Ben Affleck Sizzles in ‘Gone Girl’

John Scura

Ever wonder what it’s like to be caught in a media storm as a suspected murderer? This is the fate suffered by Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne in the new thriller Gone Girl. Things are bad for Nick as soon as the film opens: He’s lost his job as a journalist and his mother has taken ill, which prompts him and his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) to relocate to be at her side. But when Amy disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary, signs of a struggle suggest foul play — and it doesn’t take long for the public to envision Nick as Amy’s murderer.

Gone Girl is stylishly directed by David Fincher who deliberately strengthened the parallels between the storyline and the real-life media firestorm following Scott Peterson’s murder of his wife Laci. He even went so far as to mimic the Petersons’ wedding photo by shooting Affleck and Pike in identical garb and poses for the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

Fincher has said that he cast Affleck as the lead specifically because the actor has had a lot of experience with strong media scrutiny. “The baggage he comes with is most useful to this movie,” he told Film Comment. “I was interested in him primarily because I needed someone who understood the stakes of the kind of public scrutiny that Nick is subjected to, and the absurdity of trying to resist public opinion. Ben knows that, not conceptually, but by experience.”

Affleck has agreed with Fincher’s assessment during an interview with the New York Times. “There’s nothing really about this guy or character that I felt connected to personally,” he said. “Except that I have definitely felt as though I was looking at a version of my life that I didn’t recognize through the prism of the media. I think for me there’s the idea that, ‘Oh, he was callow and foolish in his youth and has sort of learned the error of his ways and has redeemed himself and is now like, maybe, a person of substance.’ But it wasn’t that I was lost and now I’m found. It was because we grow up. We kind of evolve.”

Based on the 2012 novel by Gillian Flynn, who also penned the screenplay, Gone Girl came to the attention of Reese Witherspoon, who felt it would be a strong project for her production company Type A Films. Her team was more than happy to land Fincher to direct after his string of box office and critical successes like Seven, The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. While Affleck is also a fine filmmaker, helming Gone Baby Gone, The Town and Argo, he had no problem leaving the director’s chair to work with Fincher. “David could have said, ‘I’m doing a project called The Phone Book’ and I would have done it,” Affleck joked. “He’s at the very, very tip-top of the list of directors I admire and want to learn from.”

Fincher’s reputation for shooting more than 20 takes didn’t daunt Affleck in the least. “It was music to my ears,” said Affleck. “I love that idea of almost a hair shirt of a movie, when you’re just working very hard all day, every day…. [and] a guy like David, he hasn’t made a bad movie.”

As a writer/producer/director, Affleck has received two Academy Awards and two Golden Globes, and he’s confident that Gone Girl will add another jewel to his impressive career. After seeing the final cut, he unexpectedly announced that the thriller is the perfect date movie. “It’s the kind of movie that a husband and wife could talk about afterwards,” Affleck explained. “I think a man and a woman would have different takes on what happens.”

Gone Girl hits theaters on October 3.