Q&A: Why Casey Affleck Doesn't Enjoy Acting

YOU COULD SAY CASEY AFFLECK is having a moment, with his recent turns in the flicks "The Assassination of Jesses James by the Coward Robert Ford" and "Gone Baby Gone," opening today. Critics praised both roles, but don't call the 32-year-old a movie star. He's a humble guy who prefers watching the Red Sox to walking the red carpet.

» EXPRESS: Any extra pressure with your brother Ben directing? He's said his career is riding on this film, that it's the linchpin of his life.
» AFFLECK: He's prone to hyperbole. I don't think those things are true. The movie is really good, and he'll direct again. He knows what he's doing.

» EXPRESS: "Baby" is about the search for a missing girl, and it's pretty heart-wrenching. Was it hard as a parent?
» AFFLECK: It's pretty upsetting stuff. There are 800,000 children reported missing every year. Luckily, most are found really quickly, but the number is staggering. Even for your worst-nightmare scenario — boogeyman-style kidnapping — it's horrifying. You want to take every precaution, but you don't want to dwell on it.

» EXPRESS: The movie was supposed to come out last December but was delayed because of the timing of the Madeleine McCann case going on in Europe?
» AFFLECK: Yeah that's right. That was Miramax's decision. If the movie release would interfere in any way with the actual real case of the missing girl and her family, there was no question the release would be postponed until everyone involved felt like it was no threat. In the end, this is just a movie, and that's a real little girl's life.

» EXPRESS: Watching ‘Gone Baby Gone,' would you have made the same choice at the film's end that your character Patrick made?
» AFFLECK: I would have made the same choice, I think. Many people feel strongly I made the wrong choice and some people feel totally torn about it. It's actually what's made this experience unique for me because often when people see your movie, they want to talk about things that you really don't want to talk about: ‘What was so and so like?' This actor or that actor. With this movie, people want to talk about the decision the character makes, and they have their own opinions. That's made it interesting for me to talk to people about the movie. It's been great.

» EXPRESS: There's a quote in the beginning of the film that says "it's the things you don't choose that make you who you are." Would you say that's true for you at all?
» AFFLECK: Me, Casey Affleck?

» EXPRESS: You, Casey Affleck.
» AFFLECK: Well, sure. To an extent. I don't really take one position to any extreme as far as that kind of philosophical quantity goes. I think sometimes my life feels like I am just at the mercy of the whole wide web of interconnected wills and forces that exist in the universe. Sometimes I feel like I am in complete control of where I am and what I'm doing. Sometimes I feel like I'm just in a one-man little boat in the middle of the ocean. You can make some difference of where you paddle, but you also get sloshed around by the great big waves. So "I'm not sure" is the short answer.

» EXPRESS: Which of these recent roles did you enjoy doing the most?
» AFFLECK: To be perfectly honest, I don't really enjoy playing anybody, except Casey Affleck lying on the couch watching the Red Sox. For whatever reason, it's either because it doesn't come naturally to me or because I'm just somehow inclined toward strife. I don't know what it is, but, usually, when I'm working, I'm not really having a good time.

» EXPRESS: Sounds like you're kind of hard on yourself.
» AFFLECK: There's so much time spent as an actor when you aren't working, that if you're going to do work for three or four months a year, then I would rather just work really, really hard. That's more satisfying, and I've got time to sit around and enjoy myself when I'm not working. I don't have to be focused; I can have a laugh.

» EXPRESS: What about when you are working?
» AFFLECK: You want to try and make something be believable. Say you're doing a scene where you're having a big argument with your wife. Well, if you want that to be believable, you sort of have to get yourself agitated, angry and upset. That's how you spend your day. I don't know who enjoys doing that, but I don't.

» EXPRESS: With these two movies out, it seems like it's the year of Casey.
» AFFLECK: Does that mean I get a calendar? What does that mean about January? Is my year over? I feel like every year is another year of my life. I never realized the first 31 years were somebody else's.

» EXPRESS: I hear you're a good vegan cook.
» AFFLECK: I'm a pretty good cook, but I'm not going to be appearing on "Top Chef" anytime soon.

» EXPRESS: And I understand you went to George Washington University.
» AFFLECK: For a couple months. I was living with a friend and decided that while I was here I'd go to school for a while. I did a semester there, and then I did two years at Columbia.

» EXPRESS: Any spots you frequented?
» AFFLECK: The dives I went to when I was here, I didn't get a chance to take my wife and child to on this visit. Let's see if I can remember … and I can't.

» EXPRESS: It's all a fog?
» AFFLECK: [Laughs] Yeah.

Photos by Kevin Winter/Getty Images, Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images