Smoking Aces Cast Interview

MoviesOnline recently sat down with the cast of "Smokin’ Aces” at the Los Angeles Press Day to promote the dark action-comedy from writer/director Joe Carnahan, the creator of "Narc.” The film features an incendiary array of stars including Ben Affleck ("Hollywoodland”), Andy Garcia ("Ocean’s 12”), Ray Liotta ("Identity”), Jeremy Piven ("Entourage”), Ryan Reynolds ("The Amityville Horror”), Peter Berg ("Collateral”), Taraji Henson ("Hustle & Flow”), Chris Pine ("Just My Luck”), Martin Henderson ("The Ring”), Jason Bateman ("The Break-Up”), and, in their motion-picture debuts, Grammy-winning singer Alicia Keys and hip-hop artist Common

Welcome to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where everyone is zeroing in on Buddy "Aces” Israel. Sleaze personified, illusionist Aces (Jeremy Piven) grew up in a world full of card sharks, gamblers, killers and thugs. By 21, he was keeping company with major criminal muscle – headlining sold-out shows at MGM’s main room. After becoming the unofficial mascot for the Vegas mob, Aces started believing his own press and buying into the hype. He decides to showcase his showbiz power and parlay it into a life of crime. He wants to be his own mob boss…the movies make it look so easy. What Aces winds up doing is running afoul of the very organization that had taken him in, and his one–time benefactor, mob power broker Primo Sparazza, becomes his mortal enemy.

Rumor of a $1,000,000 hit fee, fronted by Sparazza, hits the streets and spreads far and wide, attracting an assortment of degenerate psychopaths and assassins – all gunning for the bounty on his head. Apparently, Aces has agreed to turn state’s evidence against his criminal cronies in Vegas…in order to save himself from life in prison. The FBI, sensing a chance to use this small-time con to bring down big-time target Sparazza, places Aces into protective custody, under the supervision of two agents dispatched to Aces’ hideout.

With all eyes on Lake Tahoe, a rogues’ gallery of killers collides in a mad race to the Nomad Casino penthouse suite, where they hope to hit the jackpot and rub out Aces.

Here’s what Alicia Keys, Common, Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds and Nestor Carbonell had to say about their recent collaboration:

Q: Alicia, you've probably had some offers for starting a movie career. What was it about this role? What made you brave enough to say ‘I’m not going to do the cute little housewife or the cute little love interest role. I’m going to do this kick ass role.’?

Keys: Or the singer who happens to play the piano. (Laughs) Well, that was obviously one of my most important things. I did not want to play a character that was a reflection of who I am. I also wanted my first film to be something where I was surrounded by an amazing cast. This fit that criteria to the fullest. I wanted to do something that was completely unexpected, totally out of the box, something that would blow people's minds, that the last thing on the planet earth they would ever think I would do would be it and this met that criteria as well. It was very exciting. It took me out of my element totally and out of my comfort zone completely and it challenged me in a way that was very rewarding for me.

Q: When you talk about going out of your comfort zone, what did you learn about acting that will inform you now as an artist and vocalist, and the same for you Common?

Common: For me, I just learned to be a freer artist. I think that it made me more comfortable with myself, actually acting, because I started getting more in tune with who I am by doing roles or even just being in a class and being around people. It just gave me a certain confidence and I started digging into parts of myself that I probably ignore and don't really get to express because Common is an artist that is conscious and is aware and is trying to put a positive energy to the world. So, me being able to be acting and doing other things has opened me as an artist, and I think even more from a visual standpoint too as far as writing goes.

Keys: I felt that I rediscovered how tremendously close the two worlds are. I grew up in the theater. My mother is an actress. I was always around the world of acting and theater and I was always amazed the way that people would come in looking one way and transform completely to the point where I couldn't recognize their language, their accent, the way they looked, their hair, their face even changed [in] becoming so inside of the character. So I think I reconnected to the way that that affects me so much when I see a film that moves me in one way or another -- angers me, makes me feel good, saddens me, whatever – and how that connects so much to what I do as an artist as well and how the two are very close together in regards to drawing on your life experience, drawing on something that you understand and transforming it into something that you give to the world or give out in another way. So, for me, it actually confirmed how close they are.

Q: Alicia, this movie is incredibly violent. Did you have any apprehension in playing a role where had to actually shoot a gun, and how did you go about actually developing your character?

