koehler of Variety found him "bland"[57] while Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle said that he did not make "much of an impression, [but may] have been too depressed to really act."[58] One positive experience Affleck had during this period was working with Van Sant and cinematographer Harris Savides on Finding Forrester (2000) as Van Sant's assistant and technical consultant: "Can you imagine a better film school than that? Gus is not only somebody who I love a lot but is also who has taught me, maybe more than anybody else in film."[33][59]
Affleck found a degree of commercial success when he was cast in Steven Soderbergh's heist comedy Ocean's Eleven (2001), starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Damon. In roles Soderbergh originally intended for Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson,[60] Affleck and Scott Caan played Mormon brothers and wisecracking mechanics who help to rob three Las Vegas casinos simultaneously.[61] While it was a "great, fun social experience", Affleck spent much of his time on set "being, like, 100 feet away from the camera in the background."[36] He would later reprise his role in Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).
In 2002, Affleck and Damon starred in Van Sant's experimental drama Gerry, playing two men who get lost while hiking in the desert.[62][63] Affleck, Damon, and Van Sant conceived of the idea and wrote the screenplay together while living in neighboring New York apartments.[45] The film, which had minimal dialogue, received mixed reviews.[64][65] Affleck, who rarely watches his own films,[61] said of Gerry in 2016: "That was an incredible experience. I saw one scene recently out of context at the Telluride Film Festival and I can't believe anyone ever sat through the whole thing. It probably works better as a whole but one scene lifted out– I thought, 'This is unbearable!'"[37] Also in 2002, Affleck starred with Damon and then-girlfriend Summer Phoenix in a West End stage production of Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth.[18][66][67] Lonergan and Affleck became friends during rehearsals,[68] and Affleck later acted in workshop productions of Lonergan's plays in New York.[69][70]
Affleck in 2006
Affleck's first leading role was in 2006's little-seen independent comedy-drama Lonesome Jim, directed by Steve Buscemi. He played a depressed writer who returns from New York to live with his parents in Indiana, and begins a relationship with Liv Tyler's character.[71] Buscemi has said he knew Affleck would be able to carry the film after watching his performance in Gerry.[72][73] Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post remarked: "Affleck's interesting.. He probably can't be a star in big movies because his drawback is a voice that sounds like a snivel drawn through a wet nasal passage into a whine... And yet in certain kinds of films– this kind– he's 100 percent authentic."[74] Ty Burr of The Boston Globe said Affleck "gets so far under the skin of this semi-charming jerk that the performance becomes both brave and aggravating."[75] However, Stephen Holden of The New York Times felt it "would be a stronger movie if Mr. Affleck had the wherewithal to bare more of the passive-aggressive rage inside... a more resourceful actor would have used this blank slate to scrawl a thousand telling details."[76] Also in 2006, he had a supporting role in the romantic comedy The Last Kiss as a friend of Zach Braff's character.[77]
2007–2012: Breakthrough
Affleck had a breakthrough year in 2007, with the release of two films featuring critically acclaimed performances.[78] The first of these performances was in the Western drama The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, in which he played Robert Ford to Brad Pitt's Jesse James.[79] Affleck auditioned repeatedly for the role.[80] While the director Andrew Dominik had seen Affleck in Gerry,[81][82] he cast him partly because of his "beautiful-sounding voice. The voice is the thing that really gets you."[83][84] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times described Affleck's performance as a "revelation" which "manages to make the character seem dumb and the actor wily and smart."[85] Similarly, Claudia Puig of USA Today declared him a "real revelation [who] perfectly inhabits the role"[86] while Todd McCarthy of Variety said Affleck made "an indelible impression as the insecure, physically unprepossessing weakling."[87] Dana Stevens of Slate said "the movie belongs to Affleck [who] goes for broke in a wonderfully brave and weird performance as the craven naif Bob. Somehow he makes us want to flee this creep at top speed, even as we pray no harm will come to him." For his performance, Affleck was nominated for the Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
While he was filming The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford in Calgary, Affleck was visited by his brother, who offered him the leading role in his directorial project, the Boston crime thriller Gone Baby Gone (2007).[37] While his brother was a first-time director and in the midst of a career downturn, Affleck had confidence in the project: "I felt like I knew him better than anyone else did."[37][88] His performance, as an inexperienced private investigator tasked with finding a missing child, earned Affleck further plaudits for his acting.[89] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said: "I'm not sure exactly when Casey Affleck became such a good actor... Most actors want you to love them, but [he] doesn't seem to know that, or maybe he doesn't care."[90] Jim Ridley of The Village Voice described him as "a major talent coming into his own"[91] while Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle remarked that "the revelation is Casey Affleck, who heretofore has been a rather wormy, uncharismatic screen presence."[92] Ty Burr of The Boston Globe commented: "I'd never stopped to consider Casey Affleck as a movie star before, but under his big brother's tutelage, he blooms as a leading man of richly watchable savvy and intelligence."[93]
