After enduring his singing, Anna Kendrick threatens to end Ben Affleck’s life
The Accountant co-stars obviously had a blast making the action movie, and have even agreed to swap their next Pitch Perfect and Batman assignments
It’s all fun and games with Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick until Affleck starts singing her Pitch Perfect top 40 hit Cups.
“When I’m gone,” Affleck warbles before Kendrick stops him. “I will end your life,” she deadpans to her co-star in The Accountant.
It’s actually Affleck who’s the deadly force in their new thriller. He plays seemingly ordinary CPA Christian Wolff, who’s hunted by the US Treasury for his dealings with criminal organisations.
A man of action with high-functioning autism, Chris meets junior accountant Dana Cummings in his new gig at a robotics company, and when she’s marked for death, he comes to her rescue.
Anybody who saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , with Affleck as the Dark Knight, knows he can hold his own in a fight scene. Kendrick was on the Accountant set the day Affleck put a stuntman through a bathroom sink, and the actress even got to tussle a little bit.
“I spent most of the day running from bad guys but I did get in one smack with a toilet lid. That was my moment,” says Kendrick.
Good Will Hunting was what made her an Affleck fan, and the 44-year-old actor/director cops to enjoying everything she’s done, from the Twilight films to the Pitch franchise.
“I’m still lobbying to do Pitch Perfect 3,” Affleck says. “I don’t know if I’m going to get there.” (Can Affleck sing? “No,” Kendrick says matter-of-factly, which earns a laugh from the actor.)
They didn’t know each other well before filming but “became fast friends”, recalls Accountant director Gavin O’Connor. “And it translated in a really potent way.”
One thing they did bond over was Affleck’s beloved New England Patriots. Kendrick roots for them regularly, but she was in full fanatic mode the night before filming started in 2015, when the Patriots and Seattle Seahawks were battling in Super Bowl XLIX.
“I was screaming in the hotel bar: ‘Not only do I want the Pats to win the Super Bowl, but if they don’t, my co-worker is going to be very unhappy tomorrow,’” Kendrick says. And after they pulled out a close 28-24 victory, “he came in in the best mood, high-fiving everybody”.
That sounds about right, Affleck says. “I’m sure it was obnoxious.”
The actor also is surprised by the news that he appears in Kendrick’s upcoming book Scrappy Little Nobody. Among the collection of essays is her revisiting “many absurdist moments” during the 2015 Academy Awards and having to hop on a plane right after to get to Atlanta for filming the next morning.
“There are a lot of logistical problems for Ben, I’m sure, but as a lady there’s a lot of ‘Dress! Hair! Jewellery!’ How do I get it back to the people so I’m not responsible for all this?” Kendrick says.
“They wanted their hair back,” Affleck jokes. “Now that I know I’m in it, I’m going to get the book.”
“We’ll swapsies!” Kendrick exclaims.
“All right, deal,” Affleck replies. “You do Batman, I’ll do Pitch. Sold.”
Kendrick is ambitious in picking her character (“I want to be Batman”) but Affleck hasn’t given up on his vocal dreams.
“I can be one of the singers,” he figures. “This time we can do it with the Patriots instead of the Packers.”
The Accountant is in cinemas now
