Casey Affleck's Year To Shine
When asked what brother Ben's best attributes as a director and all around person are, Casey Affleck responds with the dead-pan answer: "He's tall."
"He's not that tall, though," he told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm. "He looks taller on screen."
But the reviews of the new movie, which was directed and co-written by Ben Affleck, say the former tabloid sensation has a lot more to offer than height. Casey, who has also been getting rave reviews for his performance in the film, agrees.
"He's a very intelligent guy, kind of a natural leader. So people kind of want to follow him, and I think that's important when you're basically just kind of like the boss of 80 people, and getting them to do their jobs," he said. "So, if they're doing the jobs well, you can as a director -- it seems like you can kind of just sit there and they make you look good. I think the way he gets people to support him is his best quality."
In the movie, Casey Affleck plays a detective who is on the case of a missing girl, whose mother has a checkered past, including drug use. He's getting rave reviews for his performance both in that movie and Brad Pitt's film, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." Critics have been saying that it's his year to shine.Photos: "Gone" On The Road
"I sort of wonder, were the first 31 years someone else's?" he said. "It's all been part of my life. But it's nice, you know. I had years I didn't work or years I was in movies and they were bad, so it's nice people are responding positively."
Despite his stardom, Affleck had humble beginnings. At one point, he sold hotdogs at Fenway Park, home of his beloved, but struggling Red Sox. Not to worry, Affleck said, they will pull it out against the Cleveland Indians.
Baseball might not be going the way he would like, but professionally things are, and at home, life couldn't be better. Affleck and his wife, Summer Phoenix (sister of River and Joaquin Phoenix), are expecting another baby in about a month. They already have a 3 1/2-year-old son, Indiana. This time around, he's trying to take it easy.
"It's a little bit different," Affleck said. "I guess you're just a little less nervous. I was really uptight. I couldn't -- I was like feeding my wife meals and giving her pills. And I'm like, 'You sit in the chair for the next seven months and I'm going to take care of you.' And this time it's a little bit more, you know, like a 3-year-old we have to chase around, so you can't worry about that stuff so much. But, you know, these days, you go into like a doctor's visit every couple weeks and they want to do a thousand tests. It's just bound to make anybody kind of racked with, you know, just terrified. "