'Gone Baby Gone' Star Casey Affleck

DATE October 29, 2007 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Garry Kasparov, chess master and leading oppositional
figure in Russia, on chess and Vladimir Putin's erosion of
democracy
DAVE DAVIES, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily
News, filling in this week for Terry Gross.

For 20 years, Garry Kasparov was the world's highest-ranked chess player, but
he isn't playing much these days. He's become a leading opposition political
figure in Russia, challenging the increasingly autocratic rule of President
Vladimir Putin. Kasparov heads a coalition called Other Russia, which has
staged street demonstrations and will attempt to compete in presidential
elections planned for next March, with Kasparov as their candidate. Putin
can't run for a third term, but is expected to play a major role in picking
his successor.

Kasparov also has a new book called "How Life Imitates Chess: Making the
Right Moves from the Board to the Boardroom."

Well, Garry Kasparov, welcome to FRESH AIR. Apart from the murders of
politicians and journalists, which have occurred in Russia, which many
attribute to President Putin, tell me, what has Putin done to change the rules
of government to centralize power in the presidency?

Mr. GARRY KASPAROV: Putin continued very much the trend that was formed at
the last years of President Yeltsin. Russia never experienced a real
democracy market economy, and we had some democratic institutions, rather
flawed and inefficient, but they could serve as a foundation for the future.
But unfortunately, last years of Yeltsin were marked by the negative crosses
of strengthening bureaucracy and security services and making government
decisions less transparent. But while Yeltsin was in power, the freedom of
press and other important elements of democracy were intact, because Yeltsin
owed his power to the street, to the protests, mass protests, and he
couldn't-- or he didn't want to--depart from some basic democratic rules.

While Putin had to make inevitable choice between transparency of democratic
institutions and veiled system of Byzantine palace intrigues, and obviously
Putin's KGB background dictated the only choice: to ruin democratic
institutions and to fix Russia as the strange mixture of a medieval state with
Mafia-like elements and with very powerful, all-powerful, uncontrolled
bureaucracy. And that was a very steady process, and for seven years Putin,
with support of the ruling elite in Russia, and, of course, with the support
of this enormously high oil prices, that gave him an upper hand, Putin has
been tirelessly working on destroying democracy and building up a police
state.

DAVIES: Now, is it true that certain government officials, such as governors
and mayors, which had been elected, are now appointed by the central
government?

Mr. KASPAROV: Yes, absolutely yes. I don't want to count all Putin's
decrees that violated constitution, I just want to emphasize it was a very
steady process. And also, there are a lot of rules that turned election
process in a complete mockery. Because now Kremlin controls virtually every
element of the election process, from the registration of political parties to
the final day of counting the ballots, and no one can interfere.

DAVIES: So elections are scheduled for next March. You don't believe that
there will be a election where votes are freely cast and fairly counted?

Mr. KASPAROV: Yeah, but it was already a problem even under Yeltsin. All
elections under Putin were getting worse and worse, so the trend is very
negative. And now in Russia, unlike in America where you have problems with
the third party candidates registered, we have the same problems with the
second party candidates. And also the entire process of the elections is
under firm control of Kremlin, which is also a player in this game. And now
it's a complete mockery staged to keep the flavor of democracy, which Putin
needs very much not to be...(unintelligible)...as a dictator.

DAVIES: So if you want to run, not so easy to get registered, not so easy to
get on the ballot, right, right, OK.

Mr. KASPAROV: It's not so easy. It's not about "not so easy," it's
impossible. For instance, if you want to be an independent candidate to run
from president, apart from many other obstacles, there's one which you cannot
even technically override. You need to collect two million signatures. You
have two months--less than two months, in fact. First two weeks of January
you can exclude because it's holidays in Russia. But most important thing
that you cannot collect two million signatures from the regions you pick up.
So for instance, Moscow is 10 million people, St. Petersburg is six million.
Each region can donate only 40,000 signatures. So you can have 40,000 from
Moscow, 40,000 from St. Petersburg, but then you need 40,000 at least from 50
other regions, but some of them are less than a million people. And the
central election committee is empowered by Putin's rules to reject your
signatures, and if they call 10 percent or more false, you're out of the game.

DAVIES: Now, what about the state of journalism? As an opposition figure,
what access do you have to television and newspapers?

Mr. KASPAROV: Television, none. Newspapers, it's highly limited. One radio
station, Ekho Moskvy is a free radio station that offers us a chance to speak
to sizable--but then again, sizable by the radio standards--audience while, of
course, entire Russian population is watching channel one, channel two,
channel three and four of television, which are under strict control of
Kremlin. They don't even hide the fact that they publish a stoplist
officially distributed among TV channels, the least that includes names of the
people who cannot be invited at any circumstances.