Keys: Oh, there was much work that went into it, tremendous work that went into developing Georgia in regard to the acting and digging into her. I almost called it – when I was with my coach – I almost called it therapy for me because she dug things out of me as a human being where I was like, 'Wow.' But I knew that if I didn't or wasn't able to address them there in that room with her then I would never be able to address them there on that set. So that was intense work for me to do. I physically worked out tremendously and that was intense work for me to do. Our gun training was extensive to the point where my hands would cut and bleed and it hurt very badly, but these were all things that were a part of developing Georgia to discussing more with Joe [Carnahan] and Taraji [Henson] in a private way what was Georgia's story, where did she come from, what was her life, why did she feel that this was what she had to do and her only option, what was it that drove her to this, what was it about my relationship with men as Georgia that would make me feel these feelings? So many just deep discoveries and things that went into pulling Georgia out of my understanding of who I wanted her to be.

Q: Jeremy and Common, Joe talked about how you guys formed a bond off the set. Can you talk about where you started that bond and how it developed while you were working together? And you guys have stayed friends since because I know Jeremy, you're constantly talking about Common.

Piven: Absolutely, to the point where I'm stalking him. It's actually awkward for him. (Laughs) No. The synchronicity is pretty heavy. I mean, literally the other day I pulled up to a stop light and I looked next to me and there he was and that doesn't even happen. I can't find anyone in this town ever. (Laughs) I met him backstage before his show, yet again I’m stalking him, and he had an energy on stage that was- - He has this kind of poetic energy that's very soulful and peaceful and yet I saw like this element of danger. He’d kind of kick the stool, like he would have this moment, and he was so theatrical in his presence and his cadence as a rapper is so similar to human speech when you're in front of the camera. It was almost there anyway, and the duality that he has as an artist. I felt something that you couldn't direct or teach someone to do, so I knew and thought that he could do it probably before he even had it confirmed himself. And I just called Joe immediately and said, 'This guy is just so perfect.' He had already auditioned and was the front runner and was killing it and I saw the auditions and it was really clear anyway. So the synchronicity was kind of amazing and then we had this Gap campaign together and this is one of those things where they didn't know about our movie, and suddenly we're on the sides of buildings together which is kind of ridiculous anyway. (Laughs)

Reynolds: They're actually holding hands underneath the table. Their pinkies are interlocked.

Piven: Yeah [Laughs]. There is something that we need to tell you all about. No.

Common: Easy, easy, easy.

Piven: No, no, no.

Common: I'm a rap artist (Laughs)

Piven: I single handedly kill his other career. Nobody wins. No. We just kind of connected. We're both from Chicago and, you know, we’re kind of kindred spirits and immediately I felt very comfortable with him. It was almost as if we went to high school together or something. There was kind of a shorthand that we had. I think both of them are superstars in this arena and then they come to a new arena and yet they're kind of students and were very open to the whole process which says a lot about them as human beings and this is a reason why they're such great artists because, you know, it's a collaborative medium and they kind of get that. It's so fun to do this process because he's kind of doing this for the first time so I feel kind of renewed about it as well. This is kind of an exciting time for all of us and the cast is so completely eclectic and everyone is so strong -- except Ryan [Reynolds], and God bless him –

Reynolds: Yeah.

Piven: No, I mean, you know…

Reynolds: Yeah. The weak link.

Piven: No, you'll get there, man.

Reynolds: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Jeremy. I'm holding her hand (jokingly referring to Alicia Keys who sits next to him). No one knows.

Piven: No. There's not a weak link in this entire cast. I was really, really proud watching this thing. It's a true ensemble piece. Everyone is really strong. I didn't mean to take up all the time. (Laughs) It’s true.

Q: Common and Alicia, your onscreen chemistry was really kind of hot.

Common: That's good.

Q: Both of you being artists geared toward empowerment and positivity, do you have any plans to work together musically in the future?

Common: Alicia and I – I've been able to perform, been blessed to come and rock some shows with her, and I was also featured on her unplugged album.

Keys: Absolutely.

Common: When the time comes…we're artists and I respect her as a woman and as an artist, as a person, and when the time is right, that’s how we connect. I feel like if she has a song and she’s like, 'Yo Common, lets get on this.' Then I'll be down for that, or if I have a song. So I feel that would come naturally like everything else in life, you know.

