Ben Affleck as autistic criminal and math genius Christian Wolff, has returned in The Accountant 2, and his work in one scene caused the Texan crowd at SXSW roar with laughter and applause.
Chris typically has trouble with women — even starting the movie off with a tumultuous experience at a speed dating session — but ends up on the dance floor of a country bar after a woman begins to flirt with him. When she first hits on him at his stand, where he is accompanied by his brother Braxto, played by Jon Bernthal, he flubs it, but after watching the monotonous movements of the line dancing mob, he changes his mind and joins in. He has on orthopedic sneakers, unlike everyone else who wears cowboy boots, but he learns the steps quickly, and gets a phone number for it.
“For me, the challenge, of course, was the months and months I spent training to line dance. It was a stunt for me,” Affleck said onstage at Austin’s Paramount Theater after the film’s world premiere. “Tom Cruise has nothing on me.” As the audience cheered at the joke, he sheepishly added, “In terms of line dancing.”
Bernthal said that although “The Accountant” explores Chris and Brax’s upbringings, it does not provide much time for the adult characters to spend together, so he was thrilled to work with Affleck in the sequel. “Ben’s a hero of mine. I think he’s such a beautiful person as an artist,” he said. “Making movies for me is usually knocking my head into a wall; I’m kind of hating myself. But this was very easy. It was very easy to work with him.”
