Casey Affleck is having what you’d call a quietly busy year, a return that befits his shrugging screen persona. After a lengthy absence—he last appeared in the thankless role of the brother in Interstellar, and before that in Out Of The Furnace—the shorter, mumblier, more actorly Affleck came back as the star of sort-of-well-liked Triple 9 and the widely acclaimed Manchester By The Sea, along with a supporting turn in The Finest Hours. And now, with a schedule that’s presumably been freed up by delays in the Lewis & Clark HBO miniseries in which he was co-starring with Matthias Schoenaerts, he’s considering a return to directing.
Affleck’s only feature to date is the meta-mockumentary I’m Still Here, a bizarre and often funny faux expose of Hollywood egoism that starred his brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix and roped in assorted unsuspecting club audience members and talk show hosts and a handful of in-on-it celebrities in an extended Andy Kaufman-esque performance. The two have apparently tried to develop another project together, but The Playlist is reporting that Affleck is now angling to start pre-production on a post-apocalyptic survival flick called Light Of My Life.
Affleck will star and wrote the script in addition to directing; plot details are scant aside from a “post-pandemic” setting, though the production is said to be currently casting the role of his character’s middle-school age daughter. The genre premise might sound like a change of pace, but anyone who’s seen I’m Still Here knows that the guy can create tension, discomfort, and horror.