by Although it’s not his most well-known performance, Ben Affleck is aware of what his best performance is.
It’s not his turn in the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting or Argo, nor is it Batman or Daredevil. Not even Christian Wolff, who he has portrayed twice as of the April 25 release of The Accountant 2, who is both intelligent and socially awkward.
Affleck told Yahoo Entertainment, “I don’t think I can do it any better than I did in The Way Back.”
In the 2020 film, he portrays an alcoholic construction worker who decides to become the coach of the high school basketball team he previously led as its star. He attributed his success to Gavin O’Connor, who directed him in both the Accountant and The Way Back films.
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Affleck clarified, “It was a… period in my life that was very sensitive, tender, and vulnerable.” “Gavin created this space and was incredibly accommodating and sensitive to it, so I was able to come in and do something that really meant a lot to me as an actor.”
He claimed that being allowed to make mistakes was essential to that performance.
To do anything truly good, you must have the freedom to be evil. “You must make bold moves,” Affleck remarked. “Wherever you go, you must be able to try things like, ‘Whoa! That was awful! Additionally, be aware that the director will not say, “In a way, that might be great!”
Jon Bernthal and Affleck in The Accountant 2 (Amazon MGM Studios/Everett Collection)
He wanted to work on The Accountant 2 because he thought his character’s story wasn’t finished. The fact that the director of the movie is actually one of his favorite partners didn’t hurt.
They have the “same taste,” O’Connor told Yahoo Entertainment, quoting Affleck as saying to him during one of their previous collaborations.
“We approach filmmaking [with] respect to coming from character and have a similar aesthetic,” O’Connor remarked. “The Way Back is an entirely different character if you watch both films, The Accountant” and The Way Back. However, we are once more discovering humor, vitality, and the character’s humanity.
Since the two Accountant films were released over ten years apart, Affleck’s character—an autistic action hero who loves math—has evolved and matured just as much as the actor. But O’Connor continued to notice a recurring element in Affleck’s performance.
“I think it’s effortless for an actor to flaunt their skills when portraying a genius, such as Christian, who possesses an exceptional intellect. Playing as a genius makes it very easy to want to be ostentatious! Furthermore, he never does,” O’Connor remarked. “It always originates from an honest, sincere behavioral place… As an actor, I believe it’s Ben’s instinct.”
Affleck and O’Connor couldn’t help but compliment one another throughout their interview in the same room, particularly for this labor-intensive film.
I simply adore him as a human being. Regarding Affleck, O’Connor remarked, “I adore him as an actor.”
“On a self-centered level, you pick a partner with whom you feel comfortable working. Affleck expressed his desire to align himself with O’Connor.”
Affleck often talks endlessly about his favorite co-stars. He routinely makes news for his bromance with Good Will Hunting cowriter and costar Matt Damon, who won an Oscar.
Matt Damon and Affleck attend The Accountant 2’s 2025 SXSW debut.(Getty Images/AFP/Suzanne Cordeiro))
The lifelong friends co-founded Artists Equity, the production firm behind The Accountant 2, The Instigators, which starred Damon and Casey Affleck on Apple TV+ in 2024, and Kiss of the Spider Woman, which starred Jennifer Lopez.
For Affleck, they “take advantage of the art of others” in addition to funding initiatives that he and Damon support.
“I believe Artists Equity was fortunate to be in a position where it could intervene and help to unclog the obstacles that were preventing what I believed to be an obvious thing,” he stated of [The Accountant 2]. “It was sort of like investing in other people’s art because you’re taking a risk, but I thought, ‘Gosh, this just seems obvious.'”
You find someone with whom you get along well, but only on a self-centered level. I want to align myself with this guy.
Ben Affleck discusses collaborating with Gavin O’Connor, the filmmaker of “The Accountant 2.”
It was “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,” he continued.
O’Connor and the film’s writer, Bill Dubuque, “spent years putting together a story, writing a script [and] rewriting a script,” Affleck once again acknowledged.
I’ll be honest with you now: I wouldn’t want to write for Gavin! I mean no offense! Affleck chuckled. “I can’t do more than seven or eight drafts before I go crazy.”
