As small as the humble Ben Affleck might make himself seem, there’s no question who was top dog at TIFF’s press conference Friday for the crime drama The Town.
It’s not just that the director and star was doing most of the talking. It’s that when he spoke, he commanded attention from not only the journalists but also the rest of his cast.
Take The Hurt Locker’s Jeremy Renner, who by the way looks a lot like Sean Penn’s younger doppelganger. Dressed in his typical funeral black suit, the distracted Renner could be seen whispering sweet nothings into the fetching Blake Lively’s ear or fiddling with his watch as she watched him. But when Affleck spoke, Renner stared at his director with burning intensity.
Affleck and his cast (Rebecca Hall, Renner, Chris Cooper, Lively and Jon Hamm) were on hand fielding questions about their on-set dynamics and how they got into their roles as Boston’s not so finest.
The film is set in Charlestown, a neighbourhood that ranks as the bank robbery capital of the world. Affleck, described by producer Basil Iwanyk as “the Pope of Boston,” introduced his cast to many locals, so that they could adopt the Charlestown mannerisms and speech rhythms.
Mad Men’s Hamm, who plays a gung-ho FBI agent in The Town, worked directly with an FBI consultant while Cooper and Renner visited a local prison to familiarize themselves with the felon types they play.
From there, Affleck gave his cast the space to create.
“These are great actors,” says the director, who’s been looking especially lanky lately, as if both directing and acting has stretched him thin. “This is not acting school. I’m not going to sit down and tell them anything. It’s not about showing them what to do. It’s about providing for them.”
Affleck significantly plays down his part in the process of garnering terrific performances, insisting that all he did was make the right casting decisions and create a comfortable space for his actors to “take risks, bring their ideas and do twenty takes” all while feeling “supported, loved and admired.”
It was very much a collaborative effort, he said. He sought ideas from his cast and even took some acting tips from co-star Hall, who was sure to point out when he was playing his monologues “a little big.”
“In a sense,” he said, “[the actors were] directing the movie.”
Read a review of The Town.
