TORONTO - Casey Affleck, one of the stars of the TIFF film, The Last Kiss, told reporters at the L.A. junket recently that he had no problems being "bossed around" by big bro Ben, who recently directed him in the kidnapping thriller Gone, Baby, Gone.

"Who told you he bossed me around?" joked Casey. "Revisionist history."

"He did a really, really great job," added Casey more seriously. "I was really proud of him. I have to say, to be honest, I was a little bit nervous. You show up on set and there are people like Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris, and the intimidating and world-renowned actor Casey Affleck.

"I think (Ben) really had his work cut out for him and he totally just jumped right into it. The transition was seamless and really remarkable and he earned everybody's respect. I think some were a little bit skeptical at the beginning, and they totally embraced him after a couple of weeks."

Gone, Baby, Gone is set in the Affleck brothers' hometown of Boston and has been decribed as "gritty, emotional, powerful."

The Last Kiss opens in theatres one week from today while Ben's latest flick, Hollywoodland, opens in theatres today.

JESSE MESSY: Not as pleasant for Casey Affleck was filming The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford in Calgary last summer.

Affleck played Ford opposite Brad Pitt's James.

"It was fairly challenging. Just physically, the circumstances, were pretty difficult," said Affleck. "It was like, you'd go to work, in every scene, work every day, for 80 days. These kinds of things they sound so whiny, but it's like in Calgary in wintertime, you're working, 16-17 hours a day, and it's freezing cold, and it's a period movie so there's no heated indoor spaces, and you're riding horses."

That alone sounds like hard work, but Affleck says the real challenge for the actors was director Andrew Dominik (Chopper).

"He was very demanding," says Affleck. "I think he makes everybody around him, much, much better, by taking them out of their comfort zone. And it's not always comfortable to be out of your comfort zone. It makes people react in strange ways, myself included.

"You know there's something about that. Being asked to do things that you haven't done before, that just is hard. It makes you feel insecure, it makes you doubt yourself, doubt the director, the whole thing, so it can be emotionally a bit of a rollercoaster. When I watched (Dominik) give other people direction, he would just torture them. But in the end the scene was great."


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