Keys: And that's a beautiful thing, because rarely are you able to establish a relationship with a person where you get to know them. You really know them. You know you feel like you can call them on the phone and say, 'Hey, what's going on with you? Where's your head and how is everything with you?' And to be able to have that without having to go, 'By the way, can we get on this music together real quick?' You know what I mean? It’s amazing. So that when we do [do] that, it'll be the friendship. So it's all good.

Q: Nestor and Ryan, these characters are a little different from what you've done in the past. Can you talk about what drew you to the project and then a couple of quick updates about your Armando Valladares project and then if you could tell me what's going on with 'The Flash.'

Reynolds: Well, yeah, I've certainly never been in a movie that's had this unique brand of unblinking violence before. So that's sort of new for me. But it's like any other role. I mean you tackle it in the same way and you try to find the truth to it and I was really attracted by this guy who was caught in this bureaucratic FBI cluster-fuck, for lack of a better word, and because of that loses somebody that’s very dear to him. So, for me, it was just playing the truth of that the whole time and I was kind of alone throughout the movie. I mean my character is sort of more of a rogue player and he kind of arrives to the party a little bit late, and, in doing so, I didn't establish the *special friendships* that Jeremy [seems to have made here]. (Laughs) But when all is said and done, it was a dream come true and I'm just a huge fan of Joe Carnahan as well. He's such a charismatic individual and somebody that just applies every part of himself to the project he's in. So it was great for me.

Q: And 'The Flash?'

Reynolds: Oh, and 'The Flash.' It's a $180 billion movie if they do it, and so I don't know how that stuff works and I don't really get involved with it. I think that if they're going to do it, they're going to see it through the eyes of Wally West and it's [an] inanimate world and I can hear people falling asleep while I'm talking about this. (Laughs) I honestly don't know. It's just a huge undertaking. So I would love to wear a red unitard sometime, but I can do that on my own.

Alicia: And then stand up comedy is actually next up. (Laughs)

Reynolds: Oh yeah, that’s next.

Carbonell: Well, for me, like Ryan said, Joe is such an enormous talent. If you watch 'Narc,' it's amazing to see how incredibly talented he is in that particular genre which was just a drama, and then to come around and do a follow up, second picture that is such a tonally different kind of movie – this being a dark action comedy – and every character, as Jeremy said, has a moment, has a sort of epiphany -- even though it's incredibly violent -- has a real moment of clarity. And as dark and as depraved as some of the characters are, which mine certainly is, we all have a sort of moment of lightness and I think the reason the movie works so well is because the violence is so well balanced with the comedy. On my first day I got to take a blow torch to a man's genitals which was only funny when I saw it onscreen. (Laughs)

Reynolds: Oh, they filmed it?

Carbonell: But I mean, how often do you get to play something as dark as that and still make it funny. So, for me, it was just a dream to get this job and to be able to work with this phenomenal cast. And by the way, Andy Garcia is helping me to develop the script and attach an actor to the script (referring to Armando Valladares project). So we're in the process of putting that together.

Q: Alicia and Common, acting is a totally different process from music. What does acting give both of you that your music does not? And also, it’s the holiday season. What has to happen for you in the holiday season in order for it to be complete?

Keys: Well, I personally feel that acting is not totally different from singing and being a musician. My feeling especially is because the way that… when I write a song, it's a memory. It's a moment in my life, and three years later when I'm on stage singing that same song, I have to recall what it was about that moment in my life that made it real for me and bring it to that moment on stage to make it real for you. To me, that is the same technique that I use in a very basic way for acting as well. So I find that they're very similar for me which is why it's not such a stretch. It’s not such a leap. But what acting does bring that music doesn't bring for me is the opportunity -- and probably for Common too because he said this -- is the opportunity to be completely different in every way from whom you normally are, the person that you are when you wake up in the morning is who you are in your life. But to take that and have the opportunity to be the complete opposite of that -- as Georgia was, as Ivy was -- is the excitement of it. I think that personally allowed me to access places in myself that perhaps I had never accessed before because they are not who I am on a daily basis. So that is the incredible part of it for me and that I love tremendously. And for the holiday, what it takes to make it complete, it's got to be somewhere familiar, somewhere loving, home. For me, I like to be at home. I like to be with those that I love and very easy and casual and in my slippers and I'm chillin'.