While The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone were, respectively, a financial failure and a modest box office success,[83][94] Affleck's acting career was widely believed to be at a turning point.[33] However, he lost career momentum while directing I'm Still Here (2010), a divisive mockumentary about the musical career of his friend and then brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix.[33] While Affleck later clarified that it was "a planned, staged and scripted work of fiction",[95] there was much media speculation during filming about whether Phoenix's public behavior was performance art or a genuine breakdown.[96] Claudia Puig of USA Today remarked that, "whether truth or folly, it's not particularly well made. Even in the midst of Phoenix's most oddball and obsessive torment, it's boring... What, exactly, is the point of a joke that nobody really gets?"[97] Ty Burr of The Boston Globe described it as "an interesting but half-baked exercise in persona deconstruction, celebrity politics, and meta-meta-entertainment... Parts of it are close to genius; most of it is actively torturous to watch."[98] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said the film "turns out to be much more interesting to speculate about than to actually watch."[99] Reflecting on the experience in 2016, Affleck said: "We never thought people would actually think it was real... In hindsight, we should have had a press junket and done talk shows and said how it was a mockumentary."[70]
Affleck used his own money to fund I'm Still Here and, after running out of cash,[95] filming was paused for a month to allow him to play a Texan serial killer in Michael Winterbottom's crime drama The Killer Inside Me (2010).[100] Affleck later expressed regret over the film's graphic violence.[70] Philip French of The Guardian found him "disturbingly brilliant"[101] while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised "a mesmeric, implosively powerful performance."[102] Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times said Affleck "showcases his uncanny ability to project a person holding two thoughts in his head at once, as he often gives away nothing in his face to convey the firestorm obviously raging in his soul."[103] Affleck then had a supporting role in the heist comedy Tower Heist (2011)[104] and voiced a character in the 2012 animation ParaNorman.[105]
2013–present: Wider recognition
After spending "a big chunk of time" directing I'm Still Here and dealing with the subsequent backlash,[106] Affleck returned to regular acting work in 2013. "It was ugly for a minute... I sort of remembered why I liked acting and I missed it."[59] In David Lowery's Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013), Affleck and Rooney Mara starred as outlaw lovers in 1970s-era Texas.[107] Affleck was drawn to the opportunity to play a character who "was a much better person than anyone thought", after a string of roles as "assassins or murderers or just creeps".[107] Shannon M. Houston of Paste described him as the film's "standout actor": "Down to his very jawline, Affleck captures the physicality and feeling of a sincerely romantic outlaw."[108] Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times remarked: "Affleck plays conflicted souls so very well... Here you wish for a criminal's redemption."[109] Matt Pais of the Chicago Tribune said: "He has great instincts when it comes to morally compromised anti-heroes, and without trolling for our sympathy, Affleck's Bob is more than just a collection of behaviors; it's a smartly considered performance."[110] Sebastian Doggart of The Guardian said he "shows himself again to be a master of the criminal outsider"[111] while Chuck Wilson of The Village Voice found him "flat-out heartbreaking".[112]
The opportunity to act opposite Christian Bale in the drama Out of the Furnace "reinvigorated" Affleck and reminded him why he enjoyed acting.[113] Claudia Puig of USA Today found his performance as an Iraq War veteran dealing with posttraumatic stress disorder "completely captivating... The chemistry between Bale and Affleck is powerful, intensifying the credibility of their brotherly bond."[114] Matt Pais of the Chicago Tribune said Affleck "finds something fierce and noble in uneven material and in his character's rage. He's not like any other actor in American movies."[110] Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post described the performance as "a searing portrayal of a young man who pushes himself to the punishing physical limit in search of both money and catharsis."[115] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times remarked that Affleck "can come across as intensely vulnerable on screen, which nicely works for a broken man like Rodney."[116] In 2014, Affleck and Jessica Chastain had supporting roles in Christopher Nolan's science fiction film Interstellar as the grown-up children of Matthew McConaughey's character,[117] with Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter describing his character as "thinly developed".[118] Also in 2014, Affleck and producer John Powers Middleton launched the production company, The Affleck/Middleton Project.[119]
