Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Daniella Pineda and Gavin O’Connor – Taking Another Appointment with The Accountant
- PopEntertainment
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Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Daniella Pineda and Gavin O’Connor
Taking Another Appointment with The Accountant
by Jay S. Jacobs
It’s been almost a decade, but The Accountant is back. The action-adventure film, starring Ben Affleck, Jon Bernthal, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, JK Simmons and Anna Kendrick was a moderate hit when it originally played in theaters. However, through streaming and cable exposure it has become a cult favorite.
Affleck played Christian Wolff, a mathematically brilliant autistic mob accountant who had a sideline as a hit man. In the original film, he pitted against his estranged brother Brax (Bernthal) – who is also a mob enforcer. Both boys grew up in violence due to their heartless dad, who taught them to be killing machines.
The financial misdeeds and line of corpses had Wolff being tracked by agents from the Department of Treasury, played by JK Simmons and Cynthia Addai-Robinson.
Nine years later, The Accountant 2 is ready to take off. Most of the original cast is back – although Simmons’ character is killed off early on and Kendrick’s character is not involved in the new adventure. New characters include another mentally challenged super-killer, played by Daniella Pineda.
A few weeks before the premiere of The Accountant 2, we were one of the press outlets who were able to take part in a virtual press conference with the stars and director of the film.
Ben, you have not done a ton of sequels outside of like maybe one role, but I feel like this one was that movie that everyone harasses you at the grocery store about, like, "Hey, we want more," and so you had to come back. Talk a little bit about bringing Gavin back and why you wanted to do one of your very rare sequels.
Ben Affleck: First of all, you're right. This is a movie where after the first one – and it was successful and I was really proud of it – but it had a longer life in terms of like the just real-life feedback that I get from people, what movies they would mention when they come up to me. So I definitely was aware like, "Oh, wow, that movie seems to still be being watched." I think it's also a function of the fact that streaming really started to take off after this movie, so people had the opportunity to pick what movie they're going to watch.
Also, I love this character. I really enjoyed playing it. Gavin and I were both very much drawn to the idea of bringing John back and expanding on that because we both really were like, "This guy's fabulous." We love it, and we both felt like there was a lot more to do. The only thing that I would rephrase from your question is like they really brought me back. [Screenwriter] Bill [Dubuque] and Gavin spent a lot of time in the intervening years developing and putting together – in a quite typical of Gavin, meticulous, patient, detail-oriented, character-driven way – what it could be. Both were quite mindful of not wanting to repeat it, not wanting just, "Hey, they like the first one. Let's just figure something out and do another one." So everything about it was appealing to me.
Gavin, it is almost rare sometimes for the director to come back, but as Ben said, you had been thinking about this for a while. When did you decide what aspects of the first one you wanted to carry over and how you wanted to change it up in the second installment?
Gavin O'Connor: Just a lot of conversations with Bill in regard to there was certain DNA that it was important to preserve. Then after that, it was a lot of left turns. Just try to refill the tank in a very different way. I know we wanted to recycle the same thing that we did in the first film. It was just a matter of how do we just start recreating the character in a way that is putting him on a different journey, integrating Brax, wanted to bring Cynthia back. We knew the key in the ignition was to kill Ray [JK Simmons’ character] because I wanted it to be personal for both of these guys. Most importantly, and we had these conversations, I just wanted to make a movie that was fun and entertaining. Put people in the seats, go to a movie theater and the lights come down and have a communal experience where they can walk out of the theater and go, "Man, that was a fucking ball. That was a great time at the movies." That's really what we were going for.
You've already gotten that stamp of approval. It won the Audience Award at South by Southwest. One thing I was struck by was just how funny it was and how much you played up the comedy in this one. Jon, your character and the dynamic between your character and Ben was a lot of that comedy. What was that like for you, and when did they tell you that this was going to be much more of an odd-couple brotherly love but also an antagonistic version the second time around?
Jon Bernthal: I don't know that I was ever really told that. Look, it was…
Ben Affleck: Bait-and-switch?
