“As soon as I read this book, I wanted to make the movie,” Ben Affleck recently told EW about “Live By Night,” his adaptation of the novel by Dennis Lehane. “I love the gritty characters and the great dialogue and this role. At the center of it is his journey, his internal struggle, and how he defines himself.”
READ MORE: Ben Affleck Shows Off Gangster Style In New Look At ‘Live By Night’
The man he’s talking about is Joe Coughlin, the son of Boston Police Superintendent who has not followed his father into a life of law and order. Instead, he’s rumbling around the 1920s, where Prohibition can’t stop booze from flowing, there’s lots of crooked money to be made, and course, there’s a woman too, with Sienna Miller the object of his affection, even though she’s on the arm of a mob boss.
“It’s a little bit like a Bonnie-and-Clyde thing,” Affleck explained. “At first we take it lightly, thinking we can get away with it. We end up paying the price.” Here’s the official synopsis:
“Live by Night” is set in the roaring `20s when Prohibition hasn’t stopped the flow of booze in an underground network of gangster-run speakeasies. The opportunity to gain power and money is there for any man with enough ambition and nerve and Joe Coughlin, the son of the Boston Police Superintendent, long ago turned his back on his strict upbringing for the spoils of being an outlaw. But even among criminals there are rules and Joe breaks a big one: crossing a powerful mob boss by stealing his money and his moll. The fiery affair ends in tragedy, setting Joe on a path of revenge, ambition, romance and betrayal that propels him out of Boston and up the ladder of Tampa’s steamy rum-running underworld.
Co-starring Elle Fanning, Brendan Gleeson, Chris Messina, Zoe Saldana and Chris Cooper, “Live By Night” opens on Christmas Day.