Affleck starred in three films in 2016, the first two of which underperformed financially.[120][121] In John Hillcoat's crime thriller Triple 9, Affleck played an uncorruptible detective. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said he "arrests our attention. I wonder if any other screen actor has ever seemed so focused and so distracted at the same time. He thinks more than he says, and so we listen, trying to get the part he's leaving out."[122] Justin Chang of Variety described him as "one of the most persuasive leading men of his generation"[123] while Brogan Morris of Paste declared him "maybe Hollywood's best offbeat leading man... Few actors can suggest so much with such quiet precision, and even here Affleck is compulsively watchable despite his undercooked character."[124] In Disney's disaster drama The Finest Hours, Affleck played a taciturn engineer on board a sinking ship. David Sims of The Atlantic said he "gives the kind of measured, thought-out performance he's so eminently capable of, even if the film isn't complex enough to rise to his level... He animates an introverted character with subtle mental busywork whenever he's on the screen."[125] Sheri Linden of The Hollywood Reporter noted that he "manages to turn his man of few words into the movie's most compelling figure."[126]
In his final role of 2016, Affleck starred as Lee Chandler, a grief-stricken loner, in Kenneth Lonergan's drama Manchester by the Sea. One of the film's producers, Matt Damon, initially intended to star in the film. When scheduling conflicts made this unfeasible, Damon agreed to step aside on the condition that he be replaced with Affleck.[127] Lonergan readily agreed,[128] remarking that Affleck was "the natural person to go to."[129] Affleck had close relationships with both men and had previously offered notes on early drafts of the script.[61] The film was a box office success,[130] and Affleck's performance received widespread critical praise. A.O. Scott of The New York Times described it as "one of the most fiercely disciplined screen performances in recent memory. [He] conveys both Lee's inner avalanche of feeling and the numb decorum that holds it back."[131]
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times praised his "quietly ferocious performance, his willingness to submerge himself into this character to an almost frightening extent."[132] Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post said the film was "anchored by a quietly volcanic central performance by Casey Affleck, in a breathtaking breakout role he's long deserved."[133] David Fear of Rolling Stone stated: "He's given impressive turns before [but] the way Affleck gradually shows you the man's bone-deep grief and emotional damage makes you believe that one of this generation's finest actors has simply been waiting to be coaxed out."[134] Affleck won the National Board of Review, Critics' Choice, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Academy Award for his performance.
After dropping out of Lowery's Pete's Dragon in order to star in Manchester by the Sea,[61] Affleck reteamed with the director to star opposite Rooney Mara in the experimental drama A Ghost Story, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2017.[135] Affleck's character dies suddenly at the outset and he spends much of the film covered by a white sheet with two eye-holes, haunting his former home. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter said Affleck's performance managed to resonate despite limited time onscreen.[136] Peter Debruge of Variety said Affleck "has never been an easy actor to read. He's a low-charisma mumbler who tends to keep his characters' emotions bottled up, making him the rare performer who can convey as much with a sheet over his head as he does without."[137] Jordan Hoffman of The Guardian described him as "cinema's finest mumbler... I can't even tell if he's speaking or just emitting high-pitched vibrations anymore."[138] In 2018, Affleck starred opposite Robert Redford in the outlaw drama The Old Man & the Gun, his third collaboration with Lowery.[139]
Affleck was introduced to actress Summer Phoenix by her brother, Joaquin, in the late 1990s.[18][148] They began dating in 2000,[149] and acted together in both the 2000 film Committed[150] and a 2002 stage production of This Is Our Youth.[151] The couple became engaged in January 2004[148] and married on June 3, 2006, in Savannah, Georgia.[152] They have two sons born in 2004 and 2007.[153] On August 1, 2017, Phoenix officially filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences",[154] and it was finalized later that year.[155] Affleck has said it was an amicable divorce and that they remain friends.[23]
He has been in a relationship with actress Caylee Cowan since January 2021.[156]
Alcoholism
In a 2016 interview, Affleck said that he had been sober for "almost three years... My father was a disaster of a drinker, my grandmother was an alcoholic, my brother spent some time in rehab– it's in our genes."[23]
Political views
In 2008, Affleck filmed an episode of documentary series 4Real, in which he visited the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, and remarked upon the progress they had made due largely to "their own resourcefulness and determination and their character, and not because of the goodness of our collective heart."[157] During the 2016 presidential campaign, Affleck supported Hillary Clinton[33][158] and characterized Donald Trump as "a dangerous fool".[61][159] In 2017, multiple financial contributions to Trump were made by Affleck's production company, which he co-founded with John Powers Middleton. In a statement, Affleck denied involvement: "I had no knowledge of it, was never asked, and never would have authorized it... The policies of the Trump administration, and the values they represent, are antithetical to everything I believe in."[160]
Sexual harassment allegations
Affleck has settled two sexual harassment lawsuits out of court for an undisclosed amount.[161]
