Casey Affleck Reveals His and Ben Affleck’s Dad Timothy ‘Tim’ Byers Affleck Died This Year
Casey Affleck is opening up about his decision to honor his and Ben Affleck’s late father, Timothy “Tim” Byers Affleck, with his new movie.
“It’s dedicated to my parents because I lost both my mom and my dad this year, and they were very important to me,” Casey, 51, said during a panel on Tuesday, September 8, at the 2026 Venice International Film Festival, per Page Six. “I really wanted to show this movie to them and I didn’t get to. I think they would have liked it.”
Casey, who directed, cowrote and stars in Company, went on to reflect on his past decade.
“My kids grew up. I went through COVID and divorce and a million things,” he said on Tuesday, referencing his split from ex-wife Summer Phoenix, whom he was married to from 2006 to 2017. “I took all of that stuff — the good thing about being an artist, the best thing maybe, is that you can take all of the hardest experiences in your life and put it into your work, and it just makes you better.”
He continued, “If you’re willing to face it all, be honest about it all and show up vulnerably with those feelings and allow for the fact that you might not be able to really fully understand them, but you’re willing to put them into what you’re making, it’s a blessing. For me, it’s the only way that I can understand what’s happening in my own life.”
It is unclear when exactly Tim died. Casey and Ben’s mom, Christopher “Chris” Anne Affleck, died in June after a battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 83. Tim and Chris were divorced at the time of their deaths.
Prior to Tim’s death, Ben, 54, had been open about his father struggling with alcoholism before entering rehab and getting sober more than three decades ago.
“My father has 30 years of sobriety and I have a tremendous amount of respect for what that takes and what that means,” Ben told People in 2020. “Part of being an adult is learning that your parents are just people. They’re not perfect. They were just doing their best. As a child, we expect perfection out of our parents.”
He continued, “I learned to be able to look at things that I wish were different about my childhood and say they [my parents] did their best. They were dealing with their own stuff and their own childhood trauma. The goal is to try and break some of these painful cycles.”