Interview: The Real-Life Mind Behind 21’s M.I.T. Card-Counters

21, opening today, is the story of a crew of genius M.I.T. math students who go to Las Vegas to play the blackjack system and come away with truckloads of cash. Perhaps it sounds implausible, but it’s based entirely on the true story of Jeff Ma and his friends, which was chronicled in a book called Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich. We’ve got some clips right here at Fancast where you can hear Jeff Ma tell the real-life story in his own words.

Jeff Ma Tells His Story
Jeff Ma Teaches You How To Beat Blackjack
Jeff Ma Tells You How Much Practice It Takes

We also sat down with Jeff in Las Vegas and got a bit more detail on his life story and the process of turning it into a movie and his portrayal (with some obvious changes) by Jim Sturgess. Check out everything he said after the jump, but here are some snippets.

I met a Rams cheerleader here and dated her for a while, and that’s sort of like the new American Dream for every boy, right? She was in LA and I was always flying her out on trips with me because it’s great to have a really hot girl on your arm when you’re playing in the casino.

There was a guy that trailed us around,and he was definitely menacing. You’d show up in a casino where you’d never been and he’d be there looking at you.

For four or five years, people asked me who I wanted to play me in a movie. I was never saying Jackie Chan or Jet Li, I wasn’t.

On involvement with the production:
I tried to give input wherever I could, and tried to not be in the way at all. I was on set a little bit. I got some drafts of the screenplay that I made comments on, and when the original screenplay was written, I talked a lot to the first screenwriter. I think it turned out amazing, and it really had very little to do with any input I put in.

On reaction to Jim Sturgess’ portrayal:
Man, am I really good-looking. When I first saw it, it was at the Hard Rock. I walked onto the set the second or third day they were filming, and I saw Jim sitting there at the table, and I saw him acting in the scene where he’s coloring out of his first night, and he’s very tired and he ends up walking out and it’s sunlight out there. I screened the movie with some of the guys that I actually played with, and a lot of them think that’s one of the most accurate scenes. That whole idea that you’re incredibly tired at the end of the night, you’ve played all night, and then you walk outside and realize that most normal people are getting up right then. It’s a triumphant walk of shame. I remember looking at Jim at that point and seeing a lot of myself in him, when you get beyond the obvious physical differences.

On those physical differences:
Right away, I started thinking about what my thought process had been. For four or five years, people asked me who I wanted to play me in a movie. I was never saying Jackie Chan or Jet Li, I wasn’t. If I asked you who you wanted to play you in a movie, you wouldn’t be thinking about who’s the most physically like you. You’d be thinking about who you think could portray your personality well, who’s a talented actor, or who’s a good-looking guy. When I met Jim, that idea became confirmed a hundred percent. Jim and I have become really good friends, and he took time to get to know what I was like as a person. He’s done a tremendous job with the movie, and I love the fact that he’s not a huge star now and is likely to become a big star because of this movie, because then I’ll always feel linked to him, or he’ll feel linked to me, hopefully in some way, and that’s pretty special.

On the real occurrences portrayed in the film:
That scene where he first flies into Vegas and cranes his neck and sees the strip – I think a lot of us have done that on our first flight into Vegas. Then the idea when he’s sitting around in his hotel room – dorm room, see, I’m blurred about it, too – sits in his dorm room and tries to order room service. The scene that’s so funny is the poor girl who walks into classroom and thinks it’s a chemistry review and they all kind of look at her. It was even worse in real life when that happened. In the movie they’re actually just sitting in a classroom and talking. In real life when she came in, we had felt spread all over, and there were chips and cards, she walks in and sees this and says “chemistry review?” and we just looked at her, and she slams the door and runs away. There are a lot of little moments like that that really did happen, and in the movie they’re just so eerily similar.

On the real hook-up with hot chicks:
We kinda did. It wasn’t quite played out the same way, that she was an M.I.T. student, but you know, I definitely had this transformation that happened to me where I went from this shyer kind of guy to this guy who, in Vegas, had to play a part and really enjoyed playing the part of the rich high-roller, and I met a Rams cheerleader here and dated her for a while, and that’s sort of like the new American Dream for every boy, right? She was in LA and I was always flying her out on trips with me because it’s great to have a really hot girl on your arm when you’re playing in the casino.

On running into acquaintances from the old days:
We were in the Wynn last night, and there was a woman in there who remembered me from my days playing in Chicago. It was like 11 years ago. She said I don’t look any different. Asians age well. (laughter) In the movie they focus a lot on Vegas because it’s a two-hour movie and you’re not going to be traipsing around, but we did play a lot in Chicago.

On why they didn’t play in Atlantic City, much closer to Boston:
Atlantic City, the game is terrible. The blackjack game is terrible. They have different laws in Atlantic City than they do in Vegas. In Vegas, they can just kick you out, but in Atlantic City, they can’t, they have to deal blackjack to you. So they make the rules of blackjack very difficult for you. They don’t let you do things like surrender, they don’t let you double after splits, they put the cut card really high. It wasn’t really worth it to play Atlantic City.

On the reality of scary Laurence Fishburne characters:
There was a guy that trailed us around,and he was definitely menacing. You’d show up in a casino where you’d never been and he’d be there looking at you One of the scariest moments for me was when I was in Shreveport, Louisiana and I went to a casino I’d never been in before, and my cohorts were already in the casino counting. When I walked in, they didn’t know I was there yet, I saw a fax come off the computer with four pictures on it, and they were the pictures of me and my three cohorts.

On keeping the secret:
This was happening in 1994 and 95. It was a totally different world out there. There wasn’t poker on television all the time, there weren’t nearly as many casinos, Vegas was more seedy, and the idea of trying to explain what I did to someone was really hard. I didn’t have a book to fall back on or anything like that. It was just easier to not even try to explain it to them, so for a lot of people, that’s what I did.

On why he finally stopped:
We won anywhere from three to five million dollars as a team. The stopping was basically because, over time, they catch on. No matter how good you are, you can’t keep winning in casinos without them trying to figure out exactly what you’re doing. So over a course of about two years, it ended where I would show up at casinos, and they would know who I was right away. We would make big plans to fly somewhere and play, and all of a sudden, the first night, we can’t play anymore, so it’s kind of a waste of time. And I just moved on and wanted to do something else with my life.

On the new Vegas and hopes for the film:
Back when we were playing, there was not one club in a casino – just Club Rio. Now every casino has a club. Last year, I believe, was the first year that non-gambling revenue exceeded gambling revenue in Las Vegas, and that’s because of all the things that they’re bringing into. The only way it’s going to continue to grow is if they cater to young people. As a generation, we had Risky Business, that was our coming-of-age. This new generation is smarter because they have things like Facebook and they’re all connected and they’re all playing online poker, so this movie I think will speak to them in a new, fresh way that something like Risky Business probably wouldn’t anymore.