Jon Bernthal: Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. I was like, "What?" But look, Bill's writing is so unbelievably strong, and Gavin and I, we're very close. You work with Gavin; he's always going to whittle it down and try to get to the truth of the character. There's no stone left unturned. It was a real thrill for me to get back. With Ben, it just happened that way. It's there, but it was very much supported by Gavin to let moments linger. Let it exist naturally and play the moments in between the beats. He's unbelievably funny. It sounds corny, he's just mastered this character in such a way that there's so many little moments of truth that are going on that you love but can also drive you crazy from the right point of view. I feel like I was really let off the leash to have a real opinion about that.
Gavin O'Connor: I don't think we ever said like, "Oh, it has to be funny." When I say I wanted the movie to be fun and entertaining, I mean, Jon and I had so many sit downs where we would just dissect the character. What's the intention in this scene? But once you just put these guys together, they both have specific wants. Both of these guys, their characters are slightly bonkers in certain ways, so if they're not getting their wants, it just... If you just let them do their thing, it was such a fertile environment for them just in the scenes that it just created...
Jon Bernthal: You never told us to be funny.
Ben Affleck: Yeah.
Gavin O'Connor: The reason I think it works is because they weren't trying to be funny. No one was trying to be funny. They were so ingrained in their characters. They had very specific wants. If you're not getting that, it's like banging your head against the wall. And it just…
Ben Affleck: Also, Jon took pleasure in torturing. Which is funny if it's not you.
Cynthia, your character changed so much because with JK Simmons' character being a catalyst. Your character was so much more uncomfortable with what Matt was doing. I loved how you all were just putting antagonistic people around him at every turn in this one. But hers was way more like, "Yeah, I am a federal officer, and I can't do that." What about the character did you get to explore this time around that you really enjoyed?
Cynthia Addai-Robinson: I always viewed Marybeth as the entry point for the audience because she's observing and seeing all these things unfold around her and reacting in kind. Myself as an actor, same thing. I think back to working on the first movie. I was nervous. I was out of my depth in a way, just trying to present as if I wasn't. I think for Marybeth it was a similar type of situation. Here we are eight years later, when we started on the sequel, and Marybeth has evolved, grown. She's in this elevated position within the Treasury Department. For myself as a person and an actor, I felt like I had also grown. It was like, "All right, I'm going to be returning to a situation that's familiar. I feel a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more confident."
That was really nice for me to feel like, "Okay, I'm feeling like I can handle what I'm now getting thrown at me." Which is, again, this dynamic with Ben and Jon's characters and just being for the audience, that point of entry. All of their shenanigans, I also got to just bear witness to and be like, "All right, these guys are kind of crazy and they're also challenging my view of how to serve justice really."
Ben Affleck: The secret of this movie is that Cynthia is the protagonist really. She's the lead in the movie. She is the entree for the audience, which means we get to play character parts. There is a relief from not having to carry a whole bunch of expectations and stuff that go with being the lead in the movie. As Cynthia says, the audience is really projecting themselves onto you. So we're like a dual-aggravant in some ways to her. If you look at the math of the story, it's about her being brought into this, seeing this person be killed, trying to find out what it was. What she has to go through to get there and the resolution of her story. That's something that I find very artful and interesting, where this person is the lead of the movie, and you have these dual character actors in there. That affords Jon and I the luxury of doing the two-hander, as you call odd-couple thing.
Daniella, we don't want to give too much away, but even from the trailer, we can gather that she is just about to wreak a ton of havoc.
Daniella Pineda: A barrel of laughs. Just a barrel of laughs. All the comedy really.
Fierce, fierce. I was really actually happy to see that the gentlemen are bringing back the action, but there's a heightened level of female action in this movie. What was that like for you? Again, no stranger to action, but I don't think you've done this much physicality on screen yet.
Daniella Pineda: I would say it was definitely next level. It's not necessarily a character you see all the time. I feel like it's changing a bit. I saw a video the other day of these two American eagle chicks in a nest. One of the siblings just takes the littler one out the nest. I was like, "Oh, hey, I know that girl. That's Anais." At the same time, you want to see that eagle hunt and you want to see that eagle fly. There is something really compelling about watching a predator do their thing. At the same time, I felt like there's more to her; there's more layers there. She's not just a stone-cold killer. It's the type of role that I would like to see more women get to play. They're certainly here in the real world, you know? And I love to beat the shit out of Cynthia. (Cynthia laughs) But we were hugging in between takes, and it was nice.
