How Ben Affleck relates to Christian in 'The Accountant 2': 'Relationships are complex'

AUSTIN – The math is back to mathing with the return of sharpshooter Christian Wolff in "The Accountant 2."

Ben Affleck, who portrays the neurodivergent genius, premiered the action-packed sequel to the 2016 film on Saturday night at the South By Southwest film festival, which runs through March 15. Matt Damon, Affleck's longtime friend and an executive producer on the movie, also attended and the two posed for photos on the carpet.

"The Accountant 2" files into theaters on April 25. When audiences are reunited with Christian, he's getting suited up for a speed dating event. Themes of loneliness are explored in the follow-up film as they were in the original. The yearning for that connection is something that resonated "profoundly" with Affleck, he told USA TODAY on the red carpet.

"That's what's really moving and interesting about this guy; he's a very vulnerable character,” Affleck said. “Yes, on the one hand, he's got strengths, and skills and talents that are really interesting and exceptional. But at the end of the day, what allows people into a story is he's trying to find a connection. He wants to have love in his life. He wants to meet a woman that he can have a connection with. And he sees other people having this, and he knows it's something that matters to him. He's not quite sure how to do it.

“I think a lot of us have felt that way at times,” Affleck, 52, said. “It's not an easy thing to be a person and build authentic connections, and he's estranged from his brother (Braxton, played by Jon Bernthal), the guy he probably loves most in the world. But they're just very different and sometimes it seems like they don't speak the same language. The idea of, ‘How do we try to get along with our friends and family, people even closest to us?’ Sometimes you miss each other, or we hurt each other's feelings.”

The dating in the film is “not treated glibly,” Affleck added. “Relationships are complex and fraught and full of a kind of coded language that we use, and they're hard for everyone to figure out. And that's why I think this movie touches on some really universal, accessible things that I find really moving, funny, beautiful, and I hope audiences do, too.”

In the movie, Christian attempts to woo a girl at a bar by learning moves to “Copperhead Road” to impress her, an acting feat Affleck shared in a post-screening Q&A.

“For me, the challenge, of course, was the months and months that I spent training to line dance, which really qualifies as a stunt for me,” he joked. “Tom Cruise has nothing on me, just in terms of line dancing.”

While Christian and Braxton were separated for most of the first movie, the brothers partner with Marybeth (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) for a new mission.

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“This one, we're sort of together for the whole ride,” Bernthal, 48, said on the carpet. “You never know how that chemistry is really going to work. For me, fortunately or unfortunately, making movies is usually an exercise in me banging my head up against a wall. I'm really hard on myself. I really want to get it right. I like it to be hard. I don't want it to be easy. This one was just really easy, honestly.

“Every day was a joy to go to work with him,” Bernthal applauded. “We just naturally could pick up cues with each other and just pick up where somebody else left off. It sounds cheesy, but I genuinely love him. I love him as a guy. I love him as an artist, and I'm super proud to call him a friend. I'd follow him anywhere.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ben Affleck premieres 'The Accountant 2' at SXSW with Matt Damon