He hires her as his assistant. Her persistence paid off. He yanked the chip back at the last second. I greeted Ben at the door. I dont have all my money back, he said. This is yours, he said, holding it out to me. Creditors placed a lien on his home. I had five years to live.. Hailing from Queretaro, Mexico, she is a graduate of the University of East Anglia's English Literature with Creative Writing program. When the other playera weak link on the table that others were feasting onfolds, Player X flips his cards over to reveal he had nothing, tossing in a very satisfied, Fuck you., I swear on my mothers life I have you beat, he had said, convincingly and earnestly. Initially unfamiliar with poker, Molly quickly learns how to appeal to the players for tips. Maguire agreed to loan him $600,000. Curtis alleges in the book that Maguire hated seeing Bloom taking home as much as $30,000 in tips per night. . When Molly learns the ins and outs of illegal poker a little better, Dean ends up firing her because he essentially doesn't like the competition. The Hollywood Reporter also stated: "Sorkin keeps things rolling relentlessly and gets fine results from the actors down the line []. Her poker customers came to include men from the Russian mob. But I overcame the worst bad beat you can get and am still in the game.. > Dean Keith Chris O'Dowd > Douglas Downey Jessica Chastain > Molly Bloom Natalie Krill > Winston Madison McKinley > Shelby Joe Keery > Trust Fund Cole I saw the wheels turning. Dean Keith is a real estate developer who introduces Molly Bloom to the world of underground poker. [28] In its first full weekend, the film grossed $2.3 million, finishing 13th at the box office. Bloom had no comment.). These days, Curtis resides in Phoenix and is penning his next book, about his exploits as a card cheat and launching a sleight-of-hand website, kardsharp.com. He also glimpsed the stars petty side. Poker was blowing up big and we found young, wealthy guys who wanted to play with Tobey, said Curtis. However, like in the movie, Maguire really did call Molly to gleefully inform her she had lost the game. You can almost picture him on the sidelines, in a turtleneck sweater, gleefully reacting to folded hands and rivers. He only plays aces and kings. And he did. Curtiss wife moved with their kids to the East Coast. He tried making [Bloom] bark like a seal [for $1,000]. Even with the flaws or disappointments that I mentioned, Molly's Game was a better than average watch and I look forward to more films directed and written by Sorkin. Still, in his first film with a female protagonist, the writer-director has hit on a timely theme: the tribulations of being a woman in a man's world. Although Molly's Game didn't bag any major awards, it did add to Aaron Sorkin's Oscar nominations. So in 2005, the game moved to The Viper Room, the Sunset Strip nightclub where River Phoenix fatally overdosed in 1993. Celebrities were brought in to add glamour and, occasionally, serve as collateral damage. The money helped inspire her to fully embrace the world of underground poker. That led to bankruptcy attorneys going after players to recover his ill-gotten gains, and the game imploded. Yes. The guys included billionaires who had everything but fame. The movie calls him Dean Keith; Blooms memoir calls him Reardon Green. The film premiered on September 8, 2017, at the Toronto International Film Festival, and began a limited theatrical release in the United States on December 25, 2017, by STX Entertainment, before expanding wide on January 5, 2018, and grossed $59 million worldwide. Interestingly, the fictional law firm Jaffey works for, Gage Whitney, has made several appearances in Sorkins work, including in The West Wing and Studio 60. I walked into my house, my daughter ran up to me, and I literally broke into tears.. I was embarrassed, but I was also angry. She's also working in social media to that end as well. [28], Peter Debruge of Variety praised Sorkin's script, saying, " Molly's Game delivers one of the screen's great female parts a dense, dynamic, compulsively entertaining affair, whose central role makes stunning use of Chastain's stratospheric talent. As they recognized him, they turned into excitable little boys. He hasnt talked to Maguire in about three years. Aaron Sorkin was hired to adapt the memoir into a screenplay. What do I want you to do, he said, as if he were pondering. Until everything crashed down hard, they pulled it off, putting together the biggest game that Hollywood has ever seen. While taking the year off between undergrad and presumably law school, Molly went to LA in 2003 and began working a number of different jobs, including as a cocktail waitress and an executive assistant to real estate entrepreneur Darin Feinstein, one of the co-owners of the Hollywood nightclub The Viper Room (renamed The Cobra Lounge in the movie). He owed $500,000 to Salomon and the same sum to a few other players. And then, the feds started secretly following me and listening to our conversations." He folded most hands and listened to music on huge headphones. Serving as the dealer was Maguires then-wife, Jen Meyer. The table was stunned into silence before Affleck replied: It was nice.. Like in the movie, her boss fired her from his game, so she decided to utilize the contacts she made to start up a poker game of her own. When Maguire convinced Bloom to increase the buy-ins for the L.A. games, he promised to bring Affleck into the fold. Directed and written by Aaron Sorkin, based on the memoir by Molly Bloom. The Mollys Game endingbrings her and her father together, where he finally acts the part of supportive parent before her trial. When she refused, a man showed up at her door with a gun. ""The feds first found out about it because a guy [hedge fund manager Bradley Ruderman] in my LA game was running a Ponzi scheme. And later on, there is discussion of whether or not double-dipping is an acceptable way to eat! Molly Bloom ran the most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before the FBI arrested her. Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic both had 40-point games after the Sixers loss against the Mavs. Matt and Craig talk Oscar tactics and more, then later end the show with a prediction about Chris Rocks live comedy special on Netflix, Rachel and Callie also talk all the Bravo news of the week, By submitting your email, you agree to our, The Real Celebrity Stories Behind MollysGame. This prompted her to take a percentage of the pot in order to operate as the bank, a move that caught the attention of the Feds. Back in 2005, the Spider-Man star collaborated with a card cheat-turned-TV producer named Houston Curtis to create a regular poker game for themselves and their rich pals where as much as a few million bucks could be in play on any night. Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business . The film follows this storyline, giving narrative shape to the wild tale. Curtis estimates he won around $15 million during the games four years. Rick Salomon showed up next. R, 2 hr 20 min. Derek spoke with Matthew Biel of MedStar Georgetown University Hospital about rising teenage unhappiness and what we can do to fix it, allegedly kicked out of the Hard Rock Cafe, The Ploys and Tactics Behind Oscar Campaigning. His opponent had gotten confused. [] The film looks sharp and a trio of editors keeps thing pacey despite the 140-minute running time." Bloom starts out as Keith's personal assistant. She eventually moved up from assistant to game-runner, making as much as $4 million a year while servicingMolly's Game's Player X and other high rollers. Charlie negotiates a deal for Molly to receive no sentence and for her money to be returned in exchange for her hard drives and digital gambling records. There, she begins working as a cocktail waitress and then an assistant to a Hollywood insider, Dean Keith (Jeremy Strong, nice and sleazy), who soon has Molly running his weekly poker night out of . This seems to be in line with the tasteless persona of "Player X" in the Molly's Game movie. Molly's Game is based on the true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons. According to DiCaprio, record producer Kasseem Daoud Dean, better known as Swizz Beatz, was 'constantly hanging around' Low, who gave Dean and his wife Alicia Keys art and cars. Thank you, I sniffled, wanting to believe him. Molly Bloom, a young skier and former Olympic hopeful becomes a successful entrepreneur (and a target of an FBI investigation) when she establishes a high-stakes, international poker game. Based on a true story, Molly's Game was adapted from Bloom's memoir of the same name by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing). MOLLY'S GAME is a true crime drama starring Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba about Molly Bloom. No thanks, I said, as casually as if he had asked me if I wanted a Tic Tac. Molly's Game. Could James Harden Potentially Return to Houston After the Season? He told The Post that the actor tried making her bark like a seal [for a $1,000 chip]. Molly's Game is a 2017 American biographical crime drama film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin (in his directorial debut), based on the 2014 memoir of the same name by Molly Bloom. Editorial Reviews. Curtis said that Ruderman was so inept and so rich that he was considered a godsend. Lalibert was also valued. "I saw someone lose $100 million in a night," says Bloom, "and he paid the next day." Tobey was incredibly convincing, and so earnest that the guy eventually, although reluctantly, gave in. Tobey said that he and I would have to stake Leo, recalled Curtis, meaning they would put up cash for DiCaprio to play, covering his losses but also getting a share of his winnings. She didn't have much time for prep or research," Bloom told ET Canada's Matte Babel. Affleck is a notorious gamblerthe guy was allegedly kicked out of the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas in 2014 for counting cards at a blackjack table. Aaron Sorkin, who is a skilled writer and known for adapting famous films such as To Kill A Mockingbird in 2018, wrote and directed Molly's Game. "[17] On September 7, 2016, Michael Cera joined the cast as Player X, a celebrity poker player. [31] In its third week of wide release the film grossed $1.7 million, finishing 19th. If he said. There were billionaires. Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) and somewhat reluctant lawyer Charlie Jaffey (Idris Elba) make their plea. The heart condition reversed itself. 21:41. In her time running the game, Bloom crossed paths with A-listers like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, Nelly, and even Alex Rodriguez, so there are many sources of inspiration for Player X, played by a twitchy Michael Cera in Mollys Game. (Spend it on a new dress, Dean suggests.) Principal photography began in November 2016 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In the spring of 1945, a grim era of bitter darkness, a young man and woman struggle for survival while fighting monsters born out of human greed. What does that mean, exactly? I asked, trying not to cry. If the story sounds familiar, thats because it inspired the 2018 movie Mollys Game, starring Jessica Chastain as Molly Bloom, the former Olympic-class skier who was the hostess of the operation and who later would be arrested on gambling-related charges tied to a game she ran in New York City. [27], Molly's Game grossed $28.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $30.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $59.3 million. Is Golden State a sleeping giant? and "What do they eat?" -EllenIn 2011, the group of hedge fund investors who had been taken in Bradley Ruderman's Ponzi scheme ended up suing Tobey Maguire and other celebrities. As Curtis told the Observer, he believes Maguire used his famous friend to get big fish to come to the table: Tobey was basically paying their entry fee, and using Leo as a lure to get these billionaires like Alec Gores and Andy Beal to come to the games.. "I made a lot of mistakes. Starring: Jessica Chastain,Idris Elba,Kevin Costner Watch all you want. After a serious injury ruined her chances of skiing at the Olympics, Molly Blooms life changed direction. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. And as A-Rod took in the glamorous, well-appointed poker game I was running, a game that happened to have millions of dollars in chips on the table, the posturing started Alex Rodriguez was watching it all, and having a great time.