DAVIES: And that list includes you?

Mr. KASPAROV: I think I am on the top of that list.

DAVIES: OK. Now, there is a view that, while Putin may be autocratic and
brutal, he remains popular because you have a booming economy and people have
better employment and incomes. So what about that view?

Mr. KASPAROV: Well, the GDP of Russia is growing, but I think it's very
dangerous in Russia to measure the success of the society by the average
income. It's like measuring the average temperature in a hospital, when you
understand that it's probably the wrong way for assessing the success of
doctors. Even if we take Moscow, which was declared by Financial Times the
most expensive city of the foreigners--and trust me, the prices in the center
of Moscow are hitting the roof. The average income--official statistics--the
average income of Moscow, its per capita monthly income, is just over $1,000.
There are about two million people in Moscow who are living for $250 or less a
month, and this is Moscow. That's really booming city. And if you travel 50
miles outside of Moscow, you could see a very different country with a falling
infrastructure and even greater social inequality.

Again, looking at official statistics, you can extrapolate that 100 richest
Russian families today control the amount twice as big as entire revenue of
Russian annual budget. Twice as big. But 85 percent, 120 million people,
they're living on the other side of the fence. So that's why talking about
economic success, I mean, you should remember that it affects only few, and
the gap between rich and poor in Russia is growing.

DAVIES: Now...

Mr. KASPAROV: As for Putin's popularity...

DAVIES: Yeah, what about the polls that show him with 80 percent approval,
yeah?

Mr. KASPAROV: What polls? I mean, are you telling me that you can trust the
polls in a police state? You calling me, and you're a stranger, and you ask
me about Putin. And this is a country where people still remember KGB, and
they know the KGB guy runs the country. I'm surprised that 25 percent still
saying they don't like Putin. But even if you just ignore the factor of
fear--which, again, I warn you not to ignore because you're dealing not with a
free country, but with a country that still remembers the communist
dictatorship--people are, in general, they are not inclined to respond to the
personal issues. The moment you ask the same public about economy general,
health care, social security, unemployment, living standards, you'll get very
different picture. All approval ratings for government actions is way before
40 percent.

DAVIES: Well, Garry Kasparov, you and your opposition group held some
demonstrations, I guess earlier this year in March, is that right, in St.
Petersburg and Moscow. How...

Mr. KASPAROV: We had them in last December, March, April, June, so...

DAVIES: OK.

Mr. KASPAROV: The largest were in March and April.

DAVIES: And how did the regime react to these public demonstrations?

Mr. KASPAROV: Badly, as we expected. The regime doesn't want to see any
sign of rebellion on the streets of Russia. We didn't violate any rules, we
followed the regulations, we wanted to exercise our constitutional rights.
But, of course, any mass protest in Russian streets creates a negative
psychological trend for the regime because Putin wants people to live under
fear, so...

DAVIES: So were you attacked with, you know, tear gas and...

Mr. KASPAROV: Oh, yeah. Yeah, they always try to outnumber us by the
special forces brought from a lowly country, and some people say why 5,000
demonstrators are facing 10,000 strong police unit, special troops, in fact,
brought from all over the country. It's because they want us to stop doing
it. They want people to live under fear. And of course they use all sorts of
legal predicts to arrest demonstrators. I was also under arrest for 12 hours,
and it was just, you know, it's a staged mockery in the courtroom, where I was
accused for doing something that of course I didn't do.

DAVIES: Does your group face surveillance? Do you believe your phones are
tapped? Are your meetings in filtered...

Mr. KASPAROV: It's not about beliefs. I mean, no one even is hiding. They
just, they follow us, the telephones are tapped, so it's a reality of Russia.
It's a police state. It's maybe hard for Americans to imagine, that one of
the members of the exclusive democratic club, a friend of President Bush
called Vladimir Putin, is running the state which is violating constitution
and is spying on its own citizens, and also ignores our basic constitutional
rights.

DAVIES: You know, this is a country in which a dozen journalists have been
killed since President Putin took power, many opposition leaders have also
been murdered. Do you fear for your own life?

Mr. KASPAROV: Yes. I'm afraid, as many others.

DAVIES: May I ask, what steps do you take to protect yourself and your
family?

Mr. KASPAROV: I have bodyguards in Russia for me and for my family. I avoid
eating and drinking in a public places if I'm not fully aware of people who
are with me at these places. I have very closed life. I do not fly Aeroflot,
for instance, long distance.

DAVIES: That's the Russian state airline?

