I never said that I was something that I wasn’t, but I’ve definitely been in a situation where I’m like “Oh my God, this person is so special.”
To highlight what you just said, for a second, because it’s really interesting. Yes, in the movie, Jack totally is lying, but many of us, and it doesn’t make you a bad person, are to a certain extent lying when they’re first trying to court someone. Even if you’re not Lying with a capital L. You might be really foregrounding some material and really backgrounding other material and it basically is courtship. You know, not to have a cynical take, but I think there’s so much said about radical honesty and such and I agree with it. But to a certain extent maybe you don’t want to present all your worst baggage upfront. You’d never get anywhere with anyone.
You don’t want to be like, “Earlier, I spent the whole day on the couch in sweatpants eating Cheetos, isn’t that amazing?” If they do find someone that relates to that then that’s great, I guess.
Well, yeah, I guess to bring it back to the movie, that’s why an audience member might relate to Jack. Because even if they haven’t done it to that extent, this feeling of being so enamored with someone that you really don’t feel like you can be yourself, is something that I can imagine a lot of people have been involved in similar situations.
“I like to think that I’m usually more honest in my real life.”
I’m curious if you did any kind of research to play Jack, and what kind you did for this role.
I didn’t do a lot of research. Some roles really do require research into subjects I didn’t know. Ben gave me a few books that I think he felt related to the world view of the character and I didn’t read them. Because I felt the script did enough. I know what a cam site is and I’ve seen that so I didn’t have to research what that was. I’m not so naive. The gambling. Ben and I played a lot of poker on set. He taught me a lot on the fly. We went to the casino a few times. I think if there was any research, it was in that area since that really isn’t my world. That really is the mark of a good filmmaker. A good filmmaker will do some of the homework for the actor, in case they didn’t do it, and also for themselves. Ben really did that and it was vital. Because he came with this knowledge and understanding of online games and Black Jack that made it pretty easy to pick up from him. If any of those scenes have any authenticity, it’s really thanks to Ben, not me.
I don’t really know much about online poker except I used to have a roommate who did it for a living, so I thought it was really interesting to see Jack have that as kind of a career. I don’t think people realize that’s how some people actually make money.
It can be. I had a cousin who was a very skilled card counter and I know that was banned at so many casinos because he won too much. It really does highlight the hypocrisy of some of these casinos. If they sense that any of their players are good enough to beat them, you get banned, you get kicked out. So they only want the losers in there. You’re only allowed to be in there if you’re a loser.
