FilmBox

Jim Sturgess will never forget the first time he saw Las Vegas. The young English actor was flying across the desert from Los Angeles when he glimpsed the casino capital that would be his home for the next six weeks while filming 21 for director Robert Luketic.
“Robert had called me and said ‘I want to be with you when you first see Vegas to see your reaction’ and so we flew in together,” he explains. “I didn’t know what to expect. We were flying over this vast, beautiful desert and then suddenly there’s Vegas, this extraordinary oasis in the middle of nowhere, and it was just amazing. It was mind blowing.”
“And there’s a moment in the film when my character is looking out of the window as he sees Vegas for the first time and that’s exactly where it came from. Rob used exactly that same reaction. My face said it all – just amazement.”

The 27-year-old Londoner immersed himself in the role of Ben Campbell, the leader of a group of highly intelligent M.I.T. students who used a complex method called ‘card counting’ to win big at blackjack in the Vegas casinos.
Basically, it’s a system whereby one player, the decoy, sits in on a game of blackjack – 21 – and meticulously, mentally logs the cards that are dealt. When a deck becomes ‘hot’ – with not many cards left in the pack and mostly high ones – he alerts his friend with a pre-arranged signal and code words.
The second player then joins the game and gambles heavily knowing that the odds that he will beat the house have increased substantially in his favor. It sounds an awful lot easier than it is.
“I sort of understand how it works but I can’t do it!” laughs Sturgess. “We all had a go but the trouble is my math is absolutely terrible and you have to be able to use and work with numbers so quickly. It’s all about reaction and speed.”

21 is based on a true story and Sturgess met the real life students who acted as advisers for the film including Jeff Ma, the inspiration for his own character.
“Jeff was the only one in the team who was barred from playing blackjack everywhere in Vegas. If he does, the facial recognition technology system in the casinos would identify him within 20 minutes, and he would then be immediately surrounded by security, and it’s like ‘Jeff, you know you’re not allowed to play…’
“He’s a bit of a legend and they all know him. Certainly my experience with him was extraordinary, he gets all this VIP treatment, taken to the front of the queues and they all love him out there. “

When they weren’t filming, Sturgess and his fellow cast members hit the tables in Vegas and by the time he left the city, he was a winner. “I did gamble and I won. Amazingly, but that’s just the way it works.
“Some people were down, some were up and I was definitely up. I was hugely down at times during filming. It was hilarious people would walk on set each day and it would be ‘are you up or down?’ And some would be like ‘I’m really down…’
“And then your luck would change again. But by the time I left I was definitely one of the people who was up overall, which felt great. It was a good time to leave. I’d say I was up maybe three or four hundred dollars which is pretty good. I was definitely down thousands at one point.”

He admits that at times the lines between filming 21 and their Vegas social life became a little blurred. “You’re in Vegas and it was a great crew and cast and we all had as much fun as we could,” he recalls.
“And I remember thinking ‘God, the boundaries between work and fun are getting too blurred. I can’t keep up..’ So there we were pretending to have this crazy night that we’d actually had the night before – and had the sore heads to prove it! It was like ‘oh God, I’ve got to get out of here.’”
Sturgess is emerging as one of the hottest young actors around. A talented musician his big break came playing Jude in Across The Universe, director Julie Taymor’s innovative musical set in the ‘60s, which uses Beatles songs to punctuate the story.
“It honestly felt when I’d got the part that everything I’d done in my whole life was leading up to that,” he says. “And it just felt fantastic to be on board.”

Recently, he was seen alongside Eric Bana, Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson in the period drama The Other Boleyn Girl and has recently finished filming the political thriller, 50 Dead Men Walking, with Sir Ben Kingsley.
The middle of three children, he was born in Farnham, Surrey, on the outskirts of London and attended the University of Salford where he studied media and drama.
In 21, Sturgess stars alongside Kate Bosworth, who plays a fellow student, and Kevin Spacey, as Mickey Rosa, the math professor who recruits and trains the card counting team. Spacey also produces the film.
Sturgess recalls that the first read through – when the cast gather to read the entire script together for the very first time – was nerve wracking but he credits co-star Kate Bosworth with helping him through the ordeal.
“It was an intimidating thing for me to do because it was my first big, American film,” he says. “And having to do the American accent for the first time in front of a group of people, sitting next to Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne, was nerve wracking.”
“And then when it was over Kate was the first person to come flying up to me. She filled me with confidence and she is very caring like that, as she was throughout the film. So we instantly hit it off and we were friends throughout and still are.“

