Watch the Gone Baby Gone trailer

Some time ago Ben Affleck’s career seemed to slip off the radar. He became better known for his off-screen romances with Gwyneth Paltrow (dubbed “Benneth”) and Jennifer Lopez (“Bennifer”), and languished in a purgatory of comedies and romances. What happened to the promising young talent who won an Oscar in 1998 for co-writing the screenplay of Good Will Hunting, people muttered. Affleck seemed relegated to gossip column fodder.

Gone Baby Gone – a vivid thriller about a girl aged 4 kidnapped in a tight-knit Boston neighbourhood – will change that. Affleck directed, produced and co-wrote the film, and cast his younger brother, Casey, in the lead. Last year it got a standing ovation at the American Film Festival in Deauville, and was heralded one of the best thrillers of the decade.

However, the timing of its release (set for last year) was scuppered by the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Also, the film’s missing girl, Amanda, is the image of Madeleine McCann – and the young actress’s name is Madeline O’Brien. When she first appeared on screen in a press screening to British journalists, there was an audible gasp.

Affleck cancelled the release of Gone Baby Gone. At the time he said: “I am acutely aware that a situation like Madeleine McCann’s is a matter of life and death. Nobody is taking it lightly. None of us knew about Madeleine McCann when we were shooting the film. I went on the internet to find out about her long after we had finished shooting. It is the least anyone can do to delay the release. It’s just a movie, after all.”

Affleck is married to the actress Jennifer Garner and they have a daughter, Violet, 2. “Being a father made me look at this story differently. It took on an even deeper resonance, which I think greatly influenced the point of view of the screenplay. When I first read the book I was aware that bad things happen in the world. I wasn’t drawn to the story because of the subject matter of a child being kidnapped. Before I was a father I thought of something like this only in the abstract.

“If you asked most people what is the worst thing that can happen in the world, they would say terrible things happening to children. After I had a child it switched to be an emotional, visceral feeling. It’s a much more deeply felt issue for me now. Even the most saccharine television that has children in it I often find myself about to cry. All of a sudden it’s a much deeper issue. By that same token I don’t think I would have made the movie any differently if I had known about Madeleine McCann.” Affleck had wanted to direct for some time and had read Gone Baby Gone,the fourth in the series of crime novels by Dennis Lehane (who also wrote Mystic River, which Clint Eastwood made into a film) about a coed team of Boston detectives.

“I sought out the book rights, got to writing with my high school buddy, Aaron Stockard, and last summer we started shooting, using nonprofessional actors as much as possible. We’d walk into a bar and say: ‘Nobody leave. We’ll buy your beer, just sit there’ and we’d set up cameras around them. I wanted to make a movie that looked like a great documentary with a rich gallery of characters.

“Casey was my first choice for Patrick [the private detective who works with his girlfriend, played by Michelle Monaghan]. Casey is 32 and I wanted him to create a baby-faced detective who’s constantly being mocked for his youthful appearance. He’s a very smart actor and I think we both benefited being brothers. One of us would see the wood, one of us would see the trees. We’ve been acting since we were kids and we somehow manage to arrive at the same page.” It was a labour of love that came in on a $19 million budget: the same as Good Will Hunting ten years ago. “So if you include inflation, this movie is much cheaper!”

Affleck seems almost preppie in a suit and crisp blue shirt, affable, cautious, serious. Boston-born and bred, he got into acting through his father being involved in a local theatre company and his mother’s best friend being a casting director. “Our mother still lives in Boston and she used to come on set while we were shooting but we had to stop her visiting because she made us feel like nine-year-olds. We felt like professionals until Mom came along!”

Affleck is circumspect on the exigencies of fame. “You do publicity. It starts off seeming more or less innocuous, talking about your film. Then more and more of your personal life slips out. Your private life gets traction and it sells a lot of magazines and all of a sudden you find yourself flying off into the woodchipper, like that scene in Fargo with the body in the grinder. It’s the price of your privacy going up in woodchips. You need a sense of humour and fairly thick skin in this business and I have a bit of both. Hey, at the end of the day I get to do my work. I like my life.”

He’d “love” to work with Garner “if she would work with me, but she might just want to work with a real director. And we’re going to have another baby soon now that we’ve figured out how to do it. We want lots of kids.”

So is he an actor or a director? He pauses for a moment. “I might do a little acting here and there, but not the sort of thing that’s likely to provoke major coverage. I’m trying to be smart, but it’s hard. I don’t want to do something if it’s not good. The trick is to just say no and wait, but I can only do that for a while.”

But he’s determined that the laddish, ladies-man Affleck of old is firmly consigned to the past. “I don’t think the Hollywood cover-boy stuff is something that you’ll see me doing now. I’ll do character roles. It doesn’t require the same kind of sacrifice, in terms of quality of life.” It looks as if the quality of Gone Baby Gone will finally bury the ghosts of Benneth and Bennifer.

Gone Baby Gone is releasednationwide on June 6 2008

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