Rosa Parks Congratulated Casey Affleck After He Made His Acting Debut

Photo by Andrew Lipovsky / NBC

Casey Affleck may be hosting Saturday Night Live for the first time this weekend, but it won’t be his first live performance. The Manchester by the Sea star stopped by the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night and revealed to the late-night host that he actually made his live acting debut as a kindergarten student.

Affleck’s first show turned out to be a pretty big performance, as Rosa Parks was in the audience. The actor’s school, which was named after the civil rights icon, organized the show for Parks during her visit with the students.

“We were in Massachusetts, she lived down in the south, and she actually came up,” Affleck said. “She was 70 something years old and she came up because she felt honored. She came to visit the school, so we put on a little performance for her.”

The actor played a lion in the production and his one job was to run up on stage and roar. However, things got a little rocky during his acting debut.

“It was going to be good, but my mane fell off,” Affleck said. “It was like my very first artistic crisis as a performer. I thought, ‘Do I go back and pick up the mane? Do I just go ahead and roar? Will they know what I am if I don’t have a mane?'”

Affleck ended up going back for the mane before unleashing his roar for the audience. And for his efforts, he received a nice congratulations from Parks after the show.

“Afterward, Rosa Parks patted me on the head and smiled at me which was pretty amazing,” Affleck said. “Since then, my whole career has been trying to recapture that feeling of approval.”

“So it’s not just about being on Saturday Night Live,” Affleck added. “It’s kind of about working through some early childhood trauma.”

Check out more from Affleck’s chat with Fallon below.