Ben Affleck Interview, Gone Baby Gone

MoviesOnline recently sat down with Academy Award-winner Ben Affleck at the Los Angeles press day to talk about his new film, "Gone Baby Gone,” a provocative, edge-of-your-seat thriller adapted from Dennis Lehane’s bestselling novel.

The story begins in the gritty, working class Boston neighborhood of Dorchester where 4 year old Amanda McCready has gone missing without a trace. The police have failed to turn up even the narrowest of leads, so Amanda’s desperate Aunt and Uncle plead with local private investigators Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Genarro (Michelle Monaghan) to take the case. Though they’re wary to jump in, Patrick and Angie know the neighborhood and the truth about Amanda’s drug-addicted mother Helene (Amy Ryan). As they investigate her story, they find themselves on a trail that winds into the dark heart of Dorchester and through a chain of drug-dealers, ex-cons and child abusers, but brings them no closer to Amanda. In the glare of the media spotlight, they join forces with a relentless detective Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and police captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman). As Patrick examines the clues, he finds himself lured into an ever-intensifying web of lies and inexplicable violence until he comes face to face with a complicated moral dilemma with no easy answers.

As a Boston native with an undying passion for the city, Ben Affleck had heard several recommendations through the years to check out Lehane’s novels. He started with "Gone, Baby, Gone” and was instantly hooked. "I loved the complex and polarizing characters and at the same time, I found it constantly surprising and compelling,” says Affleck. He began to inquire into the rights for the series, which were held by producer Alan Ladd, Jr. "Ben came to see me about the rights,” says Ladd. "He said he wanted to write the screenplay and I said absolutely since he had already won the Academy Award and proved he was a superior writer.”

"I thought about adapting the book but I’d never done an adaptation before,” Affleck says. But the story continued to haunt him, so he began slowly writing with his long-time friend Aaron Stockard, with whom he had gone to high school in Boston. Stockard recalls: "Ben called me up after reading the novel and asked me to take a look and give him my opinion. The thematic questions the book asks fueled such interesting conversations between us. We really felt these characters were worth telling a story about.”

Over the course of a couple of years, Affleck and Stockard began meeting whenever they could and started to structure Lehane’s hundreds of pages of prose into a terse, 2-hour cinematic journey. As they wrote, the material began to resonate even deeper with Affleck, who during that period of time became a parent, shifting his whole perspective on the world. Now, the story’s pitting of a child’s innocence against threats of all kinds, from outright criminal evil to simple neglect, took on an even greater power. "Being a father, and understanding what it truly feels like to have a person in the world that you would die for, really made me look at this story differently,” Affleck explains. "It took on an even deeper resonance for me which I think greatly influenced the point of view of the screenplay.”

Key to Affleck and Stockard’s approach was keeping the roiling moral complexity of Lehane’s world completely intact, rather than letting even a single one of the heavily conflicted characters off easy, as film adaptations often do. "We wanted to focus on this as a story that confronts you with your own ideas of what’s right and what’s good,” Affleck says. "It’s also about how sometimes doing what’s truly right can have very unpleasant consequences, and how intelligent people can come to very different conclusions about a moral dilemma, which can divide even those who love each other.”

Sporting a blue pinstriped shirt and khaki jeans, here’s what Ben Affleck had to tell us about his sensational new film and what it was like directing his younger brother:

MoviesOnline: Clint Eastwood said at the time of Mystic River that Lehane was a very textured crime writer which meant he posed some real challenges adapting his work to the big screen. Did you encounter that?

A: Yes, and if he challenged Clint Eastwood, imagine how he challenged me (laugh). The adaptation was extremely challenging and I had the benefit of a really gifted partner named Aaron Stockard who worked on it with me. It was challenging for a number of reasons, chief among them was that simply on a basic kind of plot level, it was extremely complicated just trying to get all the, not to mention the nuances, but the basic fundamental plot twists, seeding enough of the elements so that you would buy the reveals that happened at the end and understanding simply the basic factual elements of the story was really tough considering that you have however many pages that the book is and you have to distill that into an hour and 54 minute movie. It is hard and then you don’t want to lose all the wonderful nuances, the texture, the dialogue, the ambiance. I picked it really kind of foolishly first of all because I really liked it and because I also thought you know, I’m not that good at writing plot. I don’t really want to write an original story. I’ll find something that has a story architecture that I can fall back on set in a world I understand, and I can work on character and dialogue which I feel more confident about. It just turned out that I set myself up for the most difficult job possible.