Luketic and Spacey were also keen to help the young actor settle into Vegas and the role of Ben Campbell. “They were both so helpful,” he says. “And couldn’t have been nicer. Robert had a fantastic vision for the film and I think he’s done an incredible job.”
The devil-may-care spirit of the film continued off screen and that, in turn, fed into the performances, he feels.
“It had a youthful feel to the whole film and Kevin was such a part of that. He is so much fun and naughty and hilarious,” he laughs. “He is wickedly funny. And the producers were hilarious, they were as mad as anyone.
“There was this youthful feel during the shooting it and I think that carried onto the film. It just felt like a group of friends making this mad film. And it was chaos, you know, we’re trying to make it in these casinos with all this madness going on around us.”

Interview

Filmbox.com: You’ve been busy. When did 21 fit in with your other films?

Jim Sturgess: I finished Across The Universe and I stayed and hung out in New York for a bit. Across the Universe was a huge thing to be involved with and unlike anything I’d ever done before. I’d never spent time in New York so that was an amazing experience, too. It was almost like I didn’t want to come home. But I came back for The Other Boleyn Girl. While I was making that Robert (Luketic) got in touch to say that he was interested in me for 21. He had seen some footage of Across The Universe.

Filmbox.com: What happened next?

Jim Sturgess: I remember he came to London and he told me all about it and I’d read the script and we kind of talked about ideas. He’s a really nice guy and had great ideas about how to make the whole thing so slick and visual and it went from there.

Filmbox.com: Is your character based on a real student?

Jim Sturgess: There is one specific guy, Jeff Ma, whose story was used in the book and obviously the film is inspired by the book. But there is so much in the film to give it its own story, to give it a narrative, because in reality this went on over a huge period of time and so much happened to this guy. So we gave it more of a true life narrative. So a lot of what happened did happen to this one particular guy. He was a kid from M.I.T. as they all were.

Filmbox.com: Your character has that honorable motive when he starts out trying to win money to pay for his tuition fees. Was that true?

Jim Sturgess: That was more the film than reality. They gave him a purpose to earn the money. But I think everyone was enjoying the fact that they were winning this money, as you would, and it was one, just a reason to go to Vegas and have a great time; two, feel a bit cheeky and naughty and all of that; and three, to earn much more money than any of their contemporaries were earning working in the local bookshop or a restaurant or whatever they were doing trying to get by as students.

Filmbox.com: Did you meet these guys?

Jim Sturgess: Yes. All of them. Nice guys. They are all in their 30s now, I think that this story happened around 1991. We set our film in modern day. And you know M.I.T card counting teams are still going on. It’s almost an institution there – it went on before our kids’ story and it’s still going on now.

Filmbox.com: So it’s your first time in Vegas and you’re there to make a film. It must have been an extraordinary experience?

Jim Sturgess: It was mind blowing! I’d been told that the perfect amount of time to spend in Vegas is a long weekend and we were there for a month and a half.

Filmbox.com: Was Vegas a strange world to inhabit for a long period of time?

Jim Sturgess: Yes, it was. There was one time when I realized that I hadn’t been outside for fresh air for four, five days straight. It’s so vast and there are all these kind of shopping malls attached to it with their own weather inside, with clouds and everything, and you start believing you are outside even though you are not.

Filmbox.com: Did you like it there?

Jim Sturgess: I did because it was just so extreme from anything I know but certainly towards the end we were craving to get out of there. I remember Kate (Bosworth) and I looking at each other towards the end and going ‘I’m going mad!’ And the sound, the noise from the machines never stops. It slowly drives you insane. And there are gaming machines everywhere – in the toilets, everywhere. We tried to get away from it. I was craving for a pint in a pub – I come from London and I just wanted to have a quiet pint and a chat without any of the madness. And we found this Irish theme bar in one of the casinos that is as close to a pub as you could get and they did like shepherd’s pie and all that. But it was still lined with gaming machines! You can’t really escape.

Filmbox.com: What was your game of choice?

Jim Sturgess: We only played blackjack. We made a pact and we were all into playing blackjack and we played it as much as possible because that feeds into the film. There was a great night when we all went out and had some drinks and you know, it was fun, we were playing around with it and I’d be sitting there with Aaron Yoo who plays Choi in the film. We’d be messing around and pretending we were giving each other hand signals, which we weren’t, but it was about becoming a team and there was a lot of that going on. On the first day after the read through – we had all just first met each other – we went to dinner and then just went out and gambled until the early hours of the morning. That was a good bonding experience for all of us.

