The Arcade recently had the opportunity to interview Jim Sturgess, the 26-year-old star of the upcoming movie "21." Based on the successful novel "Bringing Down The House," "21" recounts the journey of five MIT students and a professor beating the casino blackjack odds through card counting.
After being accepted into Harvard Medical School, Jim Sturgess's character Ben Campbell finds himself unable to pay for the expensive tuition. One of his professors (Kevin Spacey) discovers Ben's brilliance and invites his to a secret card counting club. Ben thinks that joining the club will curb his anxiety about paying for school, so he decides to stay in the club until he reaches his goal of $300,000. The team members study during the week at MIT, then fly to Las Vegas on weekends to test their gambling abilities. Within all this excitement, however, Ben finds himself becoming greedier and more eager to lead the team. We first asked Sturgess about playing the lead role.
arcade: Did you enjoy your role as Ben Campbell?
Jim Sturgess: Yeah, I enjoyed the role very much. It was an experience for me to go to Las Vegas, which is a place I'd never kind of been before. It was amazing having to take on what those people really took on, and then to find out later that it was all based on true fact and that there was a real person and that that actually happened to him. It was great meeting Jeff, who was the person that Ben Campbell is based on in the book, "Bringing Down The House." I got to meet Jeff when I first arrived in Vegas, and we became really good friends. We spent a lot of time together and hung out in Vegas and gambled and went out drinking and did all the crazy stuff that Vegas offers you. I couldn't have had a better time, really.
a: What did you think of the director Robert Luketic? I think he did a great job mixing the scenes from Boston to Las Vegas.
JS: He made Vegas just look unbelievable. He made it look beautiful. When you're flying in to Vegas, you see the bright lights, and I think he really captured that. He gave the film a real kind of pace to it, too. You know, watching a game of cards isn't the most exciting thing in the world, so the way he filmed it and the way he used certain camera techniques and speeding things up and slowing things down made, I think, the game look watchable.
2008 Woodie Awards
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Katie C
posted 3/30/08 @ 4:45 PM CST
JIM STURGES... I LOVE YOU :)
- #1 fan :)
Kim
posted 4/01/08 @ 8:32 PM CST
After seeing 21, I promptly added Jim to my list of Geeky Hollywood Fake Boyfriends. I'm looking forward to all of his upcoming projects!
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