Ben Affleck's Gone Girl Co-Star Confirmed That Wild Rumor You Heard Is Wrong

No, Ben Affleck apparently did not shut down filming on "Gone Girl" because he, a lifelong Boston Red Sox devotee, staunchly refused to don a Yankees cap during a scene.

Back in 2021, Affleck's on-screen twin sister Carrie Coon — who played Margot Dunne to Affleck's Nick Dunne in "Gone Girl" — set the record straight and claimed that she doesn't think that whole fracas ever actually happened. At least, if there was some sort of issue, she doesn't remember it (and it should be said here that she is not in the scene where Affleck would have had to wear the dreaded Yankees hat).

While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" and other projects, Carrie Coon addressed the rumor about her 2014 project with Affleck. "I do not recall a four-day shutdown over a hat," she told reporter Brian Davids. "So I think that might've been a touch of exaggeration, though they are both very passionate. And also, David Fincher gives Ben a lot of sh** just in general. But Ben really likes it. I mean, the thing that was hard about being on set is that Ben was always behind the camera asking David why he was doing what he was doing and interrogating him like he was a film school nerd. So it was sometimes hard to get Ben to focus." This is her recollection, but around the time of the film's release — and on its DVD commentary — Fincher and Affleck were both singing a different tune.

Here's the thing, though; David Fincher and Ben Affleck both tell a completely different story, or at least they did back when the movie first came out. In a brief 2014 feature in The New York Times, Affleck spoke to the paper of record and said that he and Fincher had a huge spat over the hat and that he absolutely drew the line at wearing it, particularly because everyone knows the Boston native is a die-hard Red Sox fan.

"I said, 'David, I love you, I would do anything for you,'" Mr. Affleck said to the outlet, "'But I will not wear a Yankees hat. I just can't. I can't wear it because it's going to become a thing, David. I will never hear the end of it. I can't do it.' And I couldn't put it on my head. It was an uprising; it was a coup, I rioted. It was a one-man riot against the Yankees."

Fincher corroborates Affleck's account of the story, so it's possible that Carrie Coon just didn't remember any of this happening, or she's correct in that Fincher and Affleck really blew things out of proportion (or just wanted to dunk on each other for fun or something). "I really wanted it to be a Yankees cap but, being from Boston and not being very professional as an actor, Ben refused to wear a Yankees cap," Fincher said during the director's commentary on the movie's DVD and Blu-Ray, according to Rolling Stone. "I mean, it did not come to blows, but we had to shut down production for four days." So what hat does Nick wear in the scene? A New York Mets cap (an apparent compromise).

No matter what baseball cap Ben Affleck wears in "Gone Girl" — and whether or not it actually shut down production at any point — it can be argued that the role of Nick Dunne is still, to this day, the best in Affleck's entire oeuvre as an actor. (I will argue that, to be clear.) In Gillian Flynn's novel, Nick describes himself as having "a face you want to punch" — and while I'm not saying that about Affleck, I do think Nick's other self-assessment helps describe why he's so perfect for the role of Nick: "I'm a working-class Irish kid trapped in the body of a total trust-fund douchebag. I smile a lot to make up for my face, but this only sometimes works."

Affleck absolutely nails Nick's obliviousness and his shiftiness when he discovers his wife Amy Elliott Dunne (Rosamund Pike) has disappeared — he doesn't actually have anything to do with the disappearance but does have quite a lot to hide from his villainous, vengeful wife. From Nick's uncomfortable smile during a press conference about his missing wife to his signal to Amy that he's trying to not look like such a "trust-fund douchebag" — a two-fingered gesture where he covers the cleft of his chin — Affleck is perfectly cast in the role and performs beautifully against Pike, who was the sole performer to earn an acting Oscar nomination for the film. (I think that's a crime, but I'm not an Academy member.) Whatever hat Affleck had to wear to play Nick in "Gone Girl" was totally worth it; nobody else could have portrayed Nick Dunne quite as well.