Following up his role as Batman in this year's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ben Affleck next stars in The Accountant , furthering his transformation into total action hero. The 44-year-old portrays Christian Wolff, an autistic mathematics genius who works as a freelance accountant for criminal organizations while operating out of a mundane small town office. He's also pretty skilled at fighting and killing people, making him the most badass CPA anyone's ever seen. And while it's undoubtedly his most taxing role yet (get it?), fans are wondering if Ben Affleck's Accountant character is a real person.
Affleck's character is entirely fictional, springing from the mind of Bill Dubuque, who penned the original script. Dubuque got the idea just by wondering about the accountants for criminals and what types of people they must be. "The concept of an accountant — a profession that we normally think of as pretty mundane — who is outside what most would consider conventional and had extraordinary abilities was something different," Dubuque told IncPOP. "If you’re a mainstream company and think someone’s embezzling funds, you have a team of accountants who can determine where the money is going. But if you’re a drug cartel or a Mafia kingpin, you can’t do that. You’ve got to be able to call somebody who can come in, figure out the patterns in your books, and say, ‘This is where the leak is.’ And then get out. As I thought more about what would make this person special, I hit on the notion that he is on the autism spectrum. But he uses it to his advantage, and I just loved the idea of that."
And although there are certainly accountants who work for criminal organizations in real life, such as Roberto Escobar, brother of infamous drug kingpin Pablo Escobar who wrote a book about his experience called The Accountant's Story , there was no such person who influenced the creation of Wolff. Nor was the character influenced by any real life math savants who suffered from mental disabilities, such as A Beautiful Mind subject John Nash. "Christian is fictional and not based on anyone in real life," director Gavin O'Connor said. "His remarkable aptitude for figures is a gift and his physical attributes are a product of his unique upbringing."
There you have it. Ben Affleck's character in The Accountant is entirely fictional, so you have nothing to fear the next time you hire someone to do your taxes... except for maybe an audit.
Images: Warner Bros. Pictures