Mr. KASPAROV: Yeah, it's why--it's a very nicely-run airline now, but I
just, I can't afford to taking risk of consuming any food or liquids from the
hands of people I do not know. And again, that's it. I can minimize the
risk, but if I want to be the leader of the opposition, I can be seen as
trying to eliminate the risk, which is taken by thousands and thousands of
activists throughout the country. And these brave people do not have even the
minimal protection I enjoy. There's no protection of the famous name, no
money to have bodyguards or lawyers.

DAVIES: You mentioned the famous name. I was going to ask you, do you think
that your celebrity protects you in some ways?

Mr. KASPAROV: It offers some protection, but again, some. And every day the
opposition to Putin's growing. The layer of protection of my name is getting
thinner.

DAVIES: Our guest is Garry Kasparov. He is a chess master and a leader of
the opposition in Russia. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: If you're just joining us, our guest is Garry Kasparov. He is a
chess master and now an opposition leader in Russia. He has written a new
book called "How Life Imitates Chess."

Now, your group, which is labeled The Other Russia, is a coalition of quite
diverse political points of view, right?

Mr. KASPAROV: Yes.

DAVIES: I mean, Edward Limonov, who's an eccentric character to say the
least, heads the New Bolshevik movement, he's a part of it, right?

Mr. KASPAROV: Yes.

DAVIES: As well as Mikhail Kasyanov, right, a former prime minister, who is
very pro-capitalist. How do you maintain a coalition with such diverse views?

Mr. KASPAROV: Well, the coalition is always created to concentrate on the
one or very few important items in the political agenda. In Russia, it's
about restoring democracy and organizing free and fair elections and giving
opportunity for different political groups to speak out, to have access to the
mass media. So it's about bringing Russia back to democracy. No doubt that
in this free political environment, the groups that now part of The Other
Russia will express different views and will be confronting each other in the
parliament. But today, we are facing become an enemy. It's a normal process
of agreeing on the most important elements of the current political agenda.
And I think that The Other Russia is doing a very important work for improving
Russian political climate, because in Russia, there was very little, if any,
tradition of opposing political groups, cooperating with each other. We don't
want to fight, we want to find common ground. If we disagree on nine points,
we're looking for a 10th one. And again, Putin did a good job by convincing
Russian public that free and fair elections and democracy, the values of
liberal democracy, is the only successful foundation for the modern state.

DAVIES: You're well known outside Russia because of your days as a chess
master and, you know, you speak at groups in the United States. What do you
and your compatriots in The Other Russia movement see from the West, from the
United States, from its governments and its people?

Mr. KASPAROV: Not much. We just want United States and Europe to state the
obvious. If Putin acts like Chavez or Mugabe or Lukashenko, Russian dictator,
he should be treated the same way. United States and Europe doing a lot of
business with China, but no one is trying to pretend that Chinese communist
leaders are democrats. Offering Putin free of charge credentials of a
democrat, that's what Bush did from the very beginning, and that's what the
notion that was supported by other European leaders, helped Putin to create a
democratic order in Russia which worked against us. Because when we criticize
Putin for his dismal record of destroying democracy in Russia, Kremlin
propaganda always referred to the pictures with Bush and Blair and Berlusconi
and Schroeder, pointing out that these are the leaders of the free world, and
they supported Putin. So how could you listen to the marginal groups in
Russia that are trying to challenge the record of our president?

DAVIES: You know, your interest in activism and politics pre-dates President
Putin. I mean, you were, you know, active really throughout the 1990s, when
Gorbachev and Yeltsin were active. What motivated you to get into politics?
I mean, you were such a successful, you know, chess champion. Some people in
other endeavors stay out of politics, you chose to wade right in. Why?

Mr. KASPAROV: The chess world champion was quite a special figure in the
Soviet Union. Chess was always seen as a very important ideological tool used
by communist propaganda to prove the superiority of the Soviet state over
decadent West, and that's why entering this epic battle against Anatoli
Karpov, my predecessor at the Chess Olympus, who was supported all the time by
supported by Soviet officials, I had to learn political moves as well as the
moves at the chessboard. Also, my matches with Karpov were coincided with
Gorbachev's rise in power and changes in the Soviet system.

And for millions and millions of Soviets, I was seen as a symbol of change
because I was beating Karpov every year, so we played '84, '85, '86, '87. At
the same time, the Soviet system was getting more open and freer. And I
sensed that staying away from the political movement at the late '80s, where
Soviet people had to decide their future, would be wrong because if the world
champion stays away, that's a wrong signal. So I always wanted to be with my
people. I always wanted to be in the places where I could make the
difference, and I jump in and out of the politics because I didn't want to
drop chess, but I also sensed that, in situations like in 1990, '91, I
couldn't stay neutral. For instance, in 1990, I played Anatoli Karpov. It
was our last...(unintelligible)...match. We played half in New York, half in
Leon, France, and I was the first player from the Soviet Union who refused to
play under Soviet flag and demanded to have Russian flag instead.

