NEW YORK — After spending the night shooting the most devastating scene in “Manchester by the Sea” — a scene in which, Casey Affleck’s character, clutching a bag of groceries, stands before a tragedy that haunts him throughout the film — Affleck tripped and felt a shooting pain run up his back.
Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan, a veteran back-thrower, quickly yelled for Affleck to move around to keep the muscles from seizing up.
“He’s like, ‘Get up! Pretend you’re throwing me a ball!’ ” Affleck recalled.
So there, beneath the early morning winter light, in an empty parking lot, ran Affleck and Lonergan in helter-skelter patterns, playing an imaginary game of catch. It was a rare moment of lightness shared between two self-acknowledged grouches, and a brief reprieve from the grief-filled seas of “Manchester.”
But both, and particularly Affleck, have had plenty reason to celebrate lately. Affleck’s natural, heavily burdened performance in “Manchester by the Sea” has been perhaps the most universally acclaimed of the year.