After nine years in the making, The Accountant 2 is finally set to release, and it’s a lot different from the first movie. Director Gavin O’Connor and star Ben Affleck return to pick up the story of the brilliant Christian Wolff, who, this time, is joined by his brother Brax (Daredevil: Born Again’s Jon Bernthal). That’s not all though, as J.K. Simmons’ Ray King and Cyntha Addai-Robinson’s Marybeth Media also return.
New to The Accountant 2 cast is Daniella Pineda, who plays Anaïs. As the movie’s antagonist, Pineda was able to add a new villainous role to her resumé, which includes Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and American Odyssey. Although Anaïs is a villain, she is also a complex character who is key to some of the film’s most interesting moments.
ScreenRant’s Liam Crowley interviewed The Accountant 2 director Gavin O’Connor and stars Cynthia Addai-Robinson and Daniella Pineda at SXSW. They discussed the long wait for the sequel and what is in store for their characters in the film. Plus, Pineda and Addai-Robinson teased their upcoming projects, including The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3.
The Long Wait For The Accountant 2 Was In Part Due To “Musical Chairs” at Warner Brothers
The Film Was Tied Up At That Studio Until WB Allowed It To Go Elsewhere
The Accountant released in 2016, and director Gavin O’Connor set out trying to make a sequel shortly after. “There was some musical chairs being played at Warner Brothers in regard to the regime changes,” O’Connor began when asked why the wait was so long, “There was Covid, there were lockdowns, there was a strike… so it [had] some starts and stops.”
Affleck is part of the reason why O’Connor was finally able to get the movie off the ground. “Ben started his own studio with Matt [Damon],” O’Conor said. He continued: “I don’t know all the details. I don’t know if Warner Brothers didn’t want to do a co-[finance] or co-studio [deal] … but they very generously allowed us to take the movie elsewhere. The first place we went was Amazon, and we formed a partnership with them.”
Cynthia Addai-Robinson Teases Marybeth’s New Journey In The Accountant 2
“A Different Experience Overall”
The trailer for The Accountant 2 kills off Simmons’ Ray King, who Marybeth Medina worked closely with in the first film. “He is there, and I’m not totally on my own,” Addai-Robinson said when asked how it was to work without Simmons, “but it was nice to feel an evolution both for Marybeth as a character and for me as a person, because eight, going on nine years have elapsed between the first [film] and the second.”
“For me,” Addai-Robinson continued, “The excitement was not just getting to see J.K. again–although [in] a very different set of circumstances from the first movie–but getting to work with Ben and Jon and Daniella and just having a different experience overall.”
Later in the interview, Addai-Robinson elaborated on a big part of that different experience: “In the first movie, I didn’t get to work with Ben. I didn’t get to work with Jon. I just got to sort of admire their work from afar.” In The Accountant 2, Marybeth Medina is very much in the mix with the Wolff brothers.
“I’m like the straight man between these two interesting brothers,” Addai-Robinson stated, “just trying to square my sense of what I define as getting justice [and] following the rule of law with their version of that … but one of the things that really resonates with me in terms of the story we’re telling is this relationship between brothers and family and watching that play out.”
That dynamic is one of the story’s most engaging aspects, the actor said: “It’s complicated, as it always is with family, and I think that is really going to resonate with audiences.”
Daniella Pineda Hypes Up Anäis
“I’m In My Villain Stage Now”
Pineda began her segment of the interview by introducing her coat, which was named Fernando after the film’s stunt coordinator to, in Pineda’s words, “give you a really kick-ass fight scene.” Pineda went on to share her excitement about playing Anäis: “I’m in my villain stage now in my career, which I didn’t think would ever happen. It’s a part that I’ve never gotten to play … I had my audition, and I was scared to death, [but] I was like ‘Man, if I get this, this is going to be so fun.’”
O’Connor jumped in: “[Daniella has] an intelligence about here, and there’s also a mysterious quality to her … she wasn’t letting me entirely in, which I thought was really good. And there were other qualities that I was looking for that I can’t talk about right now. [But] we spent some time together, we played with the scenes … and we had some really, I thought, important conversations about the character.”
“She’s a villain,” Pineda added, “but it’s definitely a complex character.”
The Accountant 3 Is In The Works
O’Connor Reveals Amazon’s Excitement About Making The Franchise A Trilogy
When asked when audiences will get The Accountant “cubed” (a play on The Accountant 2’s logo), O’Connor said the following about changing the logo for the sequel, and the possibility of a threequel: “That was important to me, and I was very happy that Amazon embraced that. We were always calling it The Accountant squared. [The Accountant 3] won’t take eight years.”
Addai-Robnson & Pineda Discuss Their Big Upcoming Projects
From The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power To Dora The Explorer
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3 goes into production later this year, and Addai-Robinson is set to reprise her series role as Tar-Míriel. “I’m very excited,” the actor began, “By the time I go back, believe it or not, it will have been almost two years since I wrapped the second season.” She went on to say, “I am excited to go back to Middle-Earth. It’s a huge shift … I don’t really know what awaits me when I return, but I’m definitely going to be happy to see everybody.”
When Pineda was asked if she would be returning to Jurassic World this summer, she gave an unfortunate, but hopeful update: “I’m not in this next one, but who knows? However, I will say I am a major character in the next Dora the Explorer movie, so watch out.”
The Accountant 2 premiered March 8 at Paramount Theater as part of SXSW 2025.