In 2010, two of his former co-workers from I'm Still Here filed civil lawsuits against Affleck. Amanda White, one of the film's producers, sued Affleck for $2 million with multiple complaints including sexual harassment and breach of oral contract.[162] She detailed numerous "uninvited and unwelcome sexual advances" in the workplace. White alleged that Affleck refused to honor the terms of the production agreement, including her fee, in retaliation.[162]
The film's cinematographer, Magdalena Gorka, sued Affleck for $2.25 million with multiple complaints including intentional infliction of emotional distress and breach of oral contract.[163][164] Gorka alleged that she had been subjected to "routine instances" of sexual harassment by crew members including Antony Langdon, "within the presence and with the active encouragement of Affleck."[163]
Initially, Affleck denied the allegations and threatened to countersue.[165] No countersuits were filed.[161] His lawyer claimed, "Both women left the film in April 2009 and both were refused when they wanted to return", and "there was no mention of sexual harassment before June [2010]."[166] The film's associate producer Nicole Acacio and an unnamed female editor both defended Affleck's conduct on set.[167] The lawsuits were later settled out of court.[168] Both women received credit for their work on the project; no details of any financial settlement were released.[169]
Casey Affleck in 2018
Affleck addressed the allegations in a 2016 interview with The New York Times, stating: "It was settled to the satisfaction of all. I was hurt and upset— I am sure all were— but I am over it. It was an unfortunate situation— mostly for the innocent bystanders of the families of those involved."[170] The allegations and lawsuits attracted scrutiny during the 2016–17 film awards season, when Affleck was recognized for his performance in Manchester by the Sea, which culminated in further controversy following his Best Actor win at the 89th Academy Awards.[171][172][173] The following year, amidst the Me Too movement, Affleck withdrew from presenting the award for Best Actress at the 90th Academy Awards.[174]
In a 2018 interview with the Associated Press, Affleck discussed the lawsuits and allegations in light of the Me Too movement.[175] He characterized his behavior at the time of the lawsuits as defensive and said he has since worked to understand his own culpability.[175] He remorsefully acknowledged that the set of I'm Still Here was "an unprofessional environment" and that "I contributed to that unprofessional environment and I tolerated that kind of behavior from other people and I wish that I hadn't. And I regret a lot of that... I behaved in a way and allowed others to behave in a way that was really unprofessional. And I'm sorry."[175]
In June 2020, Affleck, with his mother Christine, founded a fundraising effort, Stories from Tomorrow. The initiative was co-sponsored by Room to Read, WriteGirl and New Earth, an organization where Affleck is a board member. 'Stories from Tomorrow' matches original writing by children ages 5–18 with celebrities who read their work, which is then presented in video form. The money raised will be used to ensure that children around the world have access to education and food.[183][184][185]
Benjamin Géza Affleck is an American actor and filmmaker. His accolades include two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globes. Affleck began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS educational series The Voyage of the Mimi (1984–1988). He later appeared in the independent comedy Dazed and Confused (1993) and several Kevin Smith comedies, including Chasing Amy (1997).
Matthew Paige Damon is an American actor, film producer, and screenwriter. He was ranked among Forbes' most bankable stars in 2007, and in 2010 was one of the highest-grossing actors of all time. He has received various awards and nominations, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for three British Academy Film Awards and seven Primetime Emmy Awards.
James Howard Woods is an American actor. Known for fast-talking, intense roles on screen and stage, he has received numerous accolades, including three Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. He started his career in minor roles on and off-Broadway before making his Broadway debut in The Penny Wars (1969), followed by Borstal Boy (1970), The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1971) and Moonchildren (1972). Woods' early film roles include The Visitors (1972), The Way We Were (1973) and Night Moves (1975). He starred in the NBC miniseries Holocaust (1978) opposite Meryl Streep.
Edward Allen Harris is an American actor and filmmaker. His performances in Apollo 13 (1995), The Truman Show (1998), Pollock (2000), and The Hours (2002) earned him critical acclaim and Academy Award nominations.
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix is an American actor. Known for his roles as dark, unconventional and eccentric characters in independent film, particularly in period dramas, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. In 2020, The New York Times named him one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.
Peter Hayden Dinklage is an American actor. Portraying Tyrion Lannister on the HBO television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019), Dinklage won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series a record four times. He also received a Golden Globe Award in 2011 and a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2020 for the role. Dinklage has a common form of dwarfism known as achondroplasia, and stands 4 ft 5 in (1.35 m) tall. He has used his celebrity status to raise social awareness of dwarfism.