Cynthia Addai-Robinson: Yeah.
Daniella Pineda: I got really lucky. I had a good partner. It was fun. It was fun. But she'll tell you it was brutal.
Cynthia Addai-Robinson: It is pretty good, and what's very satisfying is we've now had opportunities to see the movie with audiences. When you hear an audience audibly gasp, then you know you're doing something right. It means the stakes and how invested people are in these characters. They are literally leaning forward, with each blow, with each hit. It's a nice vote of confidence to hear those gasps.
Action is nothing new. But I feel like with The Accountant because it is so visceral, and so gory, bloody, and real-life, what is the aspect of doing action for this movie that sets it apart?
Ben Affleck: To me, what makes it interesting – and what made me think that we could do something that would actually connect with an audience in the sense that they feel something for what's happening – is because of Gavin's approach. It's not about this is a shot where visually it looks cool because of X, Y, and Z elements. We're going to construct it in such a way, and then you have to reverse engineer why in the world you would be doing something that would lead you to that place. It's always driven from what does each character want. Why are they doing this? There's a grounded reason for it. Then his gift is to take that and make that visually compelling.
Gavin O'Connor: And not try to make it feel stunty. We can cite action movies that are great, but it just feels like the action is in front of the characters. For us, and the same with the girls, we were always coming from characters. What we were always tracking when we got to the third act was like, "How are these guys working together? How are they now united?" We knew what the stakes were. We knew what they wanted. So inside of the action and the choreography, really it was about the emotional line between the two brothers. How are they going to try to accomplish this together? That was really what the conversations were about. The action is like dance, right? It's just doing it in beats. But action isn’t emotional, and disposable violence, who cares about that, right? It was really evoking emotion because you care about the characters.
Some of the action sequences with your character, Jon, are so much more impactful because of the conflict, or resolution, or like celebratory moments that you and Ben's character are having together. That emotional arc that your character goes through in this one, which I don't think people would necessarily expect, how did you approach that? How did you balance it with the very demanding action sequences that you had to do?
Jon Bernthal: Look, you can't lie in a fight, you know? You just can't lie. What you want is right there. If you're going for it, you just got to know what you're going for and why you're going for it. I think more than any director I've ever worked with, Gavin has an appetite, and an availability, and a hunger to go back and to really get into what makes these guys tick. He'll talk to you as long as you want to talk to him about where these guys came from.
What's so beautiful about this being a second film, I think for me with Brax, he's really shrouded in mystery in the first one. There was a point you really don't know too much about him, but you have these amazing flashbacks to see how these two boys were raised. What their relationship was with their dad. It really is the crux of what is really bothering both of them and what's really bothering Brax. The roles that we've always filled for each other, getting each other's back, having to be there for each other, the lack of being there for each other. So then for it to culminate, it just doesn't culminate just in a gunfight, it culminates in, "Hey, I'm there for you. I'm getting your back, you're getting mine. We're joined forever." It's a way, for lack of a better word, of showing how much you love somebody. Violence can actually be that sometimes.
Definitely. One of the things think folks are going to be really excited when they get a chance to see this is the fact that Ben Affleck… I'm just going to go ahead and say it… you line dance. I didn't expect to see that.
Ben Affleck: America doesn't expect it. America wasn't asking for it, but they're going to get it…
Jon Bernthal: We're getting it.
Ben Affleck: And we'll see what happens.
Jon Bernthal: Let's go.
Ben Affleck: That's what I mean when you say big swing. That was one of the fun things about this thing, the idea that here's a guy who's trying to figure out, he wants to have a relationship with a woman, he's trying to figure out how to do that, like how to put yourself out there. He's not comfortable extending himself, he doesn't really know how to flirt exactly. He's not comfortable. Like so many of us, it's not easy for anyone figuring out relationships, particularly the very early part where you're trying to gauge like, "What does this signal mean? Is this person looking at me? Do they like me? Am I going to humiliate myself if I go over there?"
