Catching Up With Casey Affleck and Girlfriend Caylee Cowan in France

‘Tis the season for summer vacations and Casey Affleck and girlfriend Caylee Cowan got a jump start on theirs by spending nearly three weeks on the Mediterranean coast in May.

THR caught up with the couple on the deck of the famed Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes during a May 22 launch party for Redbud Studios, the company releasing Cowan’s new film, Sean Patrick Flanery’s Frank and Penelope (out June 3). Cowan’s film debuted a week earlier at the Riviera International Film Festival in Italy; from there, the couple segued to Cannes to catch some Palais premieres.

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“I’m not obligated to say this, but the highlight [of the trip] really has been seeing Caylee in her movie with an audience and seeing her experience that for the first time,” Affleck said. “Then, also, seeing the community come together and talk about movies. I miss that. It’s fun just to be in the audience and not have to do a lot of publicity or promo or anything. However, being perfectly honest, it has made me miss having a movie that I’m really proud of and wanting to share.”

He’ll have a few chances; he next stars in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Bill Pohlad’s Dreamin’ Wild and Mikael Hafström’s Slingshot. And he’s eager for more after hitting up the Palais for world premieres of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing. 

“Talking to all these filmmakers, some I’ve known for years and others I’m just meeting, and hearing them talk about what they’re doing has made me excited about making movies again. I really look forward to making more,” he said. As for Cowan, she was enjoying the views as well and noting how the scene was far from the surroundings on the Texas set of Frank and Penelope.

“There was nothing glamorous about that,” she said of production on the film, which finds her playing an exotic dancer on the run with a drifter as they encounter a dangerous cult. Kevin Dillon, Billy Budinich, Jonathan Schaech, Donna D’Errico and Lin Shaye also star. “It was 116 degrees [in July 2021] and we were sweating, taking COVID tests every day. It was so hot that one day the set medic gave me an IV and the next day, she had an IV in her arm, so it was real.”

Also real? Having a partner in the same business. “I got really lucky because he’s so supportive of me and I’m also very supportive of him,” she explained. “That’s so great because it makes it a lot easier to have someone to hold your hand, be there with you and be consistent through all the ups and downs of this career. It’s so nice because he’s done this before and he understands what it’s all about.”

Now that they’ve done the French Riviera together, she said it would be a fantasy to move to France. “I would love to move here, or Portofino,” she said. “There’s so much architecture, so much history, and so much culture.”

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Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

This story first appeared in the June 1 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

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