STACK November 2016 Issue 145

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A thriller about accounting? Oddly enough,
it all adds up in The Accountant, starring Ben
Affleck as an autistic bean counter who cooks
the books for criminals. Words Gill Pringle
Ben Affleck was born to play Christian
Wolff, an emotionally remote but laser-
focused number cruncher who also
happens to be a killing machine, thanks to early
training in martial arts and weaponry.
He also happens to carry a bigger gun than
Jason Bourne.
“It’s a smarter script than what you’d think.
If you think of something in the genre of The
Bourne Identity or other movies like that, you
expect them to just be a shoot ‘em up, but then
they’re very smart, innovative and creative,”
says Affleck when STACK meets with him and
The Accountant director Gavin O’Connor in Los
Angeles.“ This was the same – you look at it on
the page, guy with a gun, shoot people, but then
there’s some really interesting thematics running
through it with fathers and parents and children
and the way we try to protect them. Then with
the autism, it’s really interesting because it has
this kind of puzzle element and all this other
stuff that you don’t expect, which transcend the
ordinary genre aspects.”
After The Accountant
topped the US box
office it was hailed
as Jason Bourne
meets Rain Man, and
O’Connor is the first
to admit that Affleck
wasn't his first choice.
“When I started
putting a list together, I
honestly didn’t have Ben’s
name on it because I heard
he’d started doing Batman and he
was going to direct a movie," he says.
"So he never crossed my mind, that’s the truth.
Then his agent called and said, 'what do you
think about Ben?' And I told them the same
thing, it never crossed my mind, and then they
said, well he’s got a window and we think you
may like him for it. Then Ben and I got on the
phone. I said to him, ‘Rain Man had Tom Cruise
and we don’t have Tom Cruise so we’re going to
have to figure this out to make it where there’s
an accessibility’.“
Visiting autism schools
and meeting with people
on the spectrum, they soon
discovered a pattern of
common traits to utilise for
Affleck’s character.
“What I consider most
moving about the research I
did, was not the differences
of people who were on the
autism spectrum, but how
they were so similar,” recalls
Affleck. “Everyone I talked to
wanted to make friends and
reach out and participate
in the movie and
make friends at their
school. And some of
them wanted to have
romantic partners and
some of them weren’t
able to but still wanted
to. That really moved
me, that they have this
basic fundamental human
need to want to connect with
one another and it was kind of
heartbreaking to have something that
was separating you from other people, and if you
had that, you had to spend a lot of time of trying
to circumvent that. He’s not the type of guy that
doesn’t want to connect with other people, he
wants very much to be able to connect with
other people but he’s got hurdles and things
which make it hard for him to do that.”
After Damon and Affleck won best original
screenplay for their script about a math savant,
Good Will Hunting, you’ve got to wonder if
Affleck has a thing about numbers.
“To my surprise, the best part of my
performance is the illusion that I’m good at math.
It couldn’t be further from the truth. Gavin would
just yell out numbers and I’d write them down.
“I‘m not good at math, not great at math. I
already can’t do my daughter's homework and
she’s in fourth grade. I wouldn’t call on Matt
Damon by the way,” he smiles.
“I’m gonna release my tax return when the
time is right. There’s nothing to see. I’m not
being audited.“
The Accountant is in cinemas on November 3.
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12 NOVEMBER 2016
CINEMA
BUZZ
SUM
FEARS
OF
ALL
THE
What I consider most
moving about the
research I did, was not
the differences of people
who were on the autism
spectrum, but how they
were so similar