INTERVIEW. CASEY AFFLECK LIKES THE SHARED SENSIBILITY OF WORKING WITH FRIENDS
Four close colleagues are behind the strange and touching non-horror film, A Ghost Story, which opens in cinemas this week, following up a successful premiere at Sundance this year: actor Casey Affleck, writer/director David Lowery and producers James M. Johnston and Toby Halbrooks. They will screen the film, which co-stars Rooney Mara, at KVIFF, which also follows up a team project with the same players, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which screened here in 2013. The team’s next project, Old Man and the Gun with Robert Redford and Elisabeth Moss, has just finished filming.
- So you’ve formed a stable collaboration, working together regularly. How does that work for everyone?
- I like that vocabulary. It’s a stable collaboration. We’ve done three movies together and with Toby and James as well, so it’s a fairly stable collaboration with all of us. It’s nice to work with friends. You don’t always get that opportunity because you travel so much and you meet new people always. That makes it sometimes an added challenge to make a new movie because you have to develop some sort of rapport with people and the shorthand, you gotta try to learn what the other person means and when they want something.
- And there’s a stronger bond with you guys than just a professional relationship?
- So I get the chance to work with friends but also I think there’s a shared sensibility somehow with this group. I like the movies that they do and the things that they’ve done. And I’ve liked everything that I’ve gotten to be a part of – not that that was the most important part, I would say, but it’s a bonus when you have a great experience. And then you also feel like the thing that has been made is something you’re proud of. I’m always proud when I’m a part of something that they’re working on.
- What’s David Lowery like as a director? Is he strict?
- No, he’s not. He communicates clearly what he wants and has a vision going into it but he’s also very flexible and open to input from anybody from costumes or David or James or me or the other actors. I’ve never seen him be strict at all. Sometimes I wish he were stricter - you give a bunch of ideas to a director and you hope they’re going to say ‘No that’s bad’ because in your heart you know that what you’re saying is a bad idea.
- Do you have a say in the script development part?
- Not really. Let’s say that this movie was the most unformed piece of material. Otherwise, they’re very traditional screenplays that David gave to me that he’d written and he has his own unique voice that is on the page and the scenes seem to work the best when you stick with his voice. But A Ghost Story was something that was more experimental in that sense. There was less dialogue and more description of what this thing is going to be. So that was the only time I’ve had any input, really, on what the characters are really saying.
- And when the screenplay is less fully formed in a way, what is it about for you, really?
- What the movie was about for me was not evident when I first read it. When David described it to me it just sounded like a strange and beautiful experiment that was mostly visual. Like, ‘Oh, you’ll be wearing a sheet and we’re shooting in one location.’ It was all kind of like what it was going to look like and there was some kind of conversation about the relationship between me and Rooney. You’re trying to figure out if you stay in the house or not.
- So do you prefer not to work with people you haven’t formed relationships with yet?
- I love meeting new people. One of the things that people who work in movies will tell you is that it’s one of the best parts of the job that you go on to new cities and new places and new crews and you learn from other people, the DP, everyone on the crew. It kind of keeps you from getting too stale or from getting too boring. On the other hand I think there are people who work with the same people over and over again and the work keeps getting stronger and better. Time goes by faster and faster – I’m getting old so fast. It’s really nice to spend time with people you already like and know. You have some shared interests. If you find people you work well with you might as well keep working with them.
- Is it different being on the road to promote a film you are personally invested in rather than, say, a blockbuster?
- I don’t ever think of a movie as being mine. If it belongs to anyone it belongs to the director. Once you’re a part of the movie in any way then you go out and you help to advertise it. There are some movies – because of the kind of audience they’re going for or the kind of money that’s being spent to promote them – there isn’t a lot of promotion (for the actor) that goes into it. So you go to a few film festivals and you go on a talk show and that’s all that’s asked of you. And then there are other times when the movie is in theaters for six months and you still have to go out there and promote it endlessly.
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