MoviesOnline: Well you did it well.

A: Thanks.

MoviesOnline: Did you have Casey in mind when you were writing the story?

A: I actually did not. Originally, the character in the book and the character in the original adaptation was older….say 35 or almost as old as 40. It got to the point where the script was completed and I started to go as far as looking for an actor. I wasn’t still really happy with how I was feeling about this whole story arc and couldn’t find an actor really and then thought what if I make him younger and make him 29, 30 somewhere in there and that I thought gave him more to lose and somewhere to go, and I thought if you’re 40 and something bad happens to you, it’s scarring but it doesn’t really change you fundamentally. But if he’s 10 years younger, maybe it could sort of put a fork in the road of your life. Then I thought, and, (smile) it lets me cast this great actor who knows Boston, who I can get, who I can afford (laugh) so…

MoviesOnline: Did you ever think of starring in this yourself?

A: Initially I wanted to. When I first optioned it, I went to the guy who had the rights with Aaron and said let us try to just adapt this. I thought maybe I’ll just adapt it and then we’ll go to a director and I’ll act in it. That was the idea. But then as I got more and more invested in it…first I didn’t think it worked as a screenplay and we just hadn’t done a very good job, and then I thought we’d done kind of a mediocre job, and then I thought we’d done an OK job, and then I thought maybe I should direct it, and then I thought I can’t direct it and act in it. So it sort of shifted because I was just terrified of the idea -- directing and acting was completely daunting. The idea of directing, alone, was terrifying much less…I don’t know how in the world guys like Clint Eastwood manage to do "Unforgiven” or "Dances with Wolves.” It’s like every shot you’re in it and acting and it just seems incredibly difficult.

MoviesOnline: How did you know that Amy could do this accent so well?

A: I was auditioning people; I was really concerned. This part is pivotal. The mother needs to be, she’s vile, yet I wanted to find somebody you could even…there are moments in the movie where you empathize with her. You feel like this is a woman whose child has been taken and you feel for her and you recognize her humanity and yet, she should also be repugnant in some ways. Then there are times when you recognize she is a victim in her own way of her own upbringing. All this complexity in this character and I had read a ton of actors. And she’s a drug addict and she’s skanky and she’s all this different stuff. I had read all these actresses in Los Angeles but none of them could do the accent or they seemed too put together, just not like real people. Most of the actors I was casting in small roles were non-professional. So I was getting very discouraged and very afraid. And I was sitting there and they brought in this woman and she read the 1^st scene and it was really good and it was one of the shorter scenes and I just looked at her and said, "Oh, you’re from Boston.” And she said, "No, I’m from Queens.” (hits himself in the forehead) I couldn’t believe it. It was the first time in my life that somebody had legitimately, truly, that I know of, totally fooled me right to my face and I said "Well, can you read the next scene?” And she read it and I said, "You’re hired, you’re hired.” I thought I had found this one thing in the movie I know will be good now and the producers kind of huddled and (whispering) "You can’t just offer her a movie like this, you have to have another meeting, you have to talk.” So we had to have a fake meeting (laughs) where she came in and I was like, "So, I’m offering you the movie” and she’s like "OK.”

MoviesOnline: Is there anything that surprised you about Casey now that you were directing him. Did you see him in a different light or was it business as usual?

A: I earned a little more…in some ways (pause). You know I had respect for him so it’s a weird thing to say I have more respect for him but you see someone in a [different] light seeing how talented he is. I was really struck by that and impressed by that. He was brave. And I got to see that he had a fearlessness that I really admired. And I really was just so satisfied and kind of felt personally rewarded by the fact that I saw that he was just going to be… It got to a point halfway through where I was just like he was going to be really good in this movie. It just makes me so happy. I know on some level there are people who just thought "Oh he’s just casting his brother.” And there were some people around and they were going to see the movie and they were going to see that they were wrong.

MoviesOnline: At the Jesse James press conference where there was a lot of press, Casey didn’t want to say anything but he’s obviously very proud of the performance. Did you feel you were kind of pushing him into the role of leading man?

