Pairing Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick is the right equation for 'Accountant'
NEW YORK — A room full of numbers, written on boards, glass and much pretty anywhere there’s a flat surface, would be boring to most people. To Ben Affleck's and Anna Kendrick’s characters in The Accountant, that math is magic.
The action thriller (in theaters Friday) casts Affleck as Christian Wolff, an accountant trying to avoid the government who takes a job to find out why millions are missing from the coffers of a big-time tech company. Kendrick’s Dana Cummings is the junior accountant who’s tapped to help him out, though she’s initially put off by Chris' cold demeanor when she attempts to befriend him.
“This guy’s kind of a Rubik’s Cube to her,” says director Gavin O’Connor. “She’s really curious about him but there’s this invisible wall around him that she’s trying to penetrate and never can."
After pulling an all-nighter uncooking the books — with a trash can full of dried-up markers and numbers everywhere — Chris is elated at his work and Dana’s mind is blown by his genius.
Not only do they figure out the finances and solve the mystery, they also find that they're excited about the same thing.
“For the first time, they are connecting, whereas they had been fumbling around before that,” the actress says.
“The world that he’s in is so enjoyable to him. It’s his Ode to Joy, and he allows her to experience his world,” O’Connor adds. “This guy possesses an extraordinary mathematical mind, a superhuman intellect, but she strikes a fire in his heart. He does it for her and she does it for him.”
Affleck liked playing the awkwardness and hesitancy in his character. “Where he’s closed down and quiet, she’s so facile and quick,” the actor says.
For her part, Kendrick found the differences charming. “Unlike Chris, Dana keeps putting herself out there and is misinterpreting some of the social cues from him — she really finds him extraordinary,” she says. “It speaks to this monologue that Dana has about how we’re all trying to do the same thing; sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to connect. Even though Chris is on the (autism) spectrum and Dana is not, she’s not batting a thousand on pleasant conversation either.”
Where they do have common ground is in the influence of their fathers. Chris’ dad told him to push himself so he could live a normal life with autism, while Dana’s advised her to choose a safe career path.
As a father of three, Affleck allows that he can understand that sense of vulnerability.
“You think of the world as a much scarier place when you have kids,” he says. “It’s an interesting question the movie raises: Do we go too far sometimes in trying to protect our children, and can that in fact be harmful?
“As a parent, you see your own mistakes much more clearly: That was a bad choice to make or I shouldn’t have said that to the caterer. You’re always playing by ear and it’s a really tricky thing to figure out.”
