Kerry Washington 'liked the idea of working' with Ben Affleck

The 49-year-old actress stars alongside Ben, 54, in Animals, the new crime-thriller movie, and Kerry has admitted to being a long-time fan of the film star.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Kerry shared: "He wanted to talk to me about a project.

"I remember hoping that I would like the script as much as I liked the idea of working with him … and I actually couldn’t put it down."

Ben wrote and directed the new film, and Kerry relished the chance to work with him.

Kerry also shared details of their first conversation about the project.

The actress said: "I remember getting really excited because before I read it, he told me that, for him, the film was a thriller with a lot of other themes — and one of the themes that was most important to him was marriage.

"I remember thinking, 'They always say that when they want the girl to say yes.' When you’re playing 'the wife' and they want you to do it, they say, 'Oh, the marriage is so important,' because they want you to think your part is important. So, in my mind, I was like, 'We’ll see when I read this thing.'

"When he said, 'Oh, I want you to consider playing my wife in something,' I don’t know why, but I didn’t think it was going to be such a tumultuous, difficult marriage.

"So then when I read it and we jumped on the phone, he was like, 'I really need somebody who’s going to help me flesh this out more and dig into the material with me. We’re going to have a rehearsal process.' That also got me really excited because I love rehearsal so much."

Meanwhile, Ben recently explained how he used AI in the process of making Animals.

The actor-turned-director also acknowledged that he wants to use AI in a collaborative, subtle way.

He told The Hollywood Reporter: "I’m already uncomfortable with some of the ways some tech companies behave around image and likeness, and I feel that actually, as my thesis and what was borne out was, if you give this to people who actually make films, you’re going to get way better results. And we have, and we did.

"And like at Netflix, it’s like, ‘Hey, do you want to use this? Do you want to try this?’ This is a discrete set of tools. It’s not about making fake people or replacing anybody, ever. It’s about another interesting post tool, and if you can see it or if you can tell what it is, like, you’ve ruined it."