Common: I have to basically agree with Alicia as far as the acting. It's just for me another way to express myself as an artist. I had to battle with myself for a minute about ‘Man, I want to establish myself as an actor.’ I don't want to be seen as this rapper/actor and I realized that if you're an artist, you're an artist and you can express that through music, through painting, through photography, through acting. This is just another way for me to express myself. Certain things about scheduling and different things that are different from the music industry, that's one difference that I've seen. But overall as far as artistry goes, it is a similar expression. You know, basically Alicia answered it. You do discover other things about yourself that you probably wouldn't [have] just writing [songs] sometimes. That's what it is. Now for Christmas and New Years I always have to go to Chicago because that's my ground right there. I gotta see my mother and my grandmother and my daughter, and just be around my homies, just talkin’ crazy and drinkin’ beers and just living a real life. I gotta go home and, God willing, I'll be in church on New Year's Eve. I need that to start my New Year's off and that's what I'm gonna be doing. That’s the holidays for me. Holiday in your hood, you dig? Peace, love and the Gap.

Piven: Whoa! Wait a minute. Easy. I'm telling you.

Q: Ryan, your character seems to be one of the only ones who’s actually emotionally affected by the violence going on. Everyone else seems to be cooler and even happy about it. Were there conversations about that perspective?

Reynolds: No. That was just part of the story. I mean, he was the guy that was deeply affected emotionally by this and physically through the ringer by the end of this adventure. Yeah, it was the focal point for me in the character. The climax for the character of Messner was the reason to do this movie, you know, to really just get inside that guy and find out what makes him tick. For me I haven't done a lot of films where I’ve really had to jump into something in this way. So, it was the least amount of me that I usually put in and oddly enough the most. It was the most effort, yet it was a departure from anything that I've been comfortable in, any sort of wheel house that I've established.

Q: What's the boo-boo on your forehead?

Reynolds: Oh, I took a header on my set in New York on Monday. Yeah, you should see the table. I'm a cliché. Yeah, it’s awful. I literally went down on the set and have five stitches in there. So, good times.

Q: Ryan, sorry about the cut.

Reynolds: Ah, you don’t care. (Laughs)

Q: In terms of what Jeremy was talking about, not getting the same sort of acclaim that the others did, do you feel ostracized being the only Canadian on the set? Were you the only Canadian on set, Ryan?

Keys: Absolutely ostracized.

Reynolds: Yes, you know they had something they called a camp for me that they kept me in. No, I mean, c’mon, I'm a Canadian. I’m not like a turtle. We're going to make a nice little state someday. No, it's fine. I think that Los Angeles is the fourth biggest Canadian city, is what I'm told. So they're around. They’re around.

Q: Jeremy, I was wondering how long you practiced and if you worked with a magician to learn all those tricks? Also, it's a very emotional film for you, all of your scenes. Can you just go in and out of that easily or do you stay in that mode for the whole day?

Piven: That's an excellent question. Paul Wilson was the guy that I worked with for the magic and the thing that he said that was the most important was to actually pull a trick off in front of people and he was absolutely right. I went with Common and Joe -- Ryan wasn't invited (laughs) -- but anyway we went to the Magic Castle and we got up there and I actually did a trick and it’s addicting. It really is. I've been on the stage my entire life as an actor and it's kind of another level where you pull this thing off and then to look in people's faces that are completely freaked out by something. I could see why you could dedicate your life to that as I did to the stage, so that was really informative for me. I had never really been around cards. I wasn't that guy. So I really had to work kind of extra hard and always have them in my hand, and they're kind of like worry beads for the character that I kind of incorporated. So that was really great, to always have them in my hand. What was the other question?

Q: The emotion that your scenes had with the drugs and all of it. How did you deal with that?

Piven: Yeah. That's just what you live for as an actor, to get there. Joe said to me when we met on this role, 'Do you want to go deep?' I mean, I've waited my entire life for that moment. I had been doing it onstage in Chicago for a couple of hundred people and so I always knew that I have an emotional instrument and I'm accessible in that way and a big cry baby, to be honest with you. So, I knew that I could tap into that. Also, even though a character like that is far from my experience, there are a lot of metaphors there when you have a guy like that that's looking at himself in the mirror and wondering who he is and if he's a charlatan and what's happened to his life. I think that any one of us has had moments where we question ourselves. So these things are not too far from something that we can get into touch with and you just have to kind of make it real and go to that place. We had a moment where I had to get really, really emotional and I wasn't quite clicking in the way that I wanted to do. Joe asked me to put this little kind of twist into it that threw me off balance for a little bit and so I had to call upon some other stuff. It all sounds really cryptic what I'm saying here, but anyway I kind of connected on a very deep level that ends up being in the movie. I knew that it worked because I talked to Common afterwards and he said that he was in the other room and he felt something through the wall.