DAVIES: You know, you're also, of course, widely known in the West for your
famous matches with the IBM chess computer Deep Blue in 1996 and 1997. I
mean, you beat the computer in matches in Philadelphia, right, in 1996, and
then there was a rematch in '97. And, you know, it's interesting, in the
book, you describe this. And you had a suspicion then that the computer
might've been assisted by humans from IBM.

Mr. KASPAROV: Yes, I have suspicions even now. I believe IBM was cheating.
So what? It's I say/they say. Unless you can run scientific tests, you can't
prove who is right, who is wrong. And I know that I sounded like a sore
loser, but I wanted to play another match with IBM with the computer being
carefully guarded by outside scientists. They decided against it and
dismantled the machine, which I called killing the only impartial witness.
It's very difficult now to assess whether my claims were true or not, but when
we analyzed these games with modern computers that are doing better than Deep
Blue, you can figure out that average performance of these machines in these
games, yields for these games, is better than Deep Blue's in '96, '97, but the
moment you reach these crucial moves, suddenly you see that Deep Blue showed
great insights that cannot be matched even by the machines that are more
sophisticated.

And in my view, it was also matched with very long thinking period, again,
highly unusual for the machine. So there's another piece of inconsistency.
And we didn't see the printout, because only having printouts could help you
to analyze the nature of these highly suspicious decisions made by the
computer.

DAVIES: The printouts meaning the printouts of its calculations, not the
moves, right?

Mr. KASPAROV: Printouts, yes, the printouts, yes, shows how machine makes
decision, and I suspect that what's happened is that the human expertise was
used to cut the main log.

DAVIES: Your book is about how strategic thinking in chess can assist you in
all kinds of ways. This may be an unfair question, but can you think in this
chess match you're in with Vladimir Putin, can you think of a move you've made
over the last couple of yours that you think you wouldn't have made if you
hadn't had the benefit of all of the experience with chess?

Mr. KASPAROV: Again, my experience with chess helped me to identify the
possibilities. I analyze the situation. I understand I should objective. I
learned from the game of chess that if you do not have sufficient material,
you cannot attack. So the best strategy for us in Russia today is tactical
survival. We don't have luxury of making long-term plans, we do not have
enough material resources. Every day we survive, we reach out more people and
we expand a little bit the territory that The Other Russia control.

So I always apply my knowledge from the game of chess, but it's not, you know,
specific chess knowledge. I'm not looking at Putin as a chess piece, or The
Other Russia as another piece. It's experience of making decisions and
analyzing the nature of the decisions.

DAVIES: Well, Garry Kasparov, thanks so much for speaking with us.

Mr. KASPAROV: Thank you.

DAVIES: Garry Kasparov's opposition coalition hopes to compete in elections
next March. His new book is "Life Imitates Chess." I'm Dave Davies, and this
is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Actor Casey Affleck on his two latest films, "Gone
Baby Gone" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward
Robert Ford"
DAVE DAVIES, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, filling in for Terry Gross.

Casey Affleck has appeared in 22 films over the past dozen years, but he's
often been referred to as "the other Affleck," a reference to his older
brother Ben Affleck. But that may be changing now, thanks in part to Casey
Affleck's starring roles in two recent films: "The Assassination of Jesse
James by the Coward Robert Ford" and "Gone Baby Gone." Both performances have
won critical praise. Among Casey Affleck's other films are "To Die For,"
"Good Will Hunting," "Gerry" and "Oceans 11," "12" and "13."

"Gone Baby Gone" is the directorial debut of Ben Affleck. It's based on a
novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote "Mystic River." Casey Affleck plays a
small time detective, who's asked to help find the abducted child of a
drug-using mother, played here by Amy Ryan.

(Soundbite of "Gone Baby Gone")

Ms. AMY RYAN: (As Helene McCready) I just want my daughter. I swear to God,
I won't do no drugs no more. I won't even go out if you say, I swear and
cross my heart.

Mr. CASEY AFFLECK: (As Patrick Kenzie) It's all right, we're going to find
her.

Ms. RYAN: (As Helene McCready) You have to. You promise?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: (As Patrick Kenzie) Yeah. We'll try. I will.

Ms. RYAN: (As Helene McCready) Promise. You have to promise me.

Mr. C. AFFLECK: (As Patrick Kenzie) I promise.

(End of soundbite)

DAVIES: "Gone Baby Gone" is set in Boston, where Casey and Ben Affleck grew
up.

