Actor Ben Affleck is an unassuming number cruncher with deadly Pencak Silat skills in the new action thriller The Accountant
“IT’S always compelling when people have secrets — when you think someone is one thing and then discover they’re something else entirely,” says film director Gavin O’Connor.
That is certainly the case with the titular character Christian Wolff, from his new film, The Accountant. On the surface, Wolff seems to be a regular certified public accountant. However, his clientele includes the world’s powerful crime lords, and his mild-mannered demeanour and appearance belie the fact that he may be more dangerous than any of them.
Says Ben Affleck, who plays the leading role: “The story speaks to the duality in all of us. It might be easy to pigeonhole a guy like Christian, but we find out he’s capable of much more than you imagine.”
The 44-year-old Californian actor goes on to reveal that there is another unexpected fact about Christian. “On one hand, he’s this effectively trained fighter and on the other, he’s a math savant.”
Those facets of his personality, seemingly at odds with him, were unlike anything I’ve done, and that made it both exciting and challenging.”
O’Connor agrees, saying: “The centre point of the film was this fascinating character that I loved and wanted to explore. How did he become this man? How did he get those skills? How did he become this lethal fighter? The story has intertwining puzzles, which gave it a high IQ factor and made it especially intriguing.”
FROM MUNDANE TO EXTRAODINARY
The spark for the story was initiated with producer Mark Williams, who explains: “I had heard the term ‘forensic accountant’ and thought it sounded like a detective of sort. But then I started pushing the envelope, raising the stakes with who he’s working for and that had the potential to kick the action into high gear.
“Once I had the general framework, I took it to Bill Dubuque, a writer I’ve worked with. He responded to the idea and started fleshing out the script.”
“The concept of an accountant, a profession that normally is quite mundane; one who is outside what most consider conventional and has extraordinary abilities, is something different. If you’re a mainstream company and think someone’s embezzling funds, you have a team of accountants who can determine where the money is going,” says Dubuque.
“But if you’re a drug cartel or a Mafia kingpin, you can’t do that. You’ve got to find someone who can figure out the patterns in your books, and say, ‘This is where the leak is.’ And then get out. As I thought more about what would make this person special, I hit on the notion that he is on the autism spectrum. But he uses it to his advantage.”
“We learnt the word ‘spectrum’ is fitting because there is really no single type of autism. Every person is an individual and at a different place on that spectrum. Christian has a remarkable aptitude for figures and his physical attributes are a product of his unique upbringing,” O’Connor adds.
Dubuque, who surrounded Christian with other characters that are just as multifaceted, says: “Almost no one is really who they seem to be.”
NO FALSE NOTES
With the script in hand, the producers chose O’Connor to helm The Accountant after meeting him.
“We found that he had a deep understanding of these characters and a vision for how to shoot their interwoven storylines,” recalls Williams.
“We knew he was the perfect director for this. He has such a fine eye for details and kept track of all the puzzle pieces so they would all fit together in the end, which was important for this film.”
Affleck adds: “I’d seen Gavin’s work on Warrior and Miracle, and in both of those movies I saw tremendous integrity in the performances. I thought, ‘This is a director who doesn’t let a false note land in his films.’”
“I knew The Accountant needed that kind of unflinching eye to capture the complexity and the nuances and ground it in reality. At the end of the day, I was so glad he directed this movie because amidst the incredible action, he imbued it with authenticity, originality, humanity and heart. I loved working with him.”
Anna Kendrick, who stars alongside Affleck, says she appreciated the director’s “reverence for the emotional content.”
“It’s interesting because, in many ways, Gavin is a dude. He and Ben would get excited about all the action sequences, but then he also took such a joy in the really sweet, emotional scenes,” says the actress who plays Dana Cummings, whom Christian finds speaks his language as far as numbers go.
A GAME CAST FOR AN UNCONVENTIONAL SCRIPT
O’Connor says the divergent elements of the story and its characters were what attracted him to the project. “It’s refreshingly unconventional and defies definition because it’s a suspense thriller, a drama, an action film and a character study. I thought the script was one of the best that I’d read, so I really wanted to do it,” says the director.
The cleverly constructed screenplay also drew the film’s impressive acting ensemble. “It kept me guessing until the very last page. I thought it was very smart, rich in detail and in character depth, and inventive in its evolution,” says Affleck.
Says another leading star in the film, J.K. Simmons: “Bill Dubuque crafted a layered script with very deep characters, so it has a great combination of an intricate plot with a range of fascinating people.”
Joining Affleck, Kendrick and Simmons in the main cast were Jon Bernthal, Jean Smart, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow.
“Part of my job as a director is surrounding myself with people who are really good at what they do. People who are going to constantly lift up the material and make me better and make the film the best it can be. All of these actors are of that calibre,” says O’Connor.
As the film opens, we meet Christian as a child whose parents are seeking professional help to deal with his autism. Telling the couple their son is actually more gifted than handicapped, the neurologist offers to work with him.
