Casey Affleck says he is proud to stay a Hollywood outsider, and used a Zurich masterclass to revisit Matt Damon, a call to Christopher Nolan, and his unfinished new film.
Casey Affleck sat down Monday at the Zurich Film Festival and made no effort to sound like a studio insider. Ahead of the Swiss premiere of his third directorial feature, Company, the Boston native told festival CEO Christian Jungen he would rather stand outside the system than belong to it.
The Hollywood Reporter covered the masterclass, part of the festival’s 22nd edition running Sept. 24 to Oct. 4, where Affleck also shared the bill with John Turturro, Naomi Watts, and Anna Kendrick.
The conversation ranged from a childhood theater classroom shared with Matt Damon to an awkward Oscar night, a spur-of-the-moment phone call to Christopher Nolan, and a festival cut of Company that Affleck admits is still not finished.
Affleck traced the start of it all to one public-school theater teacher on the East Coast. Damon, his older brother Ben Affleck, and a string of other kids came through the same department.
He put it plainly on stage:
"We all had the same theater teacher, [...] and lots of actors came through this one theater department. We were in a big public school, and we just had this great theater teacher, and he made kids fall in love with theater and acting,"
Damon, he said, never looked lost.
"Matt was always a bit of a showoff. [He was] outgoing and would do talent shows and stuff. And there was no doubt where he was headed, but the rest of us were trying to figure it out."
Years later, Affleck still draws a clean line between their public images. Damon carries “matinee idol appeal,” he said. Ben leaned into the leading-man track early. Casey does not see himself in that lane.
"Matt is a super talented actor. He’s a funny case because he’s a very talented actor who has a kind of movie star persona, a matinee idol appeal, at the same time, which Ben and I don’t really have. Ben seems more like a movie star and has leaned into the leading man thing right from early on,"
He singled out Damon’s work in The Talented Mr. Ripley as “just incredible,” and said he has already seen Damon’s turn in Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Jungen brought up an old Variety profile that cast Affleck as a Hollywood outsider, even though he lives in Los Angeles and has appeared in major Nolan films, including Interstellar (2014) and Oppenheimer (2023).
Affleck’s first reaction was anger. Then he sat with it.
"I saw that and I thought, ‘Man, I’ll forever be thought of as an outsider, no matter what I do.’ You can win an Oscar, or you can do a big giant studio movie, and I think the public just thinks of people one way, and then it takes a lot to change that."
The second thought landed harder, and stuck.
"I was sitting with it for a second, and I thought, ‘Am I crazy? I love that.’ I don’t want to be an insider. I love being an outsider. I would much rather be an outsider in Hollywood than be an insider in Hollywood. I don’t think it’s a great culture. I don’t love the movies that are made by Hollywood. I don’t love the system of Hollywood, and I’m very happy being thought of as an outsider,"
That is not the usual red-carpet line. It is a working actor saying the factory culture does not impress him, and he is fine if the town never fully claims him.
Affleck has worked with Nolan. That did not stop him from dialing the director over a plot point in Tenet.
He and his son were driving home from school, disagreeing about the movie, when Affleck decided to settle it the hard way.
"I did once call him,"
He reached Emma Thomas first.
"I was driving home from school with my son, and we were talking about Tenet, and we were disagreeing about it. And I thought, ‘Let’s settle this.’ And we called Chris, which probably was a mistake. I [actually] called Emma [Thomas], his wife, and I said, ‘I just have a quick question,’ and we got him on the phone and asked him something that we probably could have just looked at [on] Reddit and figured out."
Nolan answered. The explanation was simple. The call ended fast.
"It sounded so obvious. Then we said, ‘Thank you.’ And that was it. And I haven’t called back, and he hasn’t called me,"
Affleck still holds Nolan up as proof that a director can build huge hits without chasing the room’s approval, the same standard he applies to Gus Van Sant, who directed him in 2002’s Gerry.
Affleck won Best Actor for Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea in 2016. He did not walk in expecting the statue.
"I had all these people in this category that were heroes of mine, Viggo Mortensen and Denzel [Washington], and then peers of mine who are great, Andrew Garfield and Ryan Gosling. It sounds like a cliche, but I was just very happy to be there. I didn’t really expect to win because I thought Denzel was going to win, and that was totally fine."
The speech did not go smoothly. He forgot to thank Lonergan. He described the exit as “mildly traumatic.”
"I just mumbled my way through it and got off stage, so it was mildly traumatic. But I remember walking off stage and seeing, for some reason, Leonardo DiCaprio standing there in the wings, and I was stuck in the moment of terror and disorientation, and he was just laughing and gave me a big hug, and then I sort of felt better."
Company is Affleck’s third film as director after I’m Still Here (2010) and Light of My Life (2019). He has already called the debut “very experimental,” adding that “people mostly just hated it.” The second film premiered during the pandemic.
The new one is a mystery set on a winter night in 1975. It premiered in Venice and is still making the fall festival rounds. Nick Nolte, Ben Mendelsohn, Emily Alyn Lind, and Sydney Chandler co-star. So do Affleck’s sons, Atticus and Indiana. He dedicated the movie to his parents, who both died earlier this year.
He is screening a version he knows is incomplete, and he said so out loud.
"It’s scary as a director to bring a movie that I’m still working on,"
"We’re still tightening it and working on the music, and so to show it to an audience full of people and know myself that there are things I want to change is difficult, but once it’s finished, I’ll let it go. I promise."
That is a rare admission in a business that prefers locked cuts and confident marketing. Affleck is using live audiences as a last round of notes before he walks away.
Hollywood sells belonging. Affleck keeps choosing the opposite, and he is still getting the movies made on his terms.
