Skip to footer

Casey Affleck, troubled janitor in 'Manchester by the Sea,' receives 2017 best actor Oscar

Affleck has been nominated before, as best supporting actor for his work in 2007's 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.' He stars in 'Manchester' with Lucas Hedges and Michelle Williams.

|
Claire Folger/Roadside Attractions and Amazon Studios/AP/File
Casey Affleck stars in 'Manchester by the Sea.'

Actor Casey Affleck has won the Academy Award for best actor for his work in the acclaimed 2016 film “Manchester by the Sea.”

Mr. Affleck, whose work attracted the attention of the Academy for the second time with “Manchester” after he had previously been nominated for best supporting actor for his work in the 2007 movie “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” also recently appeared in such films as the 2016 movie “The Finest Hours” and 2014’s “Interstellar.”

“Manchester” was also nominated for multiple other Oscars, including nods for best picture and for best director for Kenneth Lonergan. In the movie, Affleck portrays janitor Lee Chandler, who is attempting to recover after a family tragedy. Lucas Hedges, Kyle Chandler, and Michelle Williams co-star. 

Monitor film critic Peter Rainer gave the movie an A grade and also called a sequence in which Affleck and Ms. Williams appear “the strongest scene in any movie I’ve seen all year … I thought that, up until this point, Affleck, good as he is, sometimes overdid the brittle cheerlessness, but in this sequence, the full measure of his performance comes through.” 

In an interview with NPR, Mr. Lonergan singled out a scene in which Affleck had to identify his brother’s body. Lonergan said Affleck improvised and began to cry. 

“I was so surprised,” he said. “And I was so happy. It was so beautiful. It was one of those great, great moments you have on a film set … My admiration for Casey, which was already very high, just soared that day … That's the biggest fun you can have out of doing this kind of work, is when the actors surprise you with something that you didn't think of but that fits in the story and also enhances it and makes it better.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Casey Affleck, troubled janitor in 'Manchester by the Sea,' receives 2017 best actor Oscar
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2017/0226/Casey-Affleck-troubled-janitor-in-Manchester-by-the-Sea-receives-2017-best-actor-Oscar
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe