Ben Affleck Was Cast In Gone Girl Because Of His Awkward Red Carpet Smile
Aside from being a talented actor and director, Ben Affleck is also well known for being sad. At least, that's what the internet thinks. There was the whole "sad Batman" meme that did the rounds after images were first released of Affleck's Dark Knight looking particularly somber in the messy spectacle that was "Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice." Then, during an infamous interview for the film alongside Henry Cavill, Affleck seemed to zone out completely as his co-star spoke, leading to even more widespread "sad Affleck" memes. He even addressed it in a Radio 1 interview, saying, "It taught me not to do interviews with Henry Cavill where I don't say anything and they can lay Simon & Garfunkel tracks over it."
But these are just some of many memes that have immortalized the actor as a withdrawn, perpetually irritated type. The rest have focused on photos of him looking dejected or disinterested on press tours or even, in the case of the popular smoking meme, when he's just trying to hang out by himself. For the most part, Ben Affleck is used to having to put on a brave face, but when he lets it slip, the memers are waiting.
As it turns out, though, Affleck's penchant for treating media appearances and press tours like a chore he'd rather not be doing actually translated quite well to his acting career. In the case of 2014's "Gone Girl," director David Fincher cast Affleck after recognizing the star's talent for conveying his disinterest even while smiling for the press
Parallel arcs
Based on Gillian Flynn's 2012 novel of the same name, "Gone Girl" told the story of a married couple whose relationship becomes strained before the wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike), goes missing. Her husband, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) quickly becomes the main suspect in her disappearance and courts even more suspicion after he breezes through the media frenzy that follows with an air of insouciance. This is most obvious in the press conference scene, where police, Amy's parents, and Nick appeal to the public for information. At one point, Nick poses next to a "MISSING" poster for his wife and is told to smile by the photographers, which he dutifully does — clearly uninvested in the proceedings.
It's a pivotal moment in both the book and film, and was featured in the "Gone Girl" trailer — becoming the act that really solidifies people's suspicions that Nick is the man responsible for his wife going missing. As such, David Fincher wanted to make sure he had an actor that could perform this scene by conveying both disinterest and the sense that he wasn't really aware of what he was doing, so as to keep the mystery alive. And for Affleck, he couldn't have been more perfect — mostly due to his own experiences with the press and his real-life baggage. As the "Air" star told Charlie Rose in 2014:
"I'm not the only actor who's been through tabloid experiences and has photographers outside of their home and that sort of thing. But it's something that I've sort of made peace with and there's a particular sort of quality to that experience of my life that is parallel in some ways to some of the arcs of the story."
'Okay I'll do this, but then I get to leave'
It's this "parallel quality" that intrigued David Fincher, who harnessed Affleck's disinterested bearing for his film. In a November 2023 interview with Empire, Fincher took a look back at the press conference scene, saying:
"It's the thing I was casting from. I started out going, 'Whoever plays this part, they're going to have to make this one moment believable.' It's such an interesting dichotomy when you see this happy snapshot of somebody 'Missing' and you know, odds are, when they find this person, they're not going to look anything like this. But the idea that Gillian [Flynn, author and screenwriter] had conceived of, which was so funny, is somebody says, 'Smile!' and he does it. He isn't sophisticated about it. He just got caught not thinking."
Fincher — whose next project is "The Killer" for Netflix — went on to explain that Aflleck's experience as being one half of "Bennifer" — the portmanteau used to describe the actor's relationship with Jennifer Lopez — was crucial to his casting. The director added:
"As I went looking through photos of Ben, I found a lot of those things where it looks like he's going, 'Okay, I'll do this, but then I get to leave. If I give you what you want, I can get on with my life.' And if I cast Ben, I was going to use everything that came before as rich soil in which to grow the Nick Dunne character."
Why Affleck accepted after being told by Fincher, "You're the punch line. You're the punch line for every f*****g scene in this movie," we don't know. But he clearly recognized the parallels between his own life and that of Nick's.