Ben Affleck’s Refusal to Play a Mets Fan in ‘Paycheck’ Forced a Change in the Script
Ben Affleck once allegedly delayed production on Gone Girl for refusing to play a fan of his baseball team’s arch-nemesis. Years ago, he made changes to a lesser known feature when he was faced with the same dilemma.
Ben Affleck refused to play a Mets fan in ‘Paycheck’
Paycheck was a 2003 thriller based on a Philip K. Dick novel. The film was rounded out by an ensemble cast that included the likes of Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman. John Woo was the director who adapted the project for the big screen.
Affleck portrayed a top engineer who was entrusted with sensitive corporate information and secret projects from powerful organizations. After Affleck’s character executed his job, he’d have his memory erased to protect the privacy of these corporations.
“He basically rips off other people’s ideas for different companies, copies them and he doesn’t have much of a life,” Affleck once told Coming Soon. “In the future, these companies, in order to maintain the proprietary nature of technology, has developed a way to erase the memory of the person who’s worked on it so you don’t take corporate secrets with you in your mind, which I’m sure technology companies would do if they could.”
The intriguing story and Woo initially attracted Affleck to the feature. But he admittedly felt the movie was crossing a line when he discovered his character was a fan of the Mets.
“I mean, I got family in Boston, you know what I’m saying? They don’t take this stuff lightly. I had to try and pass it off on John, you know, I was like, ‘So, I think, interestingly enough, just as a note, mmm, I think Red Sox might work better, in terms of the public consciousness, maybe a better joke with them wining the series. I just think that might play better,” Affleck said.
Woo would agree to the character change.
Matt Damon was the reason Ben Affleck starred in ‘Paycheck’
Originally, Woo saw Damon in the lead role based on the actor’s previous work as an action star.
“Interestingly enough, John went to Matt first, because he saw The Bourne Identity and loved what Matt did in it. And Matt was obviously flattered to meet John Woo,” Affleck once said in an interview with IGN. “But he read the script, and he was like, ‘I can’t do two amnesia pictures. Otherwise people are going to say, ‘Why are you doing so many amnesia pictures?’”
Similarly to The Bourne Identity, Affleck’s character would be on the run from a powerful authority after losing his memory. But even though Damon felt Paycheck was too close to his Bourne films, he liked the script enough to recommend it to Affleck.
“He called me and said, ‘You know, I met with John. There’s a really good script. You ought to check it out and get on this.’ And I said, ‘Really? Okay.’ And, as luck would have it, John was in New York to meet with Matt and flew back to Los Angeles, and on the plane, the movie they were showing was Changing Lanes, and I got offered the movie when he got back,” Affleck recalled.
Ben Affleck felt pressure playing a leading man in a Philip K. Dick movie
Affleck joined a class of leading Hollywood men who’d starred in Philip K. Dick adaptations when he did Paycheck. Before him, actors like Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise starred in these types of films with Blade Runner and Minority Report respectively. This admittedly intimidated Affleck who was following in his predecessor’s footsteps as an action star.
“You feel like they’ve worked really well for these other movies, but it’s also scary because it’s a high bar. And there’s been like big giganto stars that have played these roles before, and so that’s scary – Harrison, I’m constantly following Harrison! And Arnold and Tom Cruise, so that’s big shoes to fill, but by the same token, it’s worth the risk because you’ve got great material to work with,” he said.
