Count on Ben Affleck as a lethal accountant

Ben Affleck in The Accountant (Allstar/WARNER BROS)

AS films go, The Accountant doesn’t sound like the most action-packed.

However, the new movie is far from dull, with Batman v Superman star Ben Affleck in the role of a maths whizz who “uncooks” the books for a new client.

As the Treasury Department closes in on his activities, the body count starts to rise.

“It’s a dream,” says Ben of the role.

“I play a guy named Christian Wolff, who’s an accountant, but we also come to discover that he’s got a secret, a kind of work that he does that’s not so ‘vanilla’.

“We’ve been No 1 in America and had a great audience reaction to it — that’s who you make these movies for, so it’s a lot of fun and very rewarding. and I hope the people in the UK like it as much.

“It’s just a very original story.

“You can usually read these types of scripts and predict what’s going to happen, and this kept surprising me and it had great twists and turns in it.

“The acting challenge at the centre of it was a really great opportunity.”

And with Christian far from your average, play-it-by-the-book type of accountant, Ben hints that he could even be seen as some kind of hero.

“There’s a heroic aspect to the movie, for certain,” he says.

“He’s differently abled and has a whole different circumstance in his life.

“It’s about celebrating that and seeing a different kind of hero as a champion.

“He seems boring on the surface, and then you find out he’s actually anything but.”

The role even required that Ben be trained in a different kind of combat than he was already familiar with as a certain resident of Gotham City.

“It’s an Indonesian style that was challenging to learn,” he says.

“It was very different from the Batman-type of fighting. It was very specific and deliberate and required a lot of rehearsal.

“I think audiences can expect to have fun and be surprised.”

Ben’s co-star Anna Kendrick certainly had fun filming it.

“It’s been really incredible and I got so much positive feedback on social media,” reveals the star, who became a household name after starring in the Twilight films.

“It’s nice when you make a great movie and you really enjoy doing it and it turns out well.”

It was a role that saw Anna able to turn to mum Janice for advice — as she is an accountant.

“She was excited because there’s all these jokes about accountants being boring, and so she was saying: ‘This is a sexy accountant movie. There’s intrigue and fights, and it’s very exciting,’” says Anna, 31.

“You don’t have to be a maths whizz to follow the movie, but since I was saying the lines, I figured I should kind of know what they mean.

“My character is the one who uncovers the very beginning of this mystery, and she doesn’t realise what it is that she’s stumbled upon when she starts working with Christian, Ben’s character.

“They sort of get entangled in this puzzle without even realising what it is that they’re doing.”

The Accountant is out in cinemas on Friday, November 4.

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