What he does is kind of a lovely thing. He uses something that he's comfortable with, which in that case is the ability to recognize and identify the pattern of line dancing. Because it is so structured and patterned to participate in this. It's the perfect way that he's comfortable to stand next to this woman who he's attracted to and wants to connect with. It's like parallel play with little kids. You don't have to look at somebody and engage them, but you get to be with them and do something next to them. He finds a way that he's comfortable doing that. And it required, yeah, a lot of me. I probably am not going to get a lot more demands from my line dancing work. I don't know. The phone hasn't rung yet. But it was really fun.
I think what's charming about it is when somebody puts themselves out there to do something, at least I hope, that they're not necessarily great at. But they're trying. I mean really, at the end of the day, that's what any of us can do. Some of us are great at things, like Jon, the fighting comes easy to him. The action scenes with him are like playing in a basketball movie and this guy's, you're like, "Oh, you played professional basketball. Okay, great." Whereas Cynthia and Daniella, they trained like crazy and brought incredible aptitude. Those fight scenes are a function of tremendous commitment, and dedication, and emotional perseverance that was astonishing. For me, I'm coming at this line dancing thing like I don't really have the natural gifts, but I'm willing to try, you know? I would say they did a hell of a lot better with the action than I did with the line dancing. Luckily for me, it wasn't supposed to be good.
Cynthia Addai-Robinson: I thought it was great. Don't sell yourself short. I thought it was great.
Gavin O'Connor: The other thing about the scene that we were trying to accomplish that was really important is obviously there was that happening, but it was also like we just left the plot of the movie. It was like, "Are we going to leave the plot for a while? What's going to happen?" Because that whole scene is really about the brothers. They've been in all this conflict driving up to that scene, and then at the end of the scene on the Airstream, he says, "Let's go get drunk." Then that scene became, they're still in conflict, but once he goes to dance, that started to unite the two brothers. It was just baby steps to get these guys there. So that was the other thing we were trying…
Ben Affleck: … And anchors the audience having him celebrate for his brother…
Gavin O'Connor: Totally, totally.
Ben Affleck: ... that's where you're connecting to.
Gavin O'Connor: Yes. "Yeah, that's my big brother up there." It's beautiful.
Jon, not to say that you're not a great actor, but were you literally looking on to Ben dancing, doing the cheerleader role, or was it just…
Ben Affleck: I don't do any of my off-camera ever with the other performers. When I'm done, I leave the set.
Gavin O'Connor: He was in the Airstream…
Ben Affleck: You can look at a fucking tennis ball.
Gavin O'Connor: We saw taillights.
Ben Affleck: I am finished with you. I don't need... You know what? And that's just the way it goes.
Jon Bernthal: I'm telling you; I was so happy that day. Watching him dance, I could not…
Gavin O'Connor: You were very concerned.
Jon Bernthal: I was like, "This scene…
Gavin O'Connor: You never got the scene my boy. You never got…
Jon Bernthal: "... will never work." I was like, "There's no way…
Gavin O'Connor: He never got the scene.
Jon Bernthal: "... this is going to work. What does this scene have to do with anything?" And as soon as I saw him go out there, and I was singing that song, “Copperhead Road.” I was like, I love that song. I love that. It was so good, and it was like…
Ben Affleck: I'm glad you didn't tell me when I got there this morning like, "This isn't good enough."
Gavin O'Connor: No, no. If you asked…
Jon Bernthal: "This is a disaster."
Gavin O'Connor: … You asked Jon before we shot that scene. He was saying, "This is going to get cut from the movie."
Jon Bernthal: "There's no way this is making the movie."
Gavin O'Connor: "There's no way this is making it…"
Jon Bernthal: "There's no way." I was like, "Why are we even here?" Yeah, yeah.
Daniella Pineda: Highlight of the whole movie.
Cynthia Addai-Robinson: Yeah.
Ben Affleck: It's funny because I thought you were going to be good in the movie.
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