Quotes from Casey Affleck

You can start with a great director and great actors and have a great script - and it still just doesn't work. It's kind of a mystery how that happens.

I've done so many movies that are bad, with material that's so shallow, that you instantly scratch the surface, and there's nothing underneath.

I have no desire to be famous at all.

I was 14 years old when my dad went into rehab, and he stayed there for a long time - I don't know, 10 or 12 years maybe. He first was there as a resident, as someone trying to get sober, and it took a long time; and then he stayed on helping people get their GED.

It's part of the actor's job to show up with a head full of steam, to have their own take on this. So that way, you're not relying on, 'OK, tell me how to do it.'

When other people say, 'Oh you're so-and-so's friend, brother, or husband,' it's reductive to the point of being white noise.

I get very sentimental, I get very nostalgic, and when I live in a place, I instantly put down way too many roots.

We obsess about celebrities. We create them, build myths around them, and then hunt them and destroy them. I don't know where it's taking us or what it means, but I know we do it. I have seen a lot of it myself.

I think there's a certain amount of pressure depending on how demanding the part is, depending on how great the material is. I feel a certain amount of pressure to rise to the occasion.

I didn't have to audition. That's common, but it had never happened to me before. Normally, I hate auditioning. I need to stew and think... let the character develop and grow inside me.

People should try eating no animal products for just one day a week.

I sort of fell in love with it when I was in high school doing theater. And so, as sometimes happens when kids - they graduate high school, and people turn to them and say, 'So what are you going to do with your life?' I thought, 'Well, I like being onstage. I like being an actor.'

I have friends who remember seeing fish hauled onto a boat's deck and beaten to death.

My mom has a good way of engaging me in a conversation about the choices I make, listening, being objective and open-minded, and respecting those choices so long as they don't put me in danger.

All cultures are different. Some commit genocide. Some are uniquely peaceful. Some frequent bathhouses in groups. Some don't show each other the soles of their shoes or like pictures taken of them. Some have enormous hunting festivals or annual stretches when nobody speaks. Some don't use electricity.

In New York, as long as you're not peeing in someone's doorway, everyone thinks you're a gentleman. I feel like my behavior goes over better on the streets of New York.

The first movie was mostly about George and Julia. This one is mostly about me and Catherine and our love story and our whole history. So it's a very different movie.

There was no one moment when I decided I would spend my life acting. I am not certain that I will. Acting has never been a consistent passion. I have done it since I was young - so I have been acting for 30 years - but intermittently. I always had other jobs, joys, and creative outlets.

I like studio movies; I love big commercial movies.

The idea of someone not liking me or not liking my movie was always easier to deal with than someone really liking it. I don't know why.

I wish I had more control over my career, but making movies is something you do with lots of people.

If I can't see the humor in it, how am I going to be funny?