He's always been a fan of Dennis Lehane.
For his new film, Ben Affleck returns to the work of author Dennis Lehane, whose novel Gone Baby Gone was the basis for his first directing job in 2007. The new film is 1920s gangster drama Live by Night. He opens up about working from source material of that calibre.
Ben Affleck stars in 'Live By Night'
"Obviously I'm not the first person to discover Dennis Lehane. He's had great directors adapt his work," Affleck says, referring to Clint Eastwood (Mystic River) and Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island). "His dialogue is really sharp and crackles, the characters are punchy and sexy. Everything just sort of jumps right onto the screen. You don't have to do a lot of work to adapt that stuff because it's just written in a cinematic way in the novel."
Affleck also admits that the cast came together easily, including Chris Cooper (who worked with Affleck in The Town), Chris Messina (Argo) and Sienna Miller (who tested with Affleck for Paycheck). "I just got really lucky and got all my first choices for this movie," he says. "So I was incredibly grateful that these people agreed to be in my movie."
Like Gone Baby Gone, Live by Night is set in Affleck's hometown of Boston. "I think you recognise what's closest to home," he says. "Dennis really gets Boston. He infuses his story with a love for the place, even if parts of it aren't that lovable."
Watch the trailer for 'Live By Night' here:
Then after the first act, the story moves to Florida's Gulf Coast. "You see a lot of New York and Boston gangster movies," Affleck says, "but seeing those kinds of movies in Florida while Florida was still being developed is different. Back then there was wild jungle out in the suburbs!"
Affleck has had a stellar career, but is realistic about its peaks and valleys. He has won two Oscars, for writing Good Will Hunting (1997) and for producing Argo (2012), and in between there were some lean years. "I'd always had a strong idea about my values and the direction I wanted to be headed in," he says, "and then I ran into getting famous and it totally spun me around and I flailed around for a few years. When you're a young man in your 20s, part of that is making mistakes and learning from them. I just made those in front of everybody!"
And he says he hopes to reunite on-screen with his buddy Matt Damon. "I'd love to get a great two-handed script and do a movie with Matt," Affleck says. "But for whatever reason, those scripts are rare."
The planet is in turmoil. Superman is apparently dead and crime rates have surged around...
In the wake of his friend Clark Kent's monumental sacrifice, Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince...
Ben Affleck launched his directing career 10 years ago with his film of Dennis Lehane's...
While this slick dramatic thriller plays with some intriguing ideas and themes, it never actually...
Joe Coughlin was born and raised in a good family, his father was the police...
DC Comics' villains team up for an overcrowded action movie that never quite finds its...
Bruce Wayne knows that the Earth is under threat from evil forces much worse than...
Ben Affleck is cast as Christian Wolff in this new action thriller film The Accountant....
The Suicide Squad was formed by Amanda Waller, the head of Belle Reve Penitentiary and...
After 2013's beefy Man of Steel, director Zack Snyder goes even bigger and darker with...
Every superhero has a dark side and being 100% human, Batman is in doubt over...
When there's nowhere left to turn, the bad guys might just turn out to be...
What happens when two superheroes with vastly differing opinions come head to head? Well, not...
Clark Kent is a reporter for the Daily Planet in his everyday life, but a...