Well, Casey Affleck, welcome to FRESH AIR. When you had to craft this
character, this private eye from this working-class neighborhood of
Dorchester, were there people that you knew that you grew up with that you
sort of drew on to craft this character?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: Well, in different ways, yes. No, there is not one single
person, but I knew the accent, I knew the way that people dressed, what kind
of music they listened to, what kind of jobs they had, what their attitudes
were towards everything from police to themselves to their children, I knew
what kind of slang that they used, you know. It's just, as an actor, it just
means that you don't have to go spend, you know, four months listening to a
dialect coach and trying to get the accent right and sort of wandering, you
know, getting to know people there just to figure out, like, when they wear
their sweats and when they put on their, like, ironed, you know, jeans.

So those kind of things, which might not even register to kind of most people,
you know, as authentic or interesting or not authentic, you know, people don't
even really pay attention to, they did mean a lot to me just because I knew
them. You know, I sort of knew, and I've always been really interested in
those kinds of things. I guess that's probably what I like about acting, is
kind of thinking about the smallest things.

DAVIES: Boston is a character in, you know, Dennis Lehane's novels, and it's
clearly a character in this film, and I think really evocatively drawn out by,
you know, by your brother as the director. Were there moments in the dialogue
in scenes that you kind of felt like, `This is really what I know. This is so
familiar to me'?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: Well, I mean, just about all of it, except for the police
work. You know, any time we were shooting kind of down in the neighborhood
where the character lived and with people--you know, there's a scene in a bar,
and we go in there to talk to--we're looking for this missing girl, and this
is a place where the mother hung out. And so we go in there to talk to people
and find out, you know, see if we can get some information. And it's the
middle of the day, and there's about six or seven guys, you know, alcoholics,
you know, kind of sitting in there in the middle of the day, you know. And
it's the kind of place where my father worked when I was a kid, as a
bartender. It's the kind of place where, you know, I actually spent some time
as a kid, and so all of those kinds of locations were definitely--to me, felt
very authentic. They kind of rang true. They felt very familiar. It was a
little bit strange. Some of them would be, you know, I'd be there and there'd
be these kind of like waves of nostalgia or kind of, you know, repulsions.
And I would think, you know, I just want to get out of there, or I would just
want to sit there forever. And...

DAVIES: You ever forget your acting?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: Well, you try do that every single time, but, yeah, it
helped, the way that Ben kind of set up some of these scenes definitely helped
because, you know, we went into that bar for example, and when Ben was
scouting the location, he went there in the middle of the day and there was
six or seven guys sitting around the bar, and he said, `OK, all of you, I want
you to just be here, you know, next week on Monday and you're going to be in
the movie.' They kind of all shrugged their shoulders and, you know, we showed
up next week and there they were, you know, just still sitting there on their
stools and probably hadn't left. And so they ended up in the movie.

DAVIES: Did they have speaking roles, or were they just extras?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: Some of them had speaking roles.

DAVIES: Wow. You know, you know the director of this film very well. It's
your brother Ben Affleck. And he happened to be on FRESH AIR right after you
finished shooting this, and we asked him about what it was like directing you,
his brother. And I thought we'd maybe just listen to what he told Terry Gross
about directing you in the film.

Mr. C. AFFLECK: Oh-oh.

(Soundbite of previous FRESH AIR)

Mr. BEN AFFLECK: It was really interesting, you know, it was kind of--it's
hard, because you have to put on a different hat. You know what I mean? You
can't have this conversation with your brother the way you'd have it with your
brother if he's an actor in your movie. You have to treat him as you would
treat an actor in the movie, which sometimes means, I mean, something as
simple as trying to swallow the urge to strangle him, you know, or to be
really curt with him, like, `Just because I said to do it that way, that's
why!' You know? Instead of going like, `Well, OK, that's interesting. I hear
you. Let's process what you're talking about.' So it was an exercise in
self-discipline.

But, you know, my brother, the thing that's really rewarding is that he's a
really, really good actor, and he's typically been seen in, you know, kind of
character roles as well. So I think, you know, I have the good fortune of
being able to show an audience something kind of new and surprising that's
also really good. And that's a rarity.

(End of soundbite)

DAVIES: And that's Ben Affleck speaking with Terry Gross, talking about
directing our guest, his brother, Casey Affleck.

Well, Casey, now we have to turn to you. What was it like from your end?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: Well, let me just say, first of all, he rarely swallowed
the urge to strangle me. If he felt that urge, he usually went for it. And
what's more, is I don't think I ever heard him say, `I hear you, and let me
process that.' So it's funny characterization of how we worked, but he was--I
sort of feel sort of the opposite. I don't feel like he ever had to put on a
different hat. I kind of felt like, you know, a great advantage that we had
was that we were kind of brothers who had this relationship for 32 years, that
we kind of had had every possible kind of conversation one could have, you
know. I mean, I've asked for him for advice, he's come to me for advice,
we've fought, we've helped each other, lied to each other, kept secrets, told
the truth, and, you know, we've kind of been through it all. So there was no
ground that was unfamiliar, or where we felt like--I ever felt uncomfortable.

