Gavin O’Connor is the director of such films as ‘Miracle’, ‘Pride and Glory’, ‘Warrior’, and ‘Jane Got a Gun.’ For the last decade, though, his career has been entwined with that of Ben Affleck, who starred in his last three movies: ‘The Accountant’, ‘The Way Back’, and now the new ‘The Accountant 2’, which arrives in theaters on Friday, April 25.
The original ‘The Accountant‘, which arrived in 2016, did decently at the box office, but has enjoyed new life both in streaming and on cable. The film starred Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff, an autistic accountant who gets drawn into a criminal conspiracy, with a sideline in being uncommonly good at fighting.
The sequel has more fighting and more conspiracies, but this time focuses more on the relationship between Christian and his brother Braxton, and contending with their troubled past. But that doesn’t mean things don’t get light ― we get to see Affleck speed-date- and also line-dance.
We spoke to Gavin O’Connor a few days before the film’s release about the film, what it’s like to direct an actor who’s also a director, and how the production reacted to criticism from some in the autistic community to the first film.
Gavin. How are you?
I’m well, Stephen, how are you doing?
Congratulations on the new film. So I’m coming from Philadelphia. I know you’re a Penn alum.
Yeah, I am.
l’ll have some questions about that later on. But first, a little bit about the movie. So the first Accountant, it was pretty successful right away, but then it really got legs on cable and streaming. At some point, did you realize this movie’s connecting with people?
Yeah, it became apparent that this became, I don’t want to say a cult film, but like when it once went into home entertainment, it just… I mean the year the year it was released in home entertainment and the different revenue streams there, it just became this juggernaut. It was so bizarre, so I never expected that.
I did have thoughts of doing three movies once I finished the first one, because I just thought there was more to explore with the brothers. And then allowing Christian, you know, this quest for love and connection, I wanted to get to that eventually, in the third movie where he actually finds it. So obviously, the success of the first one kind of just it helped us get to number two, although it took a long time.
So, so that was always the idea there would be multiple Accountant movies?
Well, the idea was after I shot the first one, in post is when I started having conversations with Ben and with Bill, the writer, about doing the second one, and then the studio.
So, Ben Affleck. I had a chance to interview him way back at the beginning of his career. I was a college freshman on my college newspaper, and he was promoting Chasing Amy, and so I got to interview him back then. Which was kind of kind of an interesting thing and it’s been great to follow his career since then, through kind of all the ups and downs. But here, more than 25 years later, you know. Here he is, still starring in a movie.
So tell me a little bit about your collaboration with him. How did it come about? I know you’ve done three movies together so far. How did you first get to know him? And what’s the relationship been like?
Well, when I was casting the first Accountant, and in our business, you start getting, they put together a list of actors. And you know, who could possibly, who’s right creatively, who can… someone has to help get the movie made, all that. You know that side of it. I honestly didn’t think about Ben because he was off doing Batman at the time, and I just knew that he’s directing, so I just didn’t think he’d be available.
But his agent had called me up and said, What about Ben? And I said just that, I didn’t think about him for those reasons. And he said, Look, he’s going to be available. I think you guys would like each other. You know he likes your work and the window that you were talking about, he’s going to be finished with Batman, and he could be available. So I had said, well, let’s send him the script, and if he responds, let’s he and I talk about it. So that’s how it started. We had a real… He was in Detroit doing Batman. We spoke on the phone. The conversation I had with his agent who was actually on a Thursday, and by Monday, Ben and I were on the phone talking.
The thing that we recognize in each other is that we had very similar tastes in movies [and] storytelling, a similar aesthetic. And the other thing, to be totally honest, when our conversation ended, I said to him, I said, “Look, man, I have to ask you a question that we just need to address now before we decide to do this together.”
And he said, “What is that?” And I said, “I think you’re a great movie director. I love your films. We can only have one director on this movie.” And he said to me, “Dude, I will be there as an actor only, that’s how I started as an actor,” and that’s what he’s been. He’s been a great partner as an actor. And I think him being a director, actually makes him a better actor and also understand the ecosystem of what happens on a set for a director to be a really helpful partner in that way. And he’s great like that.
I know he was in a bunch of Batman movies, and I know with the Kevin Smith stuff, he’s sometimes, popped up as the same character other times. But I think this is the first time he’s actually had a sequel to one of his movies, where he was the star of it?
It’s funny. Someone else asked us that when he and I were doing press yesterday together, He said. It is, except for like I guess, some of the DC stuff he may have turned up in one. I don’t really watch those movies, but I think he as Batman turned up in one of them. But yes, this would be his first sequel, as it is for me. I suppose that’s true.
In terms of the action. Did you have any particular inspiration, I guess, from the films of the past, in how you staged the action? Were you looking at the John Wick style more of Bourne Identity style, or something further back than that? What would you say you were going for with the specific style of the action?
You know, I’m just at the age, I don’t really watch other people’s movies anymore to be informed by things. I think I’ve seen so many films over the years that it just it’s in my… it’s cellular at this point. But no, it was just about, here’s what was important to me about the action. Look, in the end. You’re choreographing it all. It’s done like dance moves, it’s in steps. My stuff is always going to be grounded and feel a certain reality to it.
But what was important to me in designing the action was how these two work together. With Ben and John. That’s what we were always tracking. How do you guys operate? We started with you guys so far apart. And then we have that moment in the trailer in the back of the Airstream, where he says, I’m sorry, and that’s the beginning of it.
And then let’s watch you guys operate together. Let’s watch you as a team ― I kept calling them Butch and Sundance. So that’s really what I was tracking, which was, as much as you have violence and bullets flying. It was really the emotional line between the 2 brothers that was important to me.
So you mentioned that that was kind of something you were looking at going in. Were you looking back at buddy movies of the past, or were you more about just like these characters, and you wanted to tell a story about them?
It’s funny, man, I really wasn’t. And I think about it later, films like 48 Hrs or Midnight Run, I love that kind of movie. But no, I didn’t. I didn’t look at it. I didn’t look at anything right. But no, I didn’t look at anything.
