David Fincher's highly-anticipated Gone Girl has had it's world premiere in the Big Apple,
as it opened the 52nd New York Film Festival.
It was a movie that he said to me from the beginning was two things. One, we have to
build empathy with the audience but they also have to not know exactly what you're thinking.
And two, it has to be a performance without vanity. You have to be willing to be totally
naked warts and all, just, you know, because only then will the audience be willing to
sort of believe that you could actually have done something that most protagonist don't do.
Nick Dunne, you are probably the most hated man in America right now.
Ben Affleck delivers quite the performance in the chilling psychological thriller.
He plays a former writer, whose life unravels when his wife Amy, played by Rosamund Pike,
mysteriously vanishes, and through a diary and treasure hunt she gave him as an anniversary
present, he becomes the prime suspect.
His character is thrust in to the media spotlight, which is something Ben says he can relate to.
I feel like I have experience with - you know, this dynamic is a little different because
people are friendly and interested in the movie and it's a film festival. But this dynamic
can turn hostile or aggressive and I've had some of that like unwanted attention. But
you know most people are familiar with the culture of cable news. Like the sort of killing
of the week, and the, whether it's Casey Anthony or Scott Peterson, if you ask the average
American they can probably rattle off ten scandal cases that Nancy Grace talked about
or whatever. And for better or for worse that seems to be something that culturally we really
interested in and that's really what's at the heart of this, not like celebrity focused.
For Rosmund Pike, premiering a movie in which she has one her first majoring starring roles
is a nervous one.
We're releasing this thing that we've worked so hard on for so long to the world. And,
you know, you can work so long undercover and you painstakingly put all these pieces
together and then suddenly you know, you open it up to be judged. Accepted, tasted, savoured.
Helping to ease the nerves though was Reese Witherspoon, one of the producers of the film,
who turned up to lend her support.
Gone Girl gets its UK release on the 3rd of October.