Ben Affleck shares the secret to his best performance: 'You need to be able to be free to be bad'
Ben Affleck knows what his best performance is, and it's not his most famous one.
It's not Batman or Daredevil, nor his turn in the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting or Argo. It's not even the brilliant and socially awkward Christian Wolff, who he's played twice as of the April 25 release of The Accountant 2.
'I don't think I can do it any better than I did in The Way Back,' Affleck told Yahoo Entertainment.
In the 2020 movie, he plays an alcoholic construction worker who returns to the high school basketball team he once dominated as its star years ago to become the coach. He credited Gavin O'Connor, who directed him in The Way Back and both Accountant movies, with helping him pull that off.
'It was a ... time in my life that was quite sensitive and tender and vulnerable,' Affleck explained. 'Gavin was enormously accommodating and sensitive to it, and creates this space [so] I was able to come in and do something that was really meaningful to me as an actor.'
The key to that performance, he said, was having the freedom to make mistakes.
'You need to be able to be free to be bad to do something really good. You need to take big swings,' Affleck said. 'You need to be able to try things where you go, 'Whoa! That was horrible!' And know that the director's not going to be like, 'In a way, that might be great!'
Part of the reason he wanted to work on The Accountant 2 is that he felt like there was more of his character's story to tell. It didn't hurt that the film's director is genuinely one of his favorite collaborators.
'The sensitive care and attention that he pays to all the performances in his movies — I like to think I do the same thing, it's certainly what I aspire to,' Affleck said of O'Connor.
O'Connor told Yahoo Entertainment something Affleck told him during one of their earlier collaborations that has stuck with him: They have the 'same taste.'
'We have a similar aesthetic [and] approach to making movies [with] regard to coming from character,' O'Connor said. 'If you watch The Accountant — both movies — then you look at The Way Back ... it's such a different character. But [we're] once again finding humor, finding life, finding ... the humanity of the character.'
Nearly a decade has passed between the two Accountant movies, so Affleck's autistic, math-loving action hero character has changed and grown as much as the actor has. But something consistent about Affleck's performance still stuck out to O'Connor.
'Playing a genius, which Christian is — he has a one in a trillion brain — I think for an actor, you can fall into the trap of trying to show off. It's really easy to want to be show-offy when you play a genius! And he never does,' O'Connor said. 'It's always coming from a truthful, honest behavioral place ... I think it's Ben's instinct as an actor.'
In the same room for their interview, Affleck and O'Connor couldn't resist lauding each other — especially for this movie that took so long to make.
'I just love him as a person. I love him as an actor,' O'Connor said of Affleck.
'You find a partner that you feel like you work well with, just on a selfish level. I want to hitch my wagon to this guy,' Affleck said of O'Connor.
Affleck is frequently effusive about his favorite collaborators. His bromance with Matt Damon, his costar and Oscar-winning cowriter of Good Will Hunting, frequently makes headlines.
Together, the longtime pals co-founded Artists Equity, the production company behind The Accountant 2 as well as 2024's Apple TV+ film The Instigators starring Damon and Casey Affleck and the upcoming Jennifer Lopez-led Kiss of the Spider Woman.
To Affleck, he's not just investing in projects he and Damon believe in — they 'take advantage of the art of others.'
'[The Accountant 2] was one where I think Artists Equity was just lucky to be in a situation where it could step in and facilitate and unclog the dams that were preventing what I thought was an obvious thing,' he said. 'It was investing in the art of others kind of, because you're taking a risk, whereas I felt like, 'Gosh, this just seems obvious.''
He added that he felt 'fortunate that the entity we built was able to facilitate so we could do the very few key strategic things that needed to be done to finally catalyze this thing.'
Affleck once again credited O'Connor, as well as the film's writer, Bill Dubuque, 'who spent years putting together a story, writing a script [and] rewriting a script.'
'I wouldn't want to write for Gavin, I'll tell you that right now! No offense!' Affleck laughed. 'I can only do like, seven or eight drafts before I start to lose my mind.'
is in theaters April 25.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
8 hours ago
- UPI
Russell Crowe confirms 'Highlander' casting
June 21 (UPI) -- Oscar-winning Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind and Thor: Love and Thunder star Russell Crowe has joined the ensemble of the new remake of the classic 1986 fantasy film, Highlander. "Yes... it's true... I shall be returning to the highlands... with a sword... it has been a few centuries..." there can be only one," Crowe wrote on X Saturday. The actor's post included a link to a Variety report about the casting news. Crowe will play the mentor to Henry Cavill's Scottish title character in the film about immortal warriors. The movie is being directed by Chad Stahelski and is expected to be released theatrically in 2026. Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery starred in the original. Penn siblings, Russell Crowe attend Rome Film Festival
UPI
9 hours ago
- UPI
Jon Bernthal to play Punisher again in next 'Spider-Man' adventure
Jon Bernthal is set to reprise his iconic role of the Punisher in the next "Spider-Man" movie. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo June 21 (UPI) -- Jon Bernthal has signed on to play the Punisher again in the next Spider-Man movie. Variety, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter reported the casting news Friday. The film is set to go into production this summer. Bernthal has played the Marvel comic-book vigilante Frank Castle/the Punisher in his own eponymous TV show, as well as the related shows Daredevil and Daredevil: Born Again. In addition to appearing in Spider-Man: Brand New Day opposite Tom Holland as the titular web-slinger, Bernthal will also play the Punisher in an as-yet-untitled special on Disney+ Both projects are set for release in 2026. Bernthal was also recently seen in The Accountant 2 and The Amateur.
Business Insider
10 hours ago
- Business Insider
Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle on why he would never make 'Slumdog Millionaire' today
British director Danny Boyle has said he wouldn't even think of making a film like " Slumdog Millionaire" today, citing concerns over "cultural appropriation." "I'm proud of the film, but you wouldn't even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn't even get financed," he told The Guardian about the hit 2008 movie. The filmmaker won an Oscar for best director for the movie, which follows a young Indian man (played by Dev Patel) as he is given the life-changing opportunity to appear on a local version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" The film, which won eight Academy Awards, received critical acclaim and was a hit at the box office, but some critics took issue with its portrayal of Indian society. "We wouldn't be able to make that now," Boyle said. "And that's how it should be. It's time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we've left on the world." Boyle said that while he had made efforts "to make a film within the culture," including working with a large local crew, it was still a "flawed method." "You're still an outsider," he said. "That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be." "Slumdog Millionaire" was adapted by screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and based on the novel "Q & A" by Vikas Swarup. The film grossed more than $378 million worldwide. Boyle's latest movie, a zombie horror titled "28 Years Later" — part of the "28 Days Later" series — was released in theaters on June 20. In a recent interview with Business Insider, the director discussed his return to the zombie genre and why they shot the film using modern tech like iPhones and drones. "I felt an obligation to take the spirit of the first movie, but be aware that the technology has moved on so much," Boyle said. "Phones now shoot at 4K, which is what a lot of cameras shoot at anyway. And the advantage of using the phones is we were able to be very lightweight," he added.
