How The Accountant 2 Surprised One Returning Star & Its Villainous New Assassin: "This Isn't Going To Be Quite What I Thought"

The Accountant 2 is expanding the world of the 2016 Ben Affleck hit and is doing so with new and familiar faces. The long-awaited sequel sees Affleck’s Christian Wolff recruited to help investigate the murder of someone close to them both, putting them on the path of a mysterious ᴀssᴀssin. As he begins his search, Christian enlists the help of his brother, Jon Bernthal’s Braxton, which also forces them to confront their strained relationship and try and find a way to connect.

Alongside Affleck and Bernthal, The Accountant 2 sees the return of Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Marybeth Medina, the Treasury Agent who J.K. Simmons’ Ray King took under his wing in the first film in order to prepare her for working as the agency’s correspondent with Christian and his partner working out of Harbor Neuroscience. The main thrust of the sequel is her recruiting Christian to help find Daniella Pineda’s Anaïs, the only seeming connection to the murder of someone close to them both. However, as they dig further into the ᴀssᴀssin’s past, it’s clear not all is as it seems.

Ahead of the movie’s release, ScreenRant interviewed Cynthia Addai-Robinson and Daniella Pineda to discuss The Accountant 2. The stars reflected on their initial surprise upon reading the script for the sequel, particularly as Addai-Robinson found herself surprised by Marybeth’s journey after the first film, while Pineda also praised the creative freedom director Gavin O’Connor allotted on set, and how he helped her find the specific nuances of her character.

Addai-Robinson Was Very Keen To See Where Marybeth’s Journey Went Next

“…This Isn’t Going To Be Quite What I Thought…”

With the original Accountant‘s ending seeing Marybeth becoming the new Director of the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the door was certainly left open for the sequel to take both her and Christian in a new direction regarding his ties with the government. Reflecting on the wait for the sequel, Addai-Robinson admitted to being surprised by the direction the follow-up took her, particularly her newfound lack of screentime with Simmons, though she was still “very excited to get to revisit this character and this world again” as she felt “there was more story to tell“.

“You wanted to know, ‘Well, what does happen to these characters when you leave them in the first movie?’,” Addai-Robinson expressed. “So, I think we have done what is very difficult to do, which is make a sequel that lives up to the original and heightens everything, elevates everything, and gives you even more. So, I’m really proud, and I’m very excited, because I feel like audiences who love the first one are really going to love the second one.“

After Pineda humorously acknowledged that people “might be saying the second one might be pretty good” after The Accountant 2‘s SXSW premiere, which net the sequel an early 85% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, Addai-Robinson clarified that rather than consider it better, it’s instead “a different experience” from the first film:

There’s humor, which we didn’t necessarily have as much of a humorous element in the first one. You have to have these bigger setpieces, in terms of action, new characters that also bring in an added element. So, I just think that the audience was champing at the bit for a sequel, they had to wait almost nine years, and now they’re going to get something that’s truly worth the wait.

O’Connor Invited Pineda To Think Outside The Box To Create Her Villainous ᴀssᴀssin

“…It Really Made Playing Such A Stone-Cold Killer A Little More Layered…”

Daniella Pineda looking suspiciously at Ray in The Accountant 2

While she may have been the last to be with the movie’s central victim, Pineda’s Anaïs has a lot more to her than meets the eye, particularly in regard to her mysterious past. In reflecting on finding the various nuances of the character, Pineda credited a large part of that process to director Gavin O’Connor, who she praises for giving “a ton of autonomy and creative freedom to his actors“, which is something that was “unprecedented for me.”

“Most of the time you work with a director, they already know what they want, and sometimes, they don’t really want to hear your input,” Pineda lamented. “It’s like, ‘We know how you’re going to look, we know how you’re going to sound.’ That was not the case with Gavin, which is why I now know why so many actors love working with him. I got to pick her hair color. I wanted her to be blonde, and Gavin was like, ‘Okay, tell the department head.’ And I was like, ‘No way, really?!’ [Chuckles]“

Another unique way that O’Connor helped Pineda find her character was through his love of talking about the background of every character, including details that may not make it into the film, or even be in the actors’ immediate minds. “He would ask me questions like, ‘What’s she doing on the weekend?’,” Pineda recalled. “And these were not questions that I was thinking about, but it really made playing such a stone-cold killer a little more layered, and there’s a lot more to it. So it was great, because it wasn’t just like the T-1000 just to be the T-1000, there was context. And I think that Gavin really helped me and held my hand to get there.“

More About The Accountant 2

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 ᴅᴇᴀᴅly conspiracy, becoming targets of a ruthless network of killers who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried.

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