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Jim Sturgess: ‘There are people you hope never make a comeback’. The London-born actor is a reluctant star who could have been Hollywood royalty but walked away from the fame game.
May 5, 2020 · It wasn’t until later that I then discovered it was all based on a real person and a real family.
- Senior Entertainment Reporter
- Did Ben Really Join The Blackjack Team to Earn Money For Med School?
- Did The Scholarship Interview Really Happen?
- Had The Real Ben Lost His Father?
- When Did The Real Story Take place?
- Did Fisher Really Recruit Ben Campbell to Play on The Team?
- Did Everyone on The Real Mit Blackjack Team Attend MIT?
- Did The Team Really Use Code Words to Represent The Count?
- Where Is The Secret Underground Casino in Chinatown?
- Did Team Members Stuff Money Down Their Pants to Get Past Airport Security?
- How Do The Former Team Members Feel About The Movie's Inaccuracies?
No. Jeff Ma, the real life Ben Campbell, came from a well-to-do family. Unlike in the movie 21, his mother never offered him a life savings of over $60,000 for med school. "I actually did want to go to Harvard Medical School," admits Jeff Ma, "but I didn't actually play blackjack necessarily to go to Harvard Medical School. ... One of the reasons I...
No. Former team leader John Chang said that the movie's scholarship interview is a plot device that "never happened" in real life. "It's a clever technique to tell the story, but because of it, it makes the ending too predictable. You know that Campbell never gets to keep what he made — otherwise, why would he be applying?" -MickeyRosa.com
No. The real Jeff Ma (Ben from the movie) says that his father is very much alive and well, unlike the character's father in the movie. His parents and his sister were his guests at the 2008 21 movie premiere at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. -AICN.com
The movie shows the characters talking on cell phones and playing blackjack at the Red Rock and Planet Hollywood casinos, which didn't open until 2006 and 2007, respectively. The 21 true story reveals that the real MIT Blackjack Team, on which the movie was based, played in the early 1990s. The MIT Blackjack Team first came into existence in 1980. ...
Yes. Mike Aponte, the real life Jimmy Fisher, recruited Jeff Ma (Ben Campbell in 21) to play on the MIT team. "When we were good friends in college I brought [Jeff Ma] onto the team, recruited him and taught him how to play," says Mike Aponte. -RawVegas.com
No. The movie falsely makes the team out to be an MIT only club. In reality, there were members from other schools, including Harvard and Princeton. For example, Jane Willis, the basis for Kate Bosworth's character, attended Harvard not MIT (The Boston Globe). Bill Kaplan, one of the team's leaders, graduated from Harvard University and Harvard Bus...
Yes. The movie shows Ben using flash cards to practice the various code words, which were used to represent the count. The Spotter conveys the count to the Big Player by casually using the code word in a sentence. For example, after the Big Player has been signaled that the table is hot, the Spotter might say nonchalantly, "This iced tea is too swe...
Mike Aponte, who the Fisher character is based on, addressed this question by saying, "There are some parts in the book where I just scratch my head because obviously Ben Mezrich, the author, took artistic liberties. ...there was no secret casino in Chinatown, but I do know how Mezrich came up with that idea. Martinez, [Jeff Ma] and I had a friend ...
Mike Aponte, the basis for the Fisher character, says that they did carry most of the money on their persons when going through airport security. This is because cash was easily recognized by security through the x-ray machine. If they had a lot of chips, they stored them in carry-on bags. Mike says that security usually didn't realize the number o...
In an interview with Quint from Ain't It Cool News, Jeff Ma, the real life individual on whom the movie's main character is based, said the following, "I realized it's not really a movie about me. It's not like an autobiographical documentary about my life. It's a cool movie about stuff that we did and a lot of the stuff that we did is very on poin...
In 2010, Sturgess starred in the film The Way Back, directed by Peter Weir and based on a true story. The character Sturgess plays is based on Sławomir Rawicz , a young Polish officer who escaped from a Russian gulag during World War II.
Mar 31, 2020 · It’s based on the true story of Hilde Lysiak (played by Brooklynn Prince), a 9-year-old journalist who broke a local murder story in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, in 2016.
- Lauren Sarner
Mar 28, 2008 · With Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Aaron Yoo. Inspired by real events and people, 21 is about six MIT students who become trained to be experts in card counting in Black Jack and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings.
Apr 30, 2020 · While he himself has been soaking up documentaries like Tiger King and Along for the Ride, those at home should definitely check out his edge-of-your-seat, inspired-by-a-true-story...