Nothing felt new. I think it was just that our ability to communicate kind of
frankly and with each other, and also to kind of have the shorthand where we
could, if nothing else, save time and just, you know, I knew what he was
saying before he kind of got through the first sentence, and I often felt like
he understood me that quickly. That was great, you know, because often
there's not a lot of time on a movie.

So, you know, I think that us being brothers was only ever an advantage. No
feelings were hurt. Now one's, you know, I never had to worry about his ego.
He never had to worry about mine. And that's not always the case in a kind of
actor/director relationship. And what's more is that, you know, on top of it
all, he had a fabulous way of talking to actors, I think just because he's
been an actor. So...

DAVIES: That's interesting, because, I mean, directors all have their
different styles. What is his? I mean, you've worked with a lot of different
directors.

Mr. C. AFFLECK: I think his is kind of no fuss, you know. I think it's--I
mean, it's funny to hear him say that to Terry, that he had sort of put on,
don a different hat. It just seemed to me that his style was to be sort of,
you know, just kind of who he is, and not sort of pretend to put, you know, he
never got the megaphone and put on the boots and the scally cap. He never did
like the old director thing. It wasn't, `Pal, you're going to say your lines,
and you're going to'--you know, it was--he said, you know, `I think it's like
this. I think you should try it like that.' Or he just--it seemed to me like
it was Ben that I'd set on a couch next to 100,000 times, watched a movie with
and talked to him about it. And, you know, he would say like, `God, I wished
they'd done it like that, or I wish they'd done it like this.' And I'd sort
of, you know, give him my opinion. That's how it always felt to me.

And it was very comforting to have that relationship with him, have him on the
set, and to know that he wasn't pretending to be anything other than what he
was. Because it made me feel like, `Oh, here's my brother and I know that
he's looking out for me and I'm looking out for him.' You know, it was always
just the two of us, really, you know. We lived with just my mom, mostly, and
she would work, you know, till 6:00, 7 till 6, and we spent a lot of time,
just the two of us, growing up. So we're pretty close.

DAVIES: Well, you know, it's a big movie for him. I mean, he's done a lot of
acting and, you know, some would say some films not maybe done as well in
recent years as some of his earlier ones. And now here he is directing, and
he casts his brother in a lead role, in a part that, you know, in the book was
really for an older person. And some might--if this hadn't worked, I wonder
if he and you might've taken some criticism. Did it feel like this was sort
of a risky thing, a high-stakes thing, like he really had to nail this?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: Oh, God, Dave, I don't know. It's always--if you start
thinking about the risks and the potential criticisms, you'll never do
anything.

DAVIES: Right.

Mr. C. AFFLECK: I mean, it's just--and I think for Ben, absolutely he felt
that way. You know, I think he--how could he not, you know? It's his first
movie out, and it's first movie he's directed, and he's already kind of
famous. There are a lot of people that take their, you know, cheap shots
against him, you know, in the press just because they're kind of bored and
petty and they think that's a good way to make a living. And there's so many
of them that I'm sure he kind of, if he wanted to, he could've, you know, he
could've focused on that and it would've been terrifying.

For me, either I don't care or I've trained myself to not think about it.

DAVIES: Our guest is Casey Affleck. He's starring in the new film "Gone Baby
Gone." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: We're speaking with Casey Affleck. He is starring in the new film
"Gone Baby Gone."

Well, Casey Affleck, you have another film out that's been getting a lot of
great review, and that's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward
Robert Ford," the assassin being yourself. And this is just a fascinating
story, where you play this man who was, you know, an obsessed fan of Jesse
James who eventually becomes close to him and then does him in. It's a
fascinating story based on a historical novel. How did you prepare for this
role?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: Well, there was a book by Ron Hansen that I read that was
beautiful, a really great kind of character study, I thought, of Robert Ford,
mostly, and Jesse James. And then I read the screenplay by Andrew Dominik,
that was just stunningly beautiful and kind of ornate and strange in its
architecture, and, you know, just dialogue that just kind of leapt from the
page. So those two the things were kind of my blueprint, because there was
nothing available about Robert Ford. There's obviously a lot available about
Jesse James, but Robert Ford, there's very little online, very little you can
find about him anywhere. So I kind of had to go to the book and go through
this script and, more than anything, sort of rely on Andrew Dominik who, it
seems, had been preparing this movie his entire life, the amount of
information that he had about all the characters, about every line of
dialogue. Every stitch of clothing had been--I'd never seen a movie so
thoroughly prepared. He did a staggering amount of work, and I think he made
a beautiful movie. So I relied on him.

