Casey Affleck Has Another Directing Project On The Way, And He'll Turn Down Big Acting Roles To Make It

On the latest episode of the “Team Deakins” podcast, hosted by legendary cinematographer Roger DeakinsCasey Affleck let it slip that he’s currently prepping for a new directorial project. And while Affleck didn’t divulge any ideas on the upcoming third film, it’s clear from his conversation with Deakins that it’ll be similar to 2010’s “I’m Not There” and 2019’s “Light Of My Life.” That is, it’ll be a more Affleck makes for his artistic fulfillment more than commercial success.

READ MORE: ‘The Instigators’: Apple Original Films Lands Doug Liman’s Next Film With Matt Damon & Casey Affleck To star

“I’m prepping a movie now,” Affleck told Deakin, before a joking gesture to him that he’s currently looking for a cinematographer, “and that movie is another example of something that I feel very close to…and am connected to it, so I will do that.” Affleck went on to say that, as he did with “I’m Still Here,” his mockumentary with Joaquin Phoenix, he’ll turn down any acting projects that pop up for him as he works on his new film, regardless of what it is. Earlier in the podcast, Affleck talked about how he chose to make the 2010 film in the years after his Oscar nomination for “The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford,” which Deakins shot, instead of taking advantage of all the acting opportunities he received after that film. “I didn’t want to be a careerist, I wanted to be an artist,” Affleck said about that decision, and he’ll similarly follow his heart with his new film, too.

Affleck also said he had the same mindset on his last directorial outing, “Light Of My Life,” when an unnamed female director approached him to act in a father-daughter narrative like his film. Affleck turned the role down because he didn’t want to lose an opportunity to tell a story he wanted to tell. “I was prepping ‘Light Of My Life’, and a movie came to me from another director, and she was a director who I love and who I really wanted to work with,” Affleck continued. “She sent me a script, and it was about a father and a daughter, and I just said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t do this because it’ll mean I can’t do my own story, it’s too similar.'”  

Affleck cited that his desire to direct more often comes from doing other roles on film sets, like editing for Gus Van Sant on “Finding Forrester” or trying to work on the sound crew for Richard Stanley‘s disastrous “The Island Of Doctor Moreau.” “Eventually, I got to a point where I thought ‘I have my own stories I want to tell and I’m not going to get to tell them unless I direct them,'” said Affleck. “And that was when [I decided if] there’s something very important to me that I feel connected to, I …direct it.”

Deakins agreed with Affleck’s sentiment that “when I make the decision to be a director, [it’s] only ever in my heart,” saying he has avoided shooting specific films when they didn’t feel right. Both agreed that fulfillment means more in the long run than career success and having a great CV, although it’s hard sometimes to follow through on that in the Hollywood climate. But don’t expect Affleck to abandon acting any time soon. “I don’t even feel like I”ve gotten to a place where I’m doing my best work as an actor,” he claimed. “There’s so many things I want to do and people I want to work with, and there’s so many areas where I’m weak as an actor that I want to get better. I feel like I’m just starting to understand how to do it, and why I’ve been doing it in the first place.”

Again, Affleck revealed no details on his next directing effort, but he’ll star in Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer” and the sci-fi thriller “Slingshot” later this year. On deck, Affleck co-stars with Matt Damon in Doug Liman‘s upcoming film “The Instigators” for Apple Original Films.