by David Michael
A big hit for Australian ex-pat director Robert Luketic, 2008 film 21 is based on the true story of 6 MIT students trained at card counting and how they took Las Vegas casinos for millions. Based on the book by Ben Mezrich, the film stars Jim Sturgess as Ben, the lead character and moral backbone in the scam.
Like other Robert Luketic films (Legally Blonde, Monster-in-Law, etc), 21 is engaging and entertaining.
Leading man Jim Sturgess certainly took the role to heart, as he told us himself.
How was it working with Kevin Spacey on 21? [Spacey plays the maths professor who sets the scam in motion with his students]
“It was intense. I got a phone call, and I didn’t recognise the number, but I answered it. ‘Hey, it’s Kevin Spacey here’. I thought, ‘Oh, shit’. He was great; we met for lunch and he invited me to go and see his play at The Old Vic. He just filled me with confidence; he let me know that he was there and that I had his support.”
How weird was it to spend over a month in Las Vegas? It’s obviously a place that can be very unreal…
“Yes, it felt unreal. We literally started going stir crazy and losing our minds. There was one moment where I realised that I hadn’t been outside for four days straight. I was gambling all the time. There isn’t anything else to do. We started to learn how to play blackjack during the day – this was before we started shooting – and in the evenings we’d go out as a group and play and lose our money.”
Did the production company cover your losses?
“No…I wish they did! It was all on our per diem money. There was one time, when I was on a real bad losing streak, and I dropped a serious amount of money. I was devastated, and I went back to our hotel, and I found a $100 chip there. So, I was like, ‘I’m going to play this last bit before I go to bed.’ I put it down on a table and I started winning and winning, and suddenly I understood the rush that you get from going on those hot streaks.”
Have you played since finishing the film?
“It put me off gambling for life. I found it very upsetting that people would sit there and throw their money away on luck. I found it especially depressing when seeing the people who just sit at slot machines putting in their money for hours on end. It’s pretty soul destroying.”
