AFFLECK EFFECT
Casey’s past may ruin Oscar chances
Casey Affleck is a strange kind of underdog. Even if you hadn’t heard of him before reading that sentence, chances are that you’re aware of his elder brother Ben and their lifelong friend Matt: that’s Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, two of the most widely loved and influential film stars working today.
It was Ben who cast Casey as the lead in his 2007 crime thriller Gone Baby Gone, one of two roles that salvaged his sibling’s flatlining Hollywood career. And seven years later, when things were at an even lower ebb, it was Damon who recommended him in his stead for the star turn in Manchester by the Sea, the independent drama which saw him win a Golden Globe, scored him a Bafta nomination, and positioned him as the frontrunner for this year’s Best Actor Oscar.
But if you’ve been following this year’s film awards season, you may have heard about a different Casey Affleck. This Affleck is an intense yet retiring artiste, wispybearded and tousled in readiness for the next role he can disappear into, whose more glamorous brother’s own bumpy pact with fame has left him understandably wary of the limelight.
Raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts by working-class parents, Affleck, on turning 18, set out for Los Angeles, where he lived for a year with Damon and his brother: three small-town guys on the make. His is a tale of a little guy with a big name to live up to, whose ‘‘time’’ – the most powerful word in the Oscar campaigner’s arsenal – has finally come.
Both are compelling stories. And the second, enthusiastically pushed by Team Affleck since Manchester by the Sea had its premiere at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, has surely helped manoeuvre the actor to the head of this year’s Oscar queue.
But storytelling depends as much on what’s left out. And there’s a gap in the story of Casey Affleck: Oscar Winner-in-Waiting that has some pundits and other industry gadflies wondering if his impending victory is such a sure thing.
In 2010, Affleck was named in a pair of sexual harassment lawsuits filed by two women he’d worked with on I’m Still Here, a hoax documentary he directed about the supposed retirement from acting of his then-brother-in-law, Joaquin Phoenix. (The film is remembered now – if at all – for Phoenix’s shambolic in-character appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, muttering behind a feral beard and sunglasses.)
The suits were filed by Amanda White, a producer, and Magdalena Gorka, the cinematographer, and described a film shoot shrouded in sleaze and misconduct. Affleck, who was married to Phoenix’s sister Summer at the time, was said to have made unwanted sexual advances towards female crew members, and encouraged a male crew member to expose himself.
A number of prostitutes, including male transvestites, were allegedly procured while the crew were in Las Vegas – purportedly for a scene in the film, though no such sequence exists in the final cut. White recounted an attempt by Affleck to pressure her into sharing his hotel room, while Gorka described waking one night to find he had climbed into bed with her in his underwear and was caressing her back.
The women sued for US$2 million ($2.7m) and US$2.5m. Affleck denied all the allegations and threatened to counter-sue. Because of the haze of uncertainty around the film itself – Affleck revealed the whole thing had been staged a week after its release – it was initially unclear if the lawsuits were authentic, or just another stunt. I’m Still Here is full of apparent scandals caught on camera that were later revealed to be fake. And by the time the picture began to clear, Affleck had already settled both lawsuits out of court.
Under other circumstances – if I’m Still Here had been a hit – it’s possible the lawsuits might have had a greater impact. But Affleck’s career already looked squelched. He’d spent the buzz and momentum from two great performances, in Gone Baby Gone and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, on a pet project that felt like a snide joke at Hollywood’s expense.
It took another five years – and the personal intervention of Damon, who was for a time slated to direct and star in Manchester by the Sea himself – before he was trusted with the kind of role that in 2007 would have felt like a natural next step.
His return to the spotlight has renewed the public interest in those 2010 lawsuits. But Affleck’s publicists at ID, one of the sharpest and most capable public relations firms in the business, were ready with a strategy. Two lines have kept surfacing in interviews with Affleck. The first is that he doesn’t want to be famous – a message that’s somehow rung true, while being disseminated through highprofile interviews, filmed discussions, glossy photoshoots and so on.
The second is his apparent willingness to confront his past head-on. Though the terms of the 2010 settlements prevent any party from disclosing their specifics, the subject hasn’t been allowed to fester. But whenever Affleck addresses it, he does so in ways that focus on the collateral damage. In other words, his regret isn’t a matter of guilt but compassion. ‘‘I guess people think if you’re well-known, it’s perfectly fine to say anything you want,’’ he told Variety.
‘‘I don’t know why that is. But it shouldn’t be, because everybody has families and lives.’’ And to The New York Times: ‘‘It was an unfortunate situation – mostly for the innocent bystanders of the families of those involved.’’
He even alluded to it in his Golden Globes acceptance speech. ‘‘It’s my kids who give me permission to do this,’’ he said, ‘‘because they have the character to keep at bay all the noise that sometimes surrounds people who live publicly.’’
It’s worth noting that Affleck’s seemingly successful negotiation of the last 12 months comes down at least in part to the storyline that’s been carefully shaped around him.
The headlines and online chatter about a concerted ‘‘campaign’’ to harm Affleck’s Oscar chances have now been replaced by talk of its failure. If Hollywood only employed morally upstanding people, so the thinking runs, the American film industry would be Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep and a cameraphone. There’s certainly some truth in that. I realised long ago, as a critic, that the character of an artist has no bearing on the quality of their work. An actor or director can ruin lives in private, then make a film that improves millions more. Art’s unfair like that, and we have to come to terms with it.
But I’ve started to wonder if Oscar season – Hollywood’s chance to tell the world what it admires most about itself – is under quite the same obligation. Academy members faced with a blank ballot will rightly ask themselves who they most like. But here’s another question worth considering: what story are we going to tell? – Telegraph Group
Manchester By the Sea (R13) is now playing.