Casey Affleck: 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked

And 5 That Sucked...

5. Tom - Interstellar (2014)

Admittedly, Casey gives one passable monologue as Coop's (Matthew McConaughey) grown-up son Tom, as we see Coop react to all the videos his kids sent him over the years whilst he spent three hours on a planet that was sitting just a little too close to a black hole. It definitely plays on the heart strings, as we first see Tom with a newborn son, then see him again after he's buried that same son. Affleck's performance is a little too understated though, a little too fatigued, bordering on uncaring. It's one of the few times his tendency to play down a scene works against him. It is unfortunately also more exposition than performance; the death of Tom's son implies to the viewer that atmospheric conditions back on Earth are worsening, with Tom also mentioning that Coop's father-in-law Donald (John Lithgow) has died too. It's thinly veiled catch-me-up. It's no better that Casey doesn't have much to do for the rest of the film apart from look pensive and be ignored (seriously, no one in the film seems to want to address the fact that Coop clearly loved Murph more than he loved Tom).