+ A
A -
CINDY PEARLMAN
NYT Syndicate
Preparing to play an autistic man with unique gifts in his new film, The Accountant, Ben Affleck spent some time with autistic children and adults. It was an unusual experience for one of the planet's biggest movie stars.
"One day I sat in a classroom," he recalled, sitting for an interview at a Beverly Hills hotel,"and everyone in the seats in front of me was on the spectrum. Quite a few of the people arrived in Batman shirts. This Batman character, it turns out, has a lot of fans. He's a fairly well-known guy."
After the global success of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), in which Affleck made his first appearance as Batman, he might have expected universal recognition ” but he didn't get it.
"There was this one girl who said, 'I've never heard of you, Ben Affleck. Who are you?'" the actor said."I replied, 'Who am I? I'm just an actor. Just a guy.'"
Not really. Only a few minutes earlier, in an elevator in the same hotel, Affleck was nearly flattened by the crush of fans. He may have been dressed in black pants and a black sweater, but they had no trouble spotting him ” perhaps because, now that he's playing Batman, he trains endlessly and has packed on the muscle.
After 20 years as a movie star, though, Affleck still has fun with it. When a fan randomly asked if Chris, the titular accountant in his new film, could beat up Batman, Affleck didn't skip a beat ” and didn't miss a chance for a good-natured putdown of his best friend, Matt Damon.
"As long as they can both take Jason Bourne," he shot back,"then we're good."
In The Accountant, directed by Gavin O'Connor Affleck plays Chris, an autistic accountant who uses his unique mathematical skills to handle the books for illicit clients.
Sounds deskbound, but Chris has been trained by his military father to fight and shoot, and, when things go bad, he has to use those skills to stay one step ahead of the people trying to kill him.
Affleck called the role one of his most challenging ever.
"What I liked," he said,"is you think you're getting one kind of movie, and then you get something smarter and more interesting thematically."
Did Affleck intentionally turn toward a more cerebral role after the action-packed Batman v Superman?
"I'm not much of a tactician when it comes to what a career should look like," he said."I'm not strategic about planning. It's still about projects: Does this script move me? This script moved me on many levels."
In particular, Affleck wanted to make a statement about autism.
"I wanted to honour, respect and celebrate the people," he said."It's a great time to be different in today's world. Different doesn't have to be in a bad way. It's just different.
"I didn't want to gloss over things with this film," he added."We wanted to peer into the reality of that life and say that different can be better and special.
"It's a superhero story."
Needless to say, The Accountant demanded more preparation than most of Affleck's previous films.
"It required a lot of research," the actor said."Gavin and I wanted to ground the movie and make it real when it comes to dealing with autism, vs some Hollywood idea of autism. It was crucial that I get out there and meet people, so I could cobble together the character.
The process also involved getting past his own preconceived notions about autism, Affleck admitted.
"I guess I went into this with an idea that autistic people are withdrawn, which wasn't the case when it came to many we met," he said."These people were so enthusiastic and engaged when we talked, which made it a lot of fun. They were funny and witty. More than anything, they were really psyched about being part of a movie."
The Accountant begins with Chris's childhood, during which his mother leaves and his father, a career military officer who loves him, subjects him to brutal training in the martial arts because he doesn't want his son to be bullied.
"It's about how we try to protect our children from harm and actually harm them more," Affleck said, shaking his head.
Later in the movie, of course, that training in martial arts and weaponry comes in handy, as Chris is forced to fight for his life.
"I can honestly say that I trained as much for this part as I did for Batman," Affleck said."Plus it's a lot harder for your stunt man to do a stunt when you're not wearing a mask."
Affleck was trained in pencak silat, an Indonesian martial-arts style focusing on full-body fighting, grappling and weaponry. Every part of the body is used in the attack.
"I'm so comfortable with action," Affleck added."But Gavin told me that the action scenes had to be another journey into Chris's mind."
Affleck's comfort level with action doesn't extend to mathematics, however.
"I was terrified of a scene where Chris deconstructs a company's books," the actor admitted, laughing."I wanted to make sure we got it right."
Affleck has the looks and the brawny physique of a movie star, but he's never been a typical one. The native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, grew up dreaming of being an actor, but when his break finally came it was via his skills as a writer: Affleck and Damon earned an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for their first script, Good Will Hunting (1998), which kicked both men's acting careers into hyperdrive.
When several big-budget films ” notably Pearl Harbor (2001), The Sum of All Fears (2002) and Daredevil (2003) ” failed to meet expectations and sent his career into the doldrums, Affleck dusted off his typewriter, stepped behind the camera and reinvented himself as the writer/director of Gone Baby Gone (2007), writer/director/star of The Town (2010) and director/star of Argo, which won an Oscar as Best Picture.
That run revitalised his acting career, leading to hits such as Gone Girl (2014) and Batman v Superman. Affleck remains invested in the world of DC Comics ” he reprised his role as Batman for this summer's Suicide Squad, will star in next year's Justice League and is to direct and star in an upcoming Batman solo film ” but he has plenty of other irons in the fire.
Currently he's editing Live by Night, a Prohibition-era drama about organised crime which he wrote, directed and stars in alongside Chris Cooper, Scott Eastwood, Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson and Sienna Miller.
"I love it," Affleck said, his eyes dancing."We're in the editing room and it's coming together."
Where his career will go next is anyone's guess, he said.
"What I look for now is variation," Affleck explained."I get bored doing the same thing again and again. Mixing it up with both acting and directing keeps me activated, engaged and doing my best work."
Such actors as Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Clint Eastwood have stepped behind the camera and rarely if ever stepped away from it, but Affleck said that sometimes it's nice to be merely a hired hand on a set.
"Movies are all about the director," he explained."When you work with that director, you're on his or her ship. It's your job to be creative and fulfill this person's vision. It's their story.
"The nice thing about acting is that, if the set falls down, you can just go back to your trailer and say, 'So many things here are not my problem,'" he said, laughing heartily.
Then there's the fun of seeing the finished movie without having laboured over every frame of it in the editing room.
"It's cool when you do a part in a movie and you don't know what the other actors are doing in scenes without you," Affleck said."It's amazing to sit down and watch the movie. I'm sitting there going, 'Wow, I should have brought my A-game. They're really good!'"
The down side of the Hollywood life is the glare of the spotlight, which has been brighter than ever since Affleck and his wife, actress Jennifer Garner, separated and began divorce proceedings. They've been married since 2005 and have three children: 11-year-old Violet, 7-year-old Seraphina and 4-year-old Sam.
He and Garner have stressed that they remain committed to their shared life as parents.
"When you have kids, your heart is outside your body now," Affleck said."You feel so vulnerable. This fear that your child is vulnerable to the world is very powerful."
