Eagerly awaiting the release of the new movie "21," The Daily sat down with author Ben Mezrich and MIT blackjack player Jeffrey Ma to talk about Mezrich's book "Bringing Down the House" (2003). Ma was the main focus of Mezrich's book as a leading player on the now infamous MIT blackjack team. The book was the basis for the movie, which is scheduled for release tomorrow.
Question: Did you ever think the book was going to be this successful?
Ben Mezrich: I would definitely say no. When I handed this book in, it was a 12,000 first printing. It was this little book. Cards weren't really on TV yet, and people said, "No one is going to read a book about cards." So we had no idea it was going to be anything like this. Then the book took off, and this is a whole other level with the movie. It's pretty crazy. We had no idea actually.
Jeff Ma: Yeah, I would say that I had no idea it was going to do so well. When Ben and I talked about it he said, "It'll kind of be an interesting book, and it won't be a big deal." And [Mezrich's] publisher didn't think it would do well.
BM: About two months before the book came out, I was sitting at home. I had written an article for Wired Magazine, and the phone rang. It was a guy named Dana Brunetti who said, "I have Kevin Spacey on the line; he wants to talk to you," and I said, "No you don't, not really," so I took his phone number and hung up on him. I called my mom and said "Kevin Spacey is trying to call me," and she said, "No, it's MIT students prank calling you again." So I Googled the name Dana Brunetti, and it turns out he really did work with Kevin Spacey. Actually, they found me by Googling me after reading my article in Wired. Kevin said he wanted to make this into a movie, and that was the first inkling I got that we were on to something that was kinda cool. Then I got the Today Show... After that, it just went crazy. The book went No. 1 on Amazon and sold out.
Q: How much of the film is true to your story?
JM: I always tell people about 75 percent because the reality is Ben and I sat down for three weeks, every day for about two or three hours, and I told him every story from the times in Vegas. So he took that and turned it into a book. Now when you do that, there's going to be little details and things that don't quite make sense when bridging the gap from one story to the next. There are some instances where he did take liberties, but in general, it's dead-on. The thing is if we played the game of "did this happen, did that happen," I bet you wouldn't actually be able to guess because the cliché "the truth is stranger than fiction" definitely holds true in this case.
BM: The MIT blackjack team has been in existence for 25 years. Groups of students passed it down to groups of students. So I combined some stories with Jeff's stories. There's a lot in the book that's true that didn't necessarily happen to Jeff. I'd say more than 90 percent of the book is true to the story of the MIT blackjack team.
JM: Well, you wrote it. I only lived it. You wrote it!
BM: But the idea was to compress a time period into a readable narrative thriller, and [it] was also to compress certain characters and protect [them] - at the time, none of these guys wanted anybody to know who they were, so I had to change things about where he was from and what he looked like and ... subtract characters that would give away who the people were. You didn't want anybody to know who you were.
JM: That's a really good point Ben makes; that when the book came out and when the book was being researched, really nobody on the team wanted to come out. [Ben] wanted to talk to everyone, but now these people that are coming out and saying this or that was inaccurate, they never were there at the beginning when the book was nothing. The only reason they came out now is because it's successful.
Q: If you were so intent on keeping your anonymity, how did [Ben] find out about the team?
BM: I was actually at a party with the Jill character from the book [played by Kate Bosworth in the movie]. She, unbeknownst to me, was a Harvard girl, and I had no idea she did this on the side. So she invited me to a party and said that I had to meet this guy Jeff. So I met Jeff, and he basically had these great stories; at parties you hear that a lot. But Jeff immediately started telling me stories, and he had all this money in $100 bills, and you never see $100 bills in Boston, ever. So I actually ended up going to Vegas with him, and I saw the whole thing in action. It was spectacular, and I searched to see if anybody had written about it. Turns out there was only one article in the Hartford Courant, and that was it. I was shocked. So I convinced him, and it took some work to convince him that I could make a big book out of this, and we just started sitting down and talking.
JM: My recollection about it is a little bit different. I thought it was a great story, and Ben was like "whatever."
BM: Well, you were just like some kid...
JM: You were just happy I was talking to you. But when I took you to Vegas, it all changed.
BM: Yeah, when I saw Jeff in Vegas - he's like a rock star. When you think of it, you might think he's a geeky MIT student, but as you can see, he's not that geeky.
