Ben Affleck loves computers. ‘I’ve always been kind of a geek in that way,’ he said in a phone interview Friday morning. So it wasn’t hard for him to slip into his latest role, as computer genius Michael Jennings in John Woo’s upcoming Paycheck.

The film follows in the action/sci-fi footsteps of Woo’s other projects, such as Mission: Impossible 2 and Face/Off, but it also deals with themes like friendship, betrayal and love, Affleck said. The film pits Affleck against billionaire villain Jimmy Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart) in a memory-erasing thriller that Paramount producers compare to Memento. Uma Thurman plays Rachel, Affleck’s love interest.

‘Paycheck has a Hitchcock tone,’ Affleck said. The movie is based on a short story by Phillip K. Dick, who also wrote the stories that were turned into Blade Runner and Minority Report.

The actor had high praise for Thurman, who he described as the ‘most professional’ and ‘down-to-earth’ actress he’s worked with. Affleck also had nothing but positive things to say about Woo, a director he has admired since Woo’s days as a Hong Kong action icon.

‘For a guy who has made so many shoot-em-up, macho movies, he is an incredibly sweet, gentle, kind man, which really surprised me at first,’ Affleck said. ‘John sees movies as a kind of choreographed dance between the actors and the camera.’

Taking this role is part of what Affleck calls a ‘conscious effort on my part to try to do diverse stuff.’ His projects have been varied Affleck’s resume includes comedies (Dogma), action films (Daredevil, The Sum of All Fears) and quirky dramas (Chasing Amy). He admits to liking ‘Hollywood popcorn movies’ but admits that not all are done well (perhaps referencing such personal mishaps as Pearl Harbor and Armageddon?).

‘I think of myself in some ways as a decathlete,’ he said in what may have been a slightly generous moment of self-reflection (let’s save that kind of classification for J-Lo). ‘And you can win a decathlon without being the best in any one event.’

You can also win decathlons, apparently, if you make poor career choices like Gigli. But Affleck, unlike his character Michael, has no memories of his own he’d like to erase, he said not even Gigli.

‘Any negative or difficult experience I went through, if I were to forget would only serve to make me less strong and certainly less interesting,’ he said. ‘And I need all the help I can get.’