But Christian’s dad has his own ideas on how to prepare his son for a world that can be harsh for anyone deemed “different”. “Christian’s father puts him through all kinds of rigorous training to toughen him up for a world he thinks could hurt him. Instead, he ends up damaging Christian even further. I thought that was an interesting theme, how he reconciles his past with the man he is now,” explains Affleck.
Prior to filming, O’Connor and Affleck also engaged in research to ensure that they got the character right. The pair consulted with several autism experts which include Dr Neelkamal Soares, Laurie Stephens, Cheryl Klaiman, Christine Hall and Shelley Carnes. They also visited several homes and schools.
“I was lucky. I had my director doing research with me, which gave us a shared vocabulary and made it a lot easier. There’s no task Gavin won’t undertake if he thinks it might make the movie better,” elaborates Affleck.
The director was equally impressed by Affleck. He adds: “I would make every movie with Ben if I could. He just poured himself into the role, and the more you give him, the more he just keeps attacking it.”
SILAT SHOWCASE
O’Connor also believed that Christian should have an idiosyncratic fighting style, forged by his childhood training and personal penchant for order. After exploring various types of martial arts, he liked the Indonesian method which was less likely known in the West, Pencak Silat.
“I’d never even heard of silat but it’s incredibly efficient, so it served our purpose in a very cinematic way. We mainly focused on silat but because of how dynamic Ben needed to be in his fighting scenes, we also taught him judo, jiu-jitsu, everything from the ground up, but extremely stylised martial arts.”
“This technique hasn’t been seen in too many movies before, so it felt fresh and new. I loved the style, so I dove into training as hard as I could. I spent months ahead of filming learning elaborate fight choreography, which involved a lot of flips and throws,” explains Affleck who adds, “It was very intense, but when it all came together and was done right, it could be beautiful and elegant, even when it was brutal.”
SIMMONS GIVES CHASE
HIS career spans film, TV and the stage, both on and off-Broadway. Oscar-winning J.K. Simmons, known for diverse roles, currently stars in The Accountant.
Playing Ray King, who runs the Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, he closes in on freelance accountant Christian Wolff, the man working for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organisations. Here, Simmons talks about his role.
What intrigued you about The Accountant and made you say yes?
I thought the script was interesting, so layered and sort of genre-busting. And Ben (Affleck) was attached. We had never met but I was a fan. I knew a little of (director) Gavin (O’Connor)’s work and the first thing I did before meeting him was to re-watch his film, Warrior. It was so compelling, not just on an action and fight level, but on a storytelling level. The relationship between the brothers and the humanity of it, I thought, was brilliant.
When we met for the first time, I found Gavin to be extraordinarily passionate. We had sort of crammed a lunch into the middle of the day, and I ended up staying longer than I had intended or was supposed to, just because he was such a fascinating guy. We talked about everything, about making movies and about life, family and love.
It was just a great combination of factors, but having that meeting with Gavin absolutely convinced me that he was a guy I wanted to work with and the one who could really make the most of this screenplay.
What was it like working with Gavin?
Ideal, really, because he was so thoroughly prepared. He always knew what he wanted but was open to being a collaborator.
He was, to me, like the general who knows every single moving part, but he was also down there in the trenches with the grunts, whether it’s actors or grips or anyone.
What about your character?
He’s trying to solve the puzzle. I read this script and the things that are surprising as it unfolds completely, really took me by surprise. I just saw the finished product for the first time and Anna (Kendrick)was at the same screening with her boyfriend. He’s a cinematographer and obviously knows the business very well, and I was really pleased to hear him say that he did not see things coming, the puzzle elements of the story and the twists and turns of the plot.
I say all this just so people will watch the movie and not try to learn too much about it before they go see it because so much of what makes the movie interesting is letting it unfold.
Cynthia Addai-Robinson plays the agent your character brings in to track down the Accountant, Marybeth Medina. What is their dynamic and what do you think Cynthia brings to the role?
Ray recruits Marybeth Medina, somewhat unethically, to be his heir. It’s easy to see him as a self-serving character in that but I think he has the greater good in mind as well, ultimately. I think our characters find interesting commonality, which, for me, is so important.
Cynthia was great, first of all. She brought groundedness, and a real honesty and reality to the character.
One of the things that I said to Gavin when we talked was, “I don’t want some glamorous, gorgeous young babe to be playing Marybeth Medina.”
That part hadn’t been cast yet and it was important to me that she just be real and believable as this character, who comes from a rough background. So, then, when I saw that he’d cast this beautiful actress, I was initially thinking, “Oh, man, really? That’s too bad.” But, obviously, I wouldn’t be saying that if it didn’t have a happy ending.
Cynthia is obviously much younger and less experienced than I, so there was that dynamic of the mentor and the protege that sort of imitated our life, and that added an interesting aspect to the relationship between our characters.
In terms of the actual detective work that’s being done in the movie, Marybeth is doing 90 per cent of it, and Ray is the guy pulling the strings. But he has also done his homework, researching and finding her as the right person for the job.