Ben Affleck names “the most complicated and interesting” role he’s ever played
It’s been a funny old career for Ben Affleck. The actor and filmmaker truly experienced the rollercoaster ride that often comes attached to celebrity, having soared to the highest of highs and plummeted to the lowest of lows.
He was only 25 years old when he collected his first Academy Award after sharing a ‘Best Original Screenplay’ statue with lifelong BFF Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting. Following that, they opted to take very different paths towards maintaining their position in Hollywood.
Whereas Damon largely stuck to smaller-scale productions, more interesting parts, and collaborations with renowned auteurs, Affleck became a movie star. It worked for a while after Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Changing Lanes, and The Sum of All Fears won big at the box office, but then the wheels started to fall off.
Daredevil was dross, Paycheck was a terrible end for John Woo’s Stateside sabbatical, Surviving Christmas tanked hard, and Gigli was such an abomination that even to this day, director Martin Brest can’t refer to it by name. Drastic changes were needed, then, and Affleck decided the only way to revive his reputation was by doing it himself.
What followed was his rehabilitation as the acclaimed director responsible for Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and ‘Best Picture’ winner Argo. His stock rose so high he backtracked on his claim his blockbuster days were over by taking on one of pop culture’s biggest icons when he agreed to be Zack Snyder’s Batman.
It was quite the renaissance, with an unassuming action thriller providing Affleck with the most challenging role of his life in the midst of his upswing. Released between Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Live by Night, The Accountant was a rousing success that earned north of $150million in ticket sales and ended up being rewarded with a sequel.
The leading man plays an autistic mathematics genius who works as a freelance accountant in the criminal underworld, doing a nice side-line in neck-snapping badassery. It was never going to win him an Oscar, but Affleck nonetheless called Christian Wolff “definitely the most complicated and interesting character that I’ve played for sure” in an interview with Collider.
“What we wanted to do was be respectful and be accurate and to tell a truthful story. We didn’t want to try to sex it up or gloss over things,” he said. “We just wanted to peer into the reality of that life. Also, I think it was a good thing showing that different can be good, better and special. Obviously, anytime you’re gonna deal with a real-life issue like this that touches people’s lives, and that is really important to some people, there are going to be a lot of people with really strong opinions and feelings.”
It was a fairly routine actioner at the end of the day, but in terms of embodying the protagonist and doing justice to the people he was representing in a way, Affleck went out of his way to ensure the complex Christian was more than just a one-note, gun-toting hero.
