The Accountant 2 star Daniella Pineda spoke with ComingSoon about her action-packed role in the Ben Affleck movie. Pineda discussed her character Anaïs, if she might return for The Accountant 3, and more. The sequel is now playing in theaters.
“Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) has a talent for solving complex problems. When an old acquaintance is murdered, leaving behind a cryptic message to “find the accountant,” Wolff is compelled to solve the case. Realizing more extreme measures are necessary, Wolff recruits his estranged and highly lethal brother, Brax (Jon Bernthal), to help. In partnership with U.S. Treasury Deputy Director Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), they uncover a deadly conspiracy, becoming targets of a ruthless network of killers who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried,” says the synopsis for The Accountant 2 featuring Daniella Pineda.
Tyler Treese: The Accountant 2 had such a strong opening weekend. You’re no stranger to being in big movies. What’s been the highlight of seeing all the fan reactions so far? Because it’s been a real crowd pleaser.
Daniella Pineda: I think what I’ve loved so much is that I got to be in a sequel that many are saying, and many who worked on it. ’cause everyone who worked on the first film worked on the second one, and it’s almost like they took what they loved about the first one and they really like stretched it out and made it funny and it gave it all of this life. And so I think that I’m most excited about the fact that fans and everyone seeing the second one is maybe better than the first. And the first is great, but the second one’s really good.
I felt like you had a tricky role because for most of the film, your character is very stoic. She’s all business, and we learn why throughout the story. How was it approaching that sternness and still making it interesting? You still wind up making these scenes memorable even though you can’t play up a ton of personality.
Yeah, that was actually it. It’s interesting you point that out because Gavin had told me, Gavin O’Connor, the director, had told me, “Look, on the paper in the script, she’s the T-1000, right? But we don’t want her to be completely devoid of humanity. She’s like 99% devoid of humanity and then there’s 1% of a person in there. So you have to figure something out.”
We did a lot of backstory, which I normally don’t do for movies. When they journal as the character or Gavin would ask me like, “What does this character do on a Saturday night? Does she have friends? Does she hang out?”
Turns out, no, she is definitely a loner. But I had to do a lot of character work just to sort of figure out how to represent that 1%. But also she’s still Jaws, she’s still a predator. So that was a delicate balance, but I also think that the story lends itself to someone who is not just a villain, but really more an anti-hero.
Gavin’s also been very forward about wanting to do a third film. Would you like to return? It feels like there’s still more that we could explore.
Daniella Pineda: Yeah, I feel like the second film purposefully just lends it so you get a dash of her, and it would be a shame if she didn’t return. But I think that’s also what we’ve been hearing from fans is they want to see her again, and I wouldn’t mind. That sounds fun.
I would love to see you and John Bernthal interact on screen because he is so funny in this.
Yeah, he would be really, really goofy and ask a lot of questions and talk and she would just be staring at him. I think that would be really funny.
In this film, you have a giant fight scene with Cynthia Addai-Robinson. It’s a very intense fight. It’s very technical. How is it having this all-woman battle that’s just as hard-hitting and technical as we see Ben and Jon get up to in this film?
It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of work. I mean, I had to learn Muay Thai which is not… I’ve done boxing, I’ve done a lot of stuff, but I’ve never done Muay Thai and whew! Muay Thai is tough.
We thankfully had our fight scene at the end of production, so we had the duration of the film to rehearse over and over and over again that fight scene. We had two amazing doubles and an incredible stunt department. It’s one of those things where you really have to get it right because if you don’t, not only is it going to suck on camera, but also you could really hurt someone.
I mean, if you don’t do something, if you do an elbow and you do it too close to the face, people get their teeth knocked out. So, thankfully, I had a wonderful partner in Cynthia. We also just became friends outside of the movie, and it’s always just so much nicer when you really love who you’re working with. But yeah, I mean she and I went through the ringer. It was intense.
Thanks to Daniella Pineda for taking the time to talk about The Accountant 2.
