Counting His Lucky Stars

From a bureau chief in the Spider-Man trilogy to a police commissioner in the upcoming Justice League, J.K. Simmons is no stranger to working with super stars. Here, he talks about working with Ben Affleck for the first time in The Accountant,before they appear together again in Justice League.

When you were first approached about the project, what intrigued you about The Accountant and made you want to become involved?

Well, I’ll give you the answer, and the true answer is that, initially, it was just the script. I thought the script was so interesting, so layered and so sort of genre-busting. That was definitely the first thing that appealed, and Ben [Affleck] was attached. I don’t think we’d ever met at all, but I was a fan of his.

I knew a little bit of [director] Gavin [O’Connor]’s work, and, really, the first thing I did before meeting with him was to re-watch his film, Warrior. Even though I knew what was happening, and knew what was going to happen, I could not sit down watching that movie. It was so compelling, not just on an action and fight level, but on a storytelling level. The relationship between the brothers and the humanity of it, I thought, was so brilliant.

Then, when we met for the first time in person, I found Gavin to be extraordinarily passionate. We had sort of crammed a lunch into the middle of the day and I ended up staying longer than I had intended or was supposed to – just because he was such a fascinating guy. We talked about everything. We talked about The Accountant some, but we talked about a lot more, just about making movies and about life, about family and about love.

It was a just really great combination of factors, but having that meeting with Gavin absolutely convinced me that he was a guy I wanted to work with and a guy who could really make the most of this screenplay.

What was it like working with Gavin once you started shooting, and how did you find him as a director?