Common: Yeah, I remember that.

Piven: So it was like, 'Okay then.' It was confirmed that I was kind of onto something. So the whole thing was just a complete gift and Joe and I knew that if you didn't care about this guy, if he had no heart when everyone was trying to kill him and extract his heart or put him on ice for the money, whatever their motivations were – everyone was converging on this hotel room – and if you didn't care about this character, if he didn’t have some potential as a human being and if it wasn't a tragedy, then all the hard work that everyone puts into it wouldn't mean as much because you needed to have that central character be tragic. It was just an honor to be able to kind of live fully through that guy.

Q: Alicia, what kind of character do you play in 'The Nanny Diaries?'

Keys: Well, basically her name is Lynette and she is tremendously in every way, in every possible crevice, different from Georgia which is another reason why I chose to do that film. She is way more bohemian. She is like the earth of the movie and is kind of the one person that has sense. I would even be inclined to say that in regard to the worlds that are described are just chaotic. So it's a very, very great film. I love it very much. Scarlett [Johansson], again working with Scarlett was fantastic, and being able to, once again, take another character that wasn't precisely like me but still so different from where I just came was a tremendous experience. So that's what I want to continue to do.

Q: Jeremy, this has been an amazing year for you professionally. Do you have a goal or a vision for your future? Are you on a track for things that you want to achieve?

Piven: I never really got off too far ahead of myself, but there is a lot of stuff out there. For so much of my career I've been trying to find little things and make something out of it. This is one of those gems, this role. It's the best role that I've ever had in my life and was just a true gift to be here with this cast and to have Joe be at the helm was magical, no pun intended. As far as the rest of it, I started a company and I'm producing some stuff right now and got the rights to some stuff and I wrote a script and I've been whispering in director's ears for a really long time and I'd love to direct. I know that everyone says that, but it's true. I just think that it's a really collaborative form and I want to continue on with that. I'd love to get the girl (turning to Alicia) in something if that's possible. How about that?

Q: Do you have any musical aspirations now since working with Common?

Keys: Yeah, he has an album coming out.

Piven: I do but…Easy, easy.

Reynolds: You’re a wicked drummer, Jeremy.

Piven: I have been drumming my whole life, and so that's just really, really fun to me. So I would love to get onstage and mix it up someday with these five people live somewhere. You never know. It could happen. Stranger things have happened.

Q: Do you know anything about Season four?

Piven: I know a lot about it just because it's going to be twenty episodes and we've already shot eight of them. To me it's the best stuff that we've done because I get to do so much. See, that doesn't print right. Let that be a lesson to everyone. Irony doesn't print and that just makes me look like a bad guy. HBO does something that most networks don't do which is give a show a chance to find their voice. Unfortunately with networks, everyone is worried about their jobs and they pull these shows based on ratings, and back in the day, all of these great shows -- 'Seinfeld' and everything -- they never had ratings out of the gate. They just didn't and it was impossible to get it. So I think that the show is hitting its stride and the best stuff is kind of in the season to come and Ari Gold will rise like the Phoenix. You can't count him out of it.

Q: I started watching you on 'The Larry Sanders Show' and you were great in that.

Piven: Oh, thanks. Listen, there is a DVD coming out with the whole show, seven or nine seasons. It's a real comprehensive thing and I did this long interview and in it I said that all the shows that were doing now, 'Entourage,' all of this stuff, we're all chasing the level and the bar that was set on ‘The Larry Sanders Show.’ That was the best show about the backstage life of the entertainment industry that's ever been done. I hope that [Garry] Shandling comes back and does more stuff.

Q: Do you think that the boys were right to fire Ari?

Piven: It's interesting because one of the great things that you should never do that I learned from John Malkovich is to never judge your characters. So I don't have any distance to be honest with you because I'm so kind of in that Ari Gold space in terms of trying to flesh him out and give him as much integrity as possible. So I don't see the totality of it like you do. So, my view of it is totally skewed. I say that they were wrong.

Q: Bringing on Lloyd has been great for Ari's character.

Piven: Yeah, he is the best. Rex Lee is a sweetheart.

Q: He loves to party. I see him at every event.

Piven: He's living the dream.

Q: Thank you, everyone.

"Smokin’ Aces” opens in theaters on January 26^th. Be sure to also enter to Win 1 of 3 Smoking Aces Prize Packs