I don't know how he knows so much about acting. It's kind of--he has no
business knowing so much about how actors work and what makes a good choice
for an actor, having only done one movie. But I think he's sort of a genius
in that way, and he would kind of steer me--he was a kind of guiding light,
and so those are the things that I relied on. There wasn't too much research
that I could do, other than learn to shoot a gun, ride a horse, and to be
really knowledgeable about the period, you know, like reading newspapers every
day. You know, every morning read a newspaper from that morning in the 1880s,
just to kind of immerse myself in the period. And that did help.

DAVIES: You know, there's one review of your performance in this that said
your metamorphosis from doormat to predator is a devastating feat of
self-transformation. I mean, it is a fascinating character you play, a guy
who is a hero worshipper, wants to be close to Jesse James, gets there, and
then eventually betrays him. And it's an interesting, I think, question
whether Ford becomes someone different or whether the assassin and the hero
worshipper are really all part of the same package. Tell us a little bit
about this character, how you saw him. What made him want to do in this guy
he admired so much?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: Well, it might sound strange, but I loved Robert Ford. I
read the book and I loved him, and I read the screenplay and I loved him, and
I loved playing him. There were times when I felt I hated him and things that
he did that were really hard to do, but that's kind of like life. I find
that's true with myself. I do and say things every day that I think, `Why did
I do that? Why did I say that? You're an idiot.' So, you know, I really felt
for him. I don't think that he was an obsessed fan. I don't think that he
was a kind of celebrity-obsessed predator. I don't think that he was any of
those things.

I think he was a 19-year-old kid who grew up on a farm reading comic books
about Jesse James, who's the youngest in a big family. And no one ever
thought that he would sort of amount to anything. And he kind of felt like he
had an enormous amount of potential, that he was capable of doing something
great, that he was--and specifically, you know, he thought that he could be
just like Jesse James. And when he read these comic books, which he thought
were real stories--obviously they weren't--he thought, `Well, if I can get
close to Jesse James, you know, he's great, and he's smarter than everyone in
my family and all these people around me who tell me I'm nothing. He will
recognize in me my potential. He will make me his partner. And then there'll
be comic books written about both of us.' He just had this immature fantasy.
That's all it was.

DAVIES: Let's listen to a cut from this. This is from "The Assassination of
Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," and our guest, Casey Affleck, you're
sitting around with Jesse James and some of the gang at dinner, and the
conversation comes up about your character, Robert Ford's, worship of Jesse
James. And you're provoked to talking about it. Let's listen.

(Soundbite of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford")

Mr. C. AFFLECK: (As Robert Ford) Well, if you'll pardon my saying so, I
guess it is interesting the many ways you and I overlap and whatnot. I mean,
you begin with our daddies. Your daddy was a pastor of the New Hope Baptist
Church and my daddy was a pastor at church in Excelsior Springs. You're the
youngest of three James boys, and I'm the youngest of five Ford boys. Between
Charlie and me, there's another brother, Wilbur here, with six letters in his
name. And between Frank and you, there's another brother, Robert, also with
six letters. And my Christian name is Robert, of course. You have blue eyes,
I have blue eyes. You're 5'8" tall, I'm 5'8" tall.

Mr. BRAD PITT: (As Jesse James) Ain't he something?

(Soundbite of laughter)

(End of soundbite)

DAVIES: And that was Brad Pitt laughing at the end, playing Jesse James. Our
guest, Casey Affleck was the Bob Ford, a member of his gang at the time.

What led Robert Ford to assassinate Jesse James, I mean, if he seemed to
worship and seemed to know so much about him?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: Well, that scene that you just played is, you know, a
pivotal moment in the movie. It's funny to hear it. I've seen the movie
twice. I've never just listened to it, and it seems like a different scene to
me. I just hear different things. It's such a halting delivery of that
speech, and kind of weird. I mean, I'm smiling in that scene a little bit,
kind of smirking and shy.

DAVIES: Yes.

Mr. C. AFFLECK: And seemed like a kind of a, like, I don't know, little
girl in love or something, and just listening to it just sounds bizarre. But,
you know, I think that happens, what follows is that scene is they make fun of
him. He sort of confesses that he, you know, thinks that he's just like Jesse
James, and he's embarrassed. And he gets his feelings hurt. And the next
day, he goes to the police. You know, it's just a kind of young, rash,
impetuous, silly decision because he's got such hurt feelings, that he just
lashes out by getting on his horse and going to town and telling the police
that he knows where Jesse is and he could turn him in. Now, that decision is
something he just can't undo.

