Ben Affleck has named the co-star whose performance has continued to haunt him more than a decade after acting together.
The Good Will Hunting star portrayed Nick Dunne, a suspect linked to the mysterious disappearance of his wife, Amy Dunne, in the 2014 David Fincher-directed thriller Gone Girl.
Affleck has admitted that he’s “still afraid” of his co-star and on-screen wife Rosamund Pike in an interview with Variety, while looking back on some of the conversations they had after they shot the movie.
“I’m like, ‘Hey Rosamund. How are you?'” Affleck, 54, said in the recorded video interview, pretending to be skittish.
“She still has that, sort of, look. You know what I mean?” he continued, as he then attempted to mimic Pike’s cold performance in the movie, as well as her British accent.
“Hello Ben, it’s nice to talk to you,” Affleck said in a mysterious tone, in character as Pike.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, f***,'” Affleck joked. “She still has that quality. It was a great performance. She was great in the movie.”
Adapted from the Gillian Flynn novel of the same name, Gone Girl follows Nick and Amy, a couple with a seemingly perfect marriage. Their love story takes a turn when Amy unexpectedly goes missing on their wedding anniversary, and Nick becomes a prime suspect. It emerges that she staged her own disappearance to frame her husband.
Pike earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in 2015, but the award ultimately went to Julianne Moore for her role in Still Alice.
Affleck and Pike were not the first choices to play the couple at the center of the storyline. Jon Hamm was originally considered for the role, but he was unable to film it due to his commitments to the TV series Mad Men, which was in its sixth season.
“It was meant to be me, but we had to film the continuing adventures of Mr. Draper,” he said during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live in 2023.
Pike’s role almost went to Reese Witherspoon until Fincher decided she wasn’t right for the role.
“[Fincher] sat me down — and this is not on David, but David’s like, ‘You’re totally wrong for this part, and I’m not putting you in it,’” Witherspoon told the Las Culturistas podcast.
Though she missed out on the role, she said in retrospect that “he was totally right.”
“Fincher just killed it, and Rosamund Pike is so diabolical and Ben Affleck is sort of the rube on the other side of it.”
Gone Girl was a huge hit, grossing $369.3 million at the global box office.
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