Hand-picked first by Matt Damon – who was originally set to direct the movie – and later by writer-director Kenneth Lonergan to play Lee Chandler, the prodigal son of Manchester–By-Sea, MA, self-exiled to Boston after a life-changing event, Casey Affleck relied on his passion for the material to compose his complex performance. “This has only happened a couple of times in my life”, Affleck told us. “If you are lucky, along comes something where you think I 100 per cent want to do it and I am dying to do it.(…) Just reading the script, it was so well written, I immediately connected with it.” This is Casey Affleck’s second Golden Globe nomination: in 2008 he was nominated in the Supporting Actor category for his work on The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford ( he was the Coward Robert Ford).