Q: How did you both feel about the movie?
BM: I actually love it. It took five years, but it's great. I really enjoyed it, and it captures such a feel from the book. Obviously it goes off in Hollywood, you know. Lawrence Fishburne's character, Kate Bosworth and the rest of the MIT guys ... but I think they did a really good job. I liked it a lot.
JM: Yeah, I think the movie is awesome. I think what it does is it really captures the spirit of what we did and what we felt ... If you've ever been to Vegas, it's very crazy. On the flight out there, everyone is so excited; everyone is drinking or playing cards and hitting on the flight attendants and stuff like that. On the flight home, everyone is depressed; they lost, they're sad and they're hung over or whatever. But we never were. We were always happy; we were still riding a high because we won, and there are not many people that did that. So I wanted everyone that saw the movie to have that same kind of feeling where they come away feeling like they beat Vegas. I think the movie does that, and you leave feeling like you won.
BM: And I think Boston has never looked better in a movie. You see a lot of movies like "The Departed" (2006) or "Gone Baby Gone" (2007), and Boston looks like the ghetto. But you see Boston in this movie, and it looks spectacular, especially that massive shot they took on the Mass. Ave. bridge with the helicopter.
Q: How did you balance your schoolwork because you were Course 2, right?
JM: That's mechanical engineering, for those of you keeping track at home. However, a lot of the blackjack stuff happened after we got out of school. When we were in school, it was just something we did. We went on weekends, and we had the spare time to go to casinos or whatever. It's just like anything you do. I mean, at MIT, people play sports, and they find a way to balance that too.
Q: Do you think the movie is going to spark a big blackjack trend?
BM: I have a feeling it's going to spark a lot more college kids doing it. I have gotten letters since the book has come out about people who want to start teams. But, you know, it's much harder than it looks. To pull it off and make some real money, you need to have financing and hours and hours of practice over a period of months, and then you have to play perfectly. Most that will try will probably fail, but I bet there will be people doing it. But the casinos know what they're looking for.
JM: I think it can be done today on a small scale. On the scale that we were doing it, I don't think that it can be done because you have to bet so much money, and they immediately notice you.
BM: Yeah, if you bet $10,000 at a casino now, they know everything about you. Plus there are a lot more forms to fill out when you cash in the money, which they didn't have to do.
JM: With all the 9/11 stuff that's been going on ... I mean, back in those days you didn't need an ID, and certainly if you were betting a lot of money, they didn't want to insult you.
BM: Plus you could walk onto an airplane with a big bulky coat full of money. You can't do that now. You'd have to take off the coat.
Q: How long did it take you to master the art of card counting?
JM: I'd say, like, six months of solid practicing. You get to different levels, and you get better at different things, and all in all, it took me that long.
Q: Was Kevin Spacey's character as conniving in real life as he was in the movie?
JM: Well, he is really a composite of a few different people, but the people that the character is based off of [Micky Rosa] were more like him at the beginning of the movie, rather than toward the end. There are definitely bits of him; as with other characters, there are bits of the actual person, which is eerie when you think about it.
Q: How did you get involved with the team?
JM: Actually, for me it was my friends, to be honest. You know how the whole MIT [blackjack team] is around, it's like a legend, and you kind of hear about it. And it was friends of friends of friends that were doing it first. Then it became friends of friends, then friends, then actually my roommates were doing it. They were leaving every weekend, and I was like, "Where the heck are you guys going?" And they were like, "We go to Vegas every weekend." And I joked, "Can I just go and hang out? Because that sounds like fun." They're like, "You can if you learn this system." I felt weird about it because it seemed like a weird thing to do at first. You know the whole scene where Ben Campbell's like, "No, I'm not interested?" That really happened. I was like, "No, this isn't for me." The idea of being a professional gambler just didn't seem right.
Q: How did your parents feel about finding out about all of this?
JM: They're having so much fun with it now. They really are. It took them a while to get used to the idea.
BM: I remember when I sat down with Jeff to write the book; he hadn't really told his parents. And he's like, "Before the book comes out, can I show it to my parents?" And that's what he did. He let them read it.
JM: I actually tried to tell my parents the whole story, but it's really hard to tell someone the story unless they're there. It's kind of unbelievable.