Christopher Walton Cooper is an American actor. His breakthrough role was as Sheriff July Johnson in the acclaimed Western television miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989). He has appeared in several major Hollywood films including A Time to Kill (1996), October Sky (1999), American Beauty (1999), The Bourne Identity (2002), Seabiscuit (2003), Capote (2005), Syriana (2005), The Kingdom (2007), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), The Town (2010), The Muppets (2011), Live by Night (2016), Cars 3 (2017), A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), and Little Women (2019). He won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for Adaptation.
Lloyd Vernet "Beau" Bridges III is an American actor. He is a three-time Emmy, two-time Golden Globe and one-time Grammy Award winner, as well as a two-time Screen Actors Guild Award nominee. Bridges also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to television. He is the son of actor Lloyd Bridges and elder brother of fellow actor Jeff Bridges.
Dennis Lehane is an American author. He has published more than a dozen novels; the first several were a series of mysteries featuring recurring characters, including A Drink Before the War. Four of his novels have been adapted into films of the same names: Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003), Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (2010), and Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Live by Night (2016), both directed by Ben Affleck. His short story "Animal Rescue" was also adapted into the film The Drop, noted for being the final film role for actor James Gandolfini.
John Burke Krasinski is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his role as Jim Halpert on the NBC sitcom The Office (2005–2013), where he was also a producer and occasional director. He directed, co-wrote and co-starred in the 2018 horror film A Quiet Place, for which Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He has since written and directed the sequel A Quiet Place Part II (2020).
Rooney Mara Phoenix is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a British Academy Film Award.
Jennifer Anne Garner is an American actress, writer and businesswoman. Born in Houston, Texas, and raised in Charleston, West Virginia, Garner studied theater at Denison University and began acting as an understudy for the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City. She made her screen debut in the television film adaptation of Danielle Steel's romance novel Zoya (1995). Afterwards, she had a starring role on the Fox teen drama series Time of Your Life (1999–2000), and supporting roles in the war drama film Pearl Harbor (2001) and the comedy-drama film Catch Me If You Can (2002). Her breakthrough came with playing Sydney Bristow in the ABC action thriller series Alias (2001–2006), which earned her a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and four Primetime Emmy Award nominations, among other accolades.
Lucas Hedges is an American actor. A son of filmmaker Peter Hedges, he studied theater at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Hedges began his acting career with a supporting role in Wes Anderson's comedy-drama Moonrise Kingdom (2012). He had his breakthrough in 2016 playing a sardonic teenager in Kenneth Lonergan's drama Manchester by the Sea, which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, among other accolades. Hedges then starred as an aggressive youth in an off-Broadway production of Yen and had supporting roles in the coming-of-age film Lady Bird and the drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in 2017.
American actor and filmmaker Ben Affleck began his career as a child, appearing in several television shows, including the PBS educational program The Voyage of the Mimi (1984). He played an antisemite in the sports film School Ties (1992) and featured as a regular on the television drama Against the Grain (1993). He gained attention for playing the supporting part of a high-school senior in Richard Linklater's cult film Dazed and Confused (1993), after which he had his first leading role in Rich Wilkes's comedy Glory Daze (1995). In 1997, Affleck played a comics artist in Smith's art-house success Chasing Amy. He co-wrote the script and starred with Matt Damon in Gus Van Sant's drama film Good Will Hunting, for which they won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Live by Night is a 2016 American gangster film written, directed, produced by and starring Ben Affleck. Based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, the film follows an ambitious Ybor City bootlegger (Affleck) who becomes a notorious gangster. The film also stars Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldaña, and Chris Cooper.
Manchester by the Sea is a 2016 American drama film written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan that stars Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, and Lucas Hedges. Revolving around the themes of depression, guilt, grief, responsibility, dysfunctional families, and post-traumatic stress disorder, the plot follows a depressed and grief-stricken man who becomes the legal guardian of his teenage nephew after the death of his brother.
John Powers Middleton is an American film and television producer. He began his film career as an executive producer for Oldboy (2013) before executive producing the A&E television series, Bates Motel (2013), and co-producing The Lego Movie (2014). Middleton's production company, The Affleck/Middleton Project, produced the film Manchester by the Sea (2016), which was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture. The film won Oscars for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor.
Jack Dylan Grazer is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Eddie Kaspbrak in the horror film It (2017) and its 2019 sequel, Freddy Freeman in the DC Extended Universe film Shazam! (2019) and its 2023 sequel, and voicing Alberto Scorfano in the Pixar animated film Luca (2021). The Hollywood Reporter named him one of the top 30 stars under age 18 in 2018.
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