SIMMONS GIVES CHASE
HIS career spans film, TV and the stage, both on and off-Broadway. Oscar-winning J.K. Simmons, known for diverse roles, currently stars in
Playing Ray King, who runs the Treasury Department’s Crime Enforcement Division, he closes in on freelance accountant Christian Wolff, the man working for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organisations. Here, Simmons talks about his role.
What intrigued you about The Accountant and made you say yes?
I thought the script was interesting, so layered and sort of genre-busting. And Ben (Affleck) was attached. We had never met but I was a fan. I knew a little of (director) Gavin (O’Connor)’s work and the first thing I did before meeting him was to re-watch his film, 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 brilliant.
When we met for the first time, 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, about making movies and about life, family and love.
It was just a great combination of factors, but having that meeting with Gavin absolutely convinced me that he was a guy I wanted to work with and the one who could really make the most of this screenplay.
What was it like working with Gavin?
Ideal, really, because he was so thoroughly prepared. He always knew what he wanted but was open to being a collaborator.
He was, to me, like the general who knows every single moving part, but he was also down there in the trenches with the grunts, whether it’s actors or grips or anyone.
What about your character?
He’s trying to solve the puzzle. I read this script and the things that are surprising as it unfolds completely, really took me by surprise. I just saw the finished product for the first time and Anna (Kendrick) was at the same screening with her boyfriend. He’s a cinematographer and obviously knows the business very well, and I was really pleased to hear him say that he did not see things coming, the puzzle elements of the story and the twists and turns of the plot.
I say all this just so people will watch the movie and not try to learn too much about it before they go see it because so much of what makes the movie interesting is letting it unfold.
Cynthia Addai-Robinson plays the agent your character brings in to track down the Accountant, Marybeth Medina. What is their dynamic and what do you think Cynthia brings to the role?
Ray recruits Marybeth Medina, somewhat unethically, to be his heir. It’s easy to see him as a self-serving character in that but I think he has the greater good in mind as well, ultimately. I think our characters find interesting commonality, which, for me, is so important.
Cynthia was great, first of all. She brought groundedness, and a real honesty and reality to the character.
One of the things that I said to Gavin when we talked was, “I don’t want some glamorous, gorgeous young babe to be playing
Marybeth Medina.”
That part hadn’t been cast yet and it was important to me that she just be real and believable as this character, who comes from a rough background.
So, then, when I saw that he’d cast this beautiful actress, I was initially thinking, “Oh, man, really?
That’s too bad.” But, obviously,
I wouldn’t be saying that if it didn’t have a happy ending.
Cynthia is obviously much younger and less experienced than I, so there was that dynamic of the mentor and the protege that sort of imitated our life, and that added an interesting aspect to the relationship between our characters.
In terms of the actual detective work that’s being done in the movie, Marybeth is doing 90 per cent of it, and Ray is the guy pulling the strings. But he has also done his homework, researching and finding her as the right person for the job.