Damon and Affleck on social media and acting
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck explain their thoughts on social media and how they build trust with actors in their latest film.
Months after Casey and Ben Affleck’s mother died, the recent death of the actors’ father has come to light.
Casey Affleck, 51, mentioned during a news conference for his new film “Company” at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 8 that his parents, Christopher Affleck and Timothy Affleck, died in 2026.
“[The movie is] dedicated to my parents because I lost both my mom and my dad this year, and they were very important to me,” he told reporters. “I really wanted to show this movie to them, and I didn’t get to. I think they would have liked it.”
When asked about his directorial influences, he listed his older brother among the filmmakers he learned from and sought to emulate.
Ben Affleck, 54, joined the cast later in the evening as they stepped out for the red-carpet premiere of “Company,” which marks Casey Affleck’s third directorial project. Nick Nolte, Emily Alyn Lind, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, Adelaide Clemens and Caylee Cowan round out the cast.
Casey Affleck directed, cowrote, and acted in the gothic vampire tale, which he explained draws on “folklore.” The film – which stars his sons Indiana, 22, and Atticus Affleck, 18 – ends with a dedication to his parents, who participated in the film’s production but died before it was finished, according to Reuters.
USA TODAY reached out to representatives for Ben and Casey Affleck for comment.
The actors’ 83-year-old mother, public school teacher and activist Christopher Anne Affleck, died in June, six months after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, according to an obituary published in the Boston Globe in July. She and Timothy Affleck divorced in the 1980s.
During the news conference, Casey Affleck acknowledged his sons were not initially enthusiastic about acting in the project, which marks Atticus Affleck’s feature film debut. But they eventually agreed to join the project, making filming “the best professional experience of my life by far because I got to go to work every day with my kids.”
“I think that they grew up around it and had some interest in it and that sort of innate understanding of what it was, like I did,” he said. “My dad worked in the theater for many years, so it’s passed down, I suppose, which is a really nice thing.”
How Ben Affleck’s dad inspired one of his movie roles
In 2021, Ben Affleck opened up about how his film “The Tender Bar,” directed by George Clooney, resonated with his own relationship with his father growing up.
“My dad worked at a couple of bars. He worked at the Bar with a Bucket and he worked at the Cantab Lounge for many years,” he told Vanity Fair. “My parents were divorced, so my brother and I, we’d often go see my dad at his work like many people do. Parents work, so I spent a lot of time being close to my dad at the bars.”
“The movie is meant to be a little bit paradoxical at first blush. Like, how could there be this impactful, warm, nurturing environment at a bar?” he continued. “But I had a sense of that as a kid, and I totally connected with that, especially with my dad, in that safe space.”