-Our first guest tonight is
an Academy Award-winning actor
you know from films such as "Interstellar"
and "Manchester by the Sea."
He's currently starring in "Our Friend,"
which is in theaters and On Demand now,
and both stars in and produced "The World to Come,"
in theaters this Friday, and On Demand March 2nd.
Please welcome back to the show Casey Affleck.
How are you, Casey?
-Hey, buddy! How are you?
-I'm doing well. It's very nice to see you.
You know, I know you used to live in New York
and, obviously, you grew up in the Northeast.
We're getting a lot of snowy weather, these days.
Do you miss it? Be honest.
-Oh, man. I miss it. I crave it.
I hate hearing about how much snow you guys are getting.
I really hate hearing you guys complain about it.
It makes me jealous.
As you know, in L.A., it's the same every single day.
-Yeah. See, you know,
obviously, I grew up in New Hampshire.
I don't mind some slushy snow.
I mean, the only thing about New York
that's the downside is it's only beautiful
for about 15 minutes before it turns like gray.
-I appreciate it more than you do.
-[ Laughs ] So even love -I appreciate it
-the gray snow. -for like 20 minutes.
[ Laughter ]
This is what you want.
You want something that looks like this.
-Yeah. So that's where you are right now.
That's your life in L.A.
See, that's so depressing to me.
That's my backyard, dude.
[ Laughter ]
It's really beautiful, buddy.
-Thank you. Thank you.
-Oh, great. This is a nice tie-in
to your science fiction work.
[ Laughter ]
-Is that really Fred Armisen on the drums, there?
-That's really Fred Armisen on the drums.
By the way, like I usually would say, "Hey, you know,
stop goofing around with the Zoom backgrounds."
You have the most busted background
of anybody who's been on our show.
[ Laughter ]
Where are you doing this, in an abandoned school?
[ Laughter ]
-It's the only room I got.
It's the room in my house where the computer is
and I had a bunch of things pinned up there,
but it just felt too personal. So, how's that?
-There you go. I feel like
that's the Casey I know.
[ Laughter ]
Hey, I mentioned your New England roots.
How was the Super Bowl for you?
You know, we had Bill Burr on yesterday
and I really feel like this is a week
of Massachusetts royalty
and I asked him what it felt like to watch Tom Brady.
How was it for you?
-It was amazing.
-Yeah? -I loved it.
I mean, I don't know anyone who's not rooting for Tom.
The great thing about Massachusetts sports fans is
they aren't bitter.
[ Laughter ] They're just good sports.
And, you know, it was time for Tom to go.
Here's a few things I'll say about Tom.
He's played in 10 Super Bowls,
so everyone thinks that he's just always been the greatest,
but he lost a lot.
He wasn't always the greatest
and that makes him even greater, because he just keeps going.
And the other thing is that, you know,
Tom is smart enough to know
you can't win alone, you know.
The team with the best players doesn't win the game.
The players with the best team wins the game.
Tom brought, he got Leonard Fournette
and Ronald Jones and Chris Godwin.
Those guys won the Super Bowl, too.
So everyone's talking about Tom.
That was a strong team and they played a great game.
So, super, super happy for him.
-Are you friendly with Tom Brady?
-In my mind.
[ Laughter ]
-Thank you for your honesty.
-Like he didn't call me after the game,
if that's what you mean.
-You a couple of movies out right now.
"Our Friend" is a film that actually was based
on an Esquire article, a very moving Esquire article,
but not one that you'd read and would think,
right off the bat, it would be easy to adapt.
-No. It was it's it was written by a guy named Matt Teague
and he was a journalist
and he wrote an article about his wife
struggling with cancer, and their two kids.
And then that article was turned into a screenplay
and the screenplay was turned into a movie.
The article is a little bit of a kind of
warts-and-all depiction of what it was like,
a heartbreaking, very sad account,
and the movie, made by Gabriela Cowperthwaite,
is not really like that.
It focuses a lot on a friend of theirs
who came to help them during all of that,
and that's played by Jason Segel
and he sort of drops everything in his life
and he comes and shows up for this family,
moves in with them and helps take care of them.
It's got Denée Benton and Marielle Scott
and Jake Owen, Dakota Johnson, Jason Segel.
And it's really funny also and kind of fun
and sort of heartwarming.
-Very moving as well, and that's true
of the other film you have right now, "The World to Come."
This is a film you produced as well as star in,
and it takes place in New York in the 1850s.
You guys shot it in Romania.
How was that?
-It was pretty cool. We were in Transylvania,
which is like a part of Romania, that, you know,
where you'll remember that Dracula came from.
We were shooting right by the
kind of "Dracula's castle" there.
Dracula wasn't a real person, of course, but,
[ Laughter ] they have a castle.
-It's like the Walt Disney Castle.
Well, I guess Walt Disney's a real guy,
so it isn't like that.
Never mind.
[ Laughter ] -Walt is real.
Was real.
And, Dracula, the legend of Dracula,
is loosely based on somebody,
but that wasn't even the castle that he lived in.
But it is an old castle, so it's kind of cool to see
and the whole area is pretty cool
and it was a fun place to shoot.
-Did you go inside the castle?
Is it a castle you can go inside of?
-You know -- Yeah, you can go inside of it.
I drove out there one day after work
and I got there right as they were closing,
-[ Laughs ] -so I didn't get to go in.
But I stood outside and it looked pretty creepy
and it says "Dracula's Castle" on it.
You know.
[ Laughter ]
-I mean, I feel like we haven't given them
a quote they're going to use on the poster.
[ Laughter ]
Hey, a lot of people have used this quarantine time
to improve their skills. So you were not -- true story --
you were not a golfer before this time, at all?
-A golfer? No. I have golfed before.
I didn't pick up any skills during this time.
I know other people have.
I just could just --
It was all I could do to just sort of get through the days
and stay afloat.
I don't know. That sounds weird,
but I couldn't --
I wasn't like real focused and picking up a bunch
and, you know, learning an instrument and stuff.
But I have golfed.
-You posted on Instagram your golf swing.
Maybe we could take a look at it real quick
and just show people what
a commitment to a craft can do for you?
-[ Laughing ]
-[ Laughing ] Here's 00 -Sure.
So this is super slow-mo.
That's not that bad. -That's slow-no.
It didn't look that bad, there.
You know -- Yeah, I'm not a golfer.
That's true. But it's one of the things you can do
to get outside and play sports and be apart from people.
I got pretty upset with that swing right there.
[ Laughter ]
-So we sort of edited, I feel like,
before your club took the worst of it.
-[ Laughs ]
Golf, you know, golf is you're playing against yourself, so,
I don't know what that says about my swing there.
It's a sport you play against yourself.
I guess I was losing to myself.
-[ Laughs ]
Well, it is always wonderful to see you.
Congrats on both films.
I really do hope, next time, it's in person.
Thanks for being here.
-Thanks for having me, man.
It's nice to see you, too.