It was also my love of kitschy Vegas, the '70s and how it's sort of reasserted itself as a gravitational pole in the entertainment industry. You got Prince gigging two nights a week at the Rio. That's a pretty big piece of business. It's not like it was back then. Like Vegas, there are so many stars in this cast - Ray Liota and Ryan Reynolds, Ben Affleck, Alicia Keys, Common. How did that happen?
Some of them [just fell into my lap]. I heard that Alicia was kind of interested in doing something. I thought that was a really good role for her, as a departure from her musical persona. Common was someone who kind of came to me and expressed a real desire to be a part of it. Everybody else responded really well to the script. Did you have Jeremy Piven in mind for that role specifically?
No, it just came about. He was a fan of mine, I was a fan of his, and we struck up a friendship from that. Within five, ten minutes of sitