After talking with Ben Mezrich and Jeff Ma, the Daily got a chance to interview the star of "21," Jim Sturgess, as he recalled the energetic feel on the set, the crazy math of card counting, and his compatibility with fellow actors.
Question: Are you happy with the final results of the film?
Jim Sturgess: Yeah, definitely. I saw it a while ago. When you're making the film you have no concept of how kind of visual it's going to look. Especially in the scenes when we're playing cards and all that kind of stuff. While we were shooting those scenes, it was fairly kind of tedious kind of work: pushing chips and flipping cards and all that kind of stuff. And then when you see the film, you see how dramatic it looks. It was a shock to all of us, I think. The director [Robert Luketic] kept saying just trust me, trust me, it's going to look great ... stuff that you kind of don't like doing as much. Actually you want to do the kind of big shouting scenes or all the meaty scenes or whatever. But we kind of stuck with it, and I think it paid off.
Q: Did you actually understand the math concepts in it?
JS: Not at all. No. Couldn't get my head 'round it at all. I mean, we tried. On the weekends I had to play basic strategy blackjack, which is pretty much all you can do unless ... you're a mathematical genius, which is why I think it's so specific to these people's story. It's just not something everyday people can do.
Q: What drew you to the movie?
JS: The story, I think. I was kind of approached. I was shooting another film called 'The Other Boleyn Girl,' [2008] at the time, and I just got a call saying that Robert Luketic, the director, wanted to meet me about this film that he's making ... I guess the idea of these ... everyday people just going against the system like that and coming out on top, which is always a nice take on life. It was just a feel good movie that was exciting to read as a script and I think exciting to watch as a film. And I got to go to Vegas. And I got to wear designer suits that I had never worn before.
Q: Were you worried about doing an American accent since you're British?
JS: Yeah, definitely. It's always a challenge. I enjoy a challenge that I've never done before. Anyone from England always thinks they can do an alright American accent. And you quickly learn once you're put in a room with a dialect coach that you can't ... I think I had maybe two weeks to learn how to do it before we started shooting, so it was pretty rushed. I was nervous about it.
Q: What was it like filming in Vegas with all the craziness still going on around you?
JS: It was insane. It was the only time ever a film set seemed inconspicuous. I remember I went to the toilet in the casino and I remember I came back, and I couldn't find the film set. It's like, it's in here somewhere. That's how crazy it is ... We were kind of sectioned off in areas of the casino. We couldn't shut down the whole place. So of course the everyday life and the machines and all that were all going on whilst we were kind of playing, which helped the atmosphere of the film, I think. Somebody would be doing a scene when some [machine] would be like, "Wheel of Fortune!" and we'd have to cut and wait for that to finish.
Q: Did you get a chance to speak with some of the original MIT team members before or during shooting?
JS: They were a big part of the whole process. They were on set a lot. We hung out a lot, we went out on the weekends; we gambled with them a lot.
Q: Did you see any similarities between your character in the movie and yourself?
JS: Yes, certainly. I think the fact that he needs a sort of push or kick-start to think outside the box and not live in a kind of safe environment, which is just so easy for all of us to do. And I think I could see a lot of myself in that. I think acting really is one - the only reason that stops me from being like that. You're often kind of thrown into these difficult situations which make you have to think and behave different[ly] ... Other than that, he's a very intellectual human being, which I am not.
Q: What was it like working with Kevin Spacey?
JS: It was cool. He's an amazing actor, a great guy, fun guy and a very intense guy ... I remember he phoned me when I first got the part and I was back in London, and I just got a phone call, and it was an anonymous number, and I answered it and said, "Hello." And he said, "Hello, this is Kevin Spacey." But then we went out, and we had lunch back in London because he lives in London. I went to see his play that he was doing at the Old Vic ... then we just hung out then, and it was cool. He just felt like a kind of friend.
Q: Did you have a lot of free time when you were filming, especially in Vegas?
JS: On the weekends, we did. A lot of times we shot six-day weeks, and we only got one day off. I remember we did a scene where on the weekend we'd all been out and partied and did all this crazy stuff that you do in Vegas, and then we woke up and pretty much the next day of filming was acting what we had just done the night before. The line between reality and work was slowly blurring. Vegas, it's easy to kind of get into trouble over there. Not trouble, but fun, which we definitely did.