Now the police know who he is, and they kind of trap him. They don't leave
him alone. They say, basically, `If you don't capture or kill Jesse James,
you're going to jail.' And kind of, you know, they just keep pressuring him
and pressuring him. And he has to do this thing that he never wanted to do.
He never wanted to kill Jesse James. It's not Mark David Chapman. He's not
crazy. He didn't want to think he was replacing him. You know, he just put
himself in a spot he couldn't get out of. Of course what happens is that
after he does kill him, he gets sort of the thing that he always wanted. The
whole country sees him. He's more recognizable than the president of the
United States of America. It's a really, really big deal in the country.

DAVIES: Our guest is Casey Affleck. He's starring in the new film "Gone Baby
Gone." He also stars in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert
Ford." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

DAVIES: If you're just joining us, we're speaking with Casey Affleck. His
new film is "Gone Baby Gone."

Well, a lot of folks know that you and your brother, Ben, and Matt Damon all
grew up in the same neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts. What got you
interested in acting originally?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: My mother's best friend in college became a local casting
director in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Our families were pretty close. She
used to bring Ben and me in with her children to be extras in movies, when we
were in school, just little kids, 10 years old. And I didn't really care much
about the movies. I just thought, like, `Well, this is a day off from school.
I can graze over, you know, the craft service table for eight hours. There's
more candy than I'd ever gotten to eat.' And, you know, you walk away with 15
bucks and which my mom let me keep. So it was a fortune, and it was a lot of
fun.

So then she would bring us in for like local, you know, commercials, like the
weather commercial at the local news station and that kind of thing, and I
kind of thought, like, `Wow, I'm incredible. I'm getting every part I
audition for.' It turns out that it was, I think, she was only bringing me in.
I was the only person auditioning. I was the only kid who had a mom that
would let them like take two days off from school and go stand under a rain
machine to do an ad for the weather guy. But that gave me some confidence.

DAVIES: You were good, yeah.

Mr. C. AFFLECK: And then I--mostly, you know, the truth is, it wasn't until
high school that there was a guy named Gerry Speca, who was one of those
teachers you kind of just hope your kid gets once in his 12 years of
education. And Ben and Matt and I and a bunch of other working, professional,
talented actors--even a guy that's in "Gone Baby Gone," he plays the child
molester Corwin Earle--he had all of us as students, and he sort of inspired
us all. I was playing baseball and, you know, throwing rocks around the
street. I didn't have any--I didn't want to be an actor. And it wasn't
until, you know, one summer I went and did the summer musical, mostly because
it was like 19 girls and it was me and that's it, and you kind of got to spend
the summer that way, and that seemed a lot better than like sitting on the
bench in, you know, in the baseball summer league--because I was smaller than
everyone by that time. So I said, `Well, I'm going to go do this.' Turns out
I was tone deaf, they cut all my solos, but it was a lot of fun.

And then the next year, I signed up for the drama class, and I found that guy
Gerry Speca, and I've never really wanted to do anything else since then. And
I think that Matt and Ben kind of both feel the same way, had the same
experience with Gerry.

DAVIES: Well, you know, you now have these two films, "The Assassination of
Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" and "Gone Baby Gone," you know, both
starring roles for you, both have gotten great reviews. And I wonder, you may
now have all kinds of new career options opening up for you. Do you know what
you want to do next? Are there things that you haven't done that you want to?

Mr. C. AFFLECK: There are so many people that I've always wanted to work
with. And, you know, I've watched in the past 20 years so many scripts kind
of just passed me by that I thought were great and that I was excited and
wanted to work on. And, if nothing else happens, I hope that I just get an
opportunity to work with one of those people. Or, you know, I have to say
I've been also very lucky. I've worked with Gus, I worked with Ben and Steven
Soderbergh, and Andrew Dominik. You know, I think that Andrew is probably one
of the great, will be one of the great, is one of the great working directors
of our time. I think that he's just extremely, extremely talented about
movies, you know, as a director. And, you know, I would like to find people
like that to work with, and if I could I'd just work with Andrew, you know,
with Gus and with Ben and Steven. So I feel pretty lucky to have worked with
the people I have. But I also kind of, you know, I'm hungry, I guess. I'm
hungry to kind of try different things and work with different people.

DAVIES: Well, I wish you the best with it, and thanks so much for spending
some time with us, Casey Affleck.

Mr. C. AFFLECK: My pleasure. Thank you.

DAVIES: Casey Affleck stars in two new films: "The Assassination of Jesse
James by the Coward Robert Ford" and "Gone Baby Gone."

You can download a podcast of the show at freshair.npr.org.

(Credits)

DAVIES: For Terry Gross, I'm Dave Davies. We'll close today with this 1956
recording featuring the late saxophonist Zoot Sims. Today's his birthday. He
would've been 82.

(Soundbite of music)
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.