A: It was a new thing for him just in terms of that role. He has played leads before like "Lonesome Jim” and "Gerry” but those are more unconventional films. This is a much more conventional movie so there were definitely ways in which he was in new territory even though he’s been acting for 15 years, I don’t know how long…a long time. And there’s two distinct and separate arenas. There’s the work that you do as an actor in the movie when they turn the camera on and point it at you and you talk or don’t talk. Then there is this arena here where you come in and talk to people and communicate with members of the press and talk, or don’t talk. Yet those two obviously have some overlap and they have a relationship with one another. And a lot of people make no distinction between those two and yet they are totally separate. So the evolution in his navigation of those two things, the one, the acting thing, he gets and he can do. It’s a small adjustment. The other is a bigger adjustment. I’m confident that he’ll make that. And he’s been around a lot of people who have done a lot of movies…it’s not his first time like being around like "Wow, there’s a lot of cameras here.” But still it’s a bigger transition. So if he’s being quiet at the Jesse James press junket, it’s probably because he’s just like taking it in and that’s maybe not a bad thing.

MoviesOnline: Were you guys always in sync on this project or were there times you disagreed?

A: Sure, there were times we disagreed. You’re not doing the right thing if you’re always agreeing, that’s a bad thing. The worst mistakes I’ve made creatively have been when I’ve just always agreed. I’ve made some terrible mistakes just agreeing with folks, Jesus (laughs). We made a lot of stuff a lot better just going through like what are you talking about, why do you want to do that, well that doesn’t make sense, and almost always the scenes got better doing that. Sometimes we maybe talked ourselves in circles and that’s the nature of the creative process. He’s very smart. He’s a very smart guy and he focuses always on making the scene better and the movie better. I think he’s the guy you want doing a movie with you because you know he’s a really good actor and he’s a really good protagonist in the sense that you know protagonists are on camera for most of the movie so he needs to be kind of interesting. Casey is really authentically thinking and living and surprising and engaged throughout while you’re photographing him and [he’s] giving you a wide array of stuff to use and also engaging you and kind of challenging you to make sure that you know what you’re doing and you have an answer for these questions while you’re making the movie.

MoviesOnline: What does it feel like being part of this Boston trilogy of "Mystic River,” "Departed,” and now "Gone Baby Gone”?

A: I mean to be in a Boston trilogy it’s kind of like that’s Everest, Kilimanjaro and you (laugh). Obviously, those are towering giants. I’m just happy to get my movie made, man, you know, those guys are legendary filmmakers and this movie is just a little movie that I’m glad to get out there and hope that people go see and I hope that people like. I will be pleased if in 40 years that I get some portion of those guys’ great success…some fraction of that would be wonderful. For now, I’m just trying to just cobble together a little directing career.

MoviesOnline: What did you learn from Kevin Smith as a director?

A: What I’ve learned from Kevin Smith is…in a way this movie has a very simple actor focused feel to it and it’s similar in some ways to a Kevin movie. Kevin’s got a little bit more verbally rigorous writing focus. He doesn’t permit any deviation of the word whereas this is like it’s OK to change a syllable or two. One of the things I learned from Kevin is that he really cares about and pays attention to language and this is definitely something I took away from him, the rhythm of language and how actors sound and that’s something I really came to appreciate from working with him. I think that’s something that’s really important, like not just what they say, but the cadence and rhythm of how they say it and also make stories that oftentimes are being told in the interest…just holding your interest on the merit of the pure kind of …. Kevin’s kind of relying on a lot of times the raw power of the writing and the importance of the writing and that’s always been the centerpiece of his movies. It’s a reminder that that’s the underpinning of movies and I think that’s a really good thing to learn and remember.

MoviesOnline: Working with Kevin, did you know that you already wanted to direct? What triggered it?

A: Working with Kevin, I mean when I first worked with him in I think ’93 in Mallrats, and I didn’t know anything in ’93, I was very new and just trying to figure things out. But over the course of working with him, I just became really good friends with him and picked up a lot from him and from the other people we worked with and just tried to study and learn from him as I have from all the directors I’ve worked with and over the course of that time developed an increasing interest in trying to direct.

MoviesOnline: What do you think about the difficult moral choice Casey’s character makes at the end of the film?

MoviesOnline: Did you have any Project Greenlight moment in terms of first time directing?

A: They did tell me that I was running out of film at one point (laughs). I was shooting too much film and I was running out of film and I was like "Where’s the film store? Is there a place that is selling film?” They were like, "The film store is in New York City.” I was like, "Well, someone go to the film store?” We got into a like ‘where’s the film store’ discussion. But actually in truth they were just kind of manipulating me. We had fun.

"Gone Baby Gone” opens in limited release on October 19^th.