Ben Affleck has starred in many different projects throughout his career. None, however, have been as culturally significant as David Fincher’s Gone Girl. The film has become a massive phenomenon, finding its core, dedicated audience, and being as relevant now as it was ten years ago. Rosamund Pike’s performance as the borderline psychopathic person that is Amy Dunne has become extremely iconic. While her character is the one that is mainly focused on, she would merely be a woman with manipulative tendencies had it not been for her husband, Nick Dunne.
While he proves his intellect more than once throughout the film, there are several moments where he makes less than wise decisions. The biggest example is the press conference where Amy’s disappearance is announced to the public. It was revealed by Fincher that when he was casting for the role of Nick, the exact scene that he had in mind was this one. What made him decide that Affleck would be the perfect person for the role was, interestingly enough, a picture of him smiling.
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David Fincher’s Process For Finding The Perfect Nick Dunne
One of the most formative and important scenes in Gone Girl is when Nick Dunne’s character is asked to take a picture with the missing poster of his wife at the press conference that announces her disappearance. The exact photo is brought up over and over through the course of the film, being dissected by characters and used as proof of his ‘psychopathy’. This is, perhaps, a huge regret of his, among other very big things, and helps lay down the foundation of how the movie’s next hour will progress.
It is safe to say that it was a very big priority for David Fincher to make sure that he did the scene right, and the most integral element of it was choosing the right actor for the role. He confessed how he goes about the casting process for any of his films. The biggest thing that he does is look up pictures of different actors to understand what type of person or actor would be perfect for the character that he is casting.
Ben Affleck Perfectly Fit David Fincher’s Vision
When David Fincher was looking for what type of actors he wanted to look for when making Gone Girl, he stumbled upon pictures of Ben Affleck smiling. There were a few pictures where he had a very specific smile that would perfectly fit with the press conference scene. The issue that the media in the film had with the picture wasn’t that his character takes a photo next to the missing poster of Amy Dunne, but the fact that he did it with a huge smile.
This was especially because the police and the public alike suspected him of murdering his wife or being responsible for her disappearance. Fincher believed that Affleck could perfectly embody all of the emotions that were being felt by Nick in this one shot and decided to pursue him for the role rather than someone like him. Soon after, he was cast in the movie and helped create one of the most iconic films to date.