Filmbox.com: Had you played before?

Jim Sturgess: Never played it. And never even been in a casino. I remember that when I first arrived in Vegas I was there before everybody else and I was kind of wandering around sussing it out and it’s nerve wracking walking into these big casinos and you have to sit down at a table with a group of people you don’t know so. I felt really intimidated by the whole thing. I remember sitting there saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m English, just bear with me..’ and these people were really nice and helped me and once you get into the swing of it, it’s a lot of fun.

Filmbox.com: What was Kate like to work with?

Jim Sturgess: She was lovely. We met for the first time, shook hands and then did the read through which was an intimidating thing for me to do because it was my first big, American film. And having to do the American accent for the first time in front of a group of people, sitting next to Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne, was nerve wracking. Then when it was over Kate was the first person to come flying up to me. She filled me with confidence and she is very caring like that, as she was throughout the film. So we instantly hit it off and we were friends throughout and still are.

Filmbox.com: Is it important to bond with your fellow cast members on a film like this?

Jim Sturgess: Yes, it is. It added a youthful feel to the whole film and Kevin was such a part of that. He is so much fun and naughty and hilarious. (laughs). He is wickedly funny. And the producers were hilarious, they were as mad as anyone. So there was this youthful feel to it and it helped the film. It just felt like a group of friends making this mad film. And it was chaos, you know, we’re trying to make it in these casinos with all this madness going on around us.

Filmbox.com: What was the reaction of the casinos?

Jim Sturgess: It was mixed. But I think they are clever enough to know that counting cards is almost impossible and that the promotion of the film will get many people trying to give it a go and failing miserably! (laughs). So I think they just saw dollar signs in their eyes as they always do. Any film that makes it look fun has got to be good for Vegas. And especially the way that Rob has filmed it – he made the card counting look so exciting and so much fun. I’m sure there will be gangs of people just wanting to play cards and emulating the lifestyle. It’s funny, but you would see these planes flying away from Vegas and the group of people we worked with, the consultants and experts in blackjack and casinos, would say ‘there goes another million dollars..’

Filmbox.com: What triggered this incredible run of films that you’ve been making?

Jim Sturgess: Julie Taymor finding me for Across The Universe. There were open auditions for her film all over the place – New York, LA, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Ireland, she did this vast trawl. She looked all over the place. I didn’t know much about it when I went to the audition. I was an actor in London and a musician as well and I used to be in a band. So I just turned up totally open minded. All I knew was that it was a Beatles musical which I thought was a terrible idea, but I went along just to see what was happening. I’m a huge Beatles fan which is why I didn’t like the idea of a Beatles musical. I didn’t know how well it would be treated and I think something like that needs to be done right – and even done right it still provokes a reaction.

Filmbox.com: It’s funny how the two paths – music and acting – converged..

Jim Sturgess: Yes, amazing. It honestly felt when I’d got the part that everything I’d done in my whole life was leading up to that. And it just felt fantastic to be on board. So I turned up (for the audition) and I guess I had this naïve confidence about the whole thing, and two, I didn’t really know what was going on. Ignorance was bliss in that situation. Julie wasn’t there, it was just this guy with a camera filming these hundreds of people who had turned up for the audition – it was like “Pop Idol” or “Fame Academy,” something like that.

Filmbox.com: What did you play?

Jim Sturgess: I had brought my guitar and no one else had and I played “Something” and “Revolution.” I walked out thinking that I’d never hear anything more about it, just like you do every time you have an audition. But Julie must have seen something on the tape. And then I was called back and did some more acting that time, did the Scouse (Liverpool) accent. Did a few more scenes. And then I got a phone call saying ‘they want you to go to New York to meet the director Julie Taymor..’ I went out and did some workshops with Julie, came home and two weeks later she called to say ‘I want you to be Jude..’ Amazing.

Filmbox.com: And you knew that it would change your life..

Jim Sturgess: Yes. 100 percent. And it was something that I needed so much at that time, I’d been through a rough few years before that so it was like ‘please, give me this, please, it would be so great..’ I just felt that I’d been working so hard with no reward at that point. I’d given every drop of blood, mind and soul to the band and it was a major traumatic uphill struggle. It was a fantastic break and I’m so grateful to Julie for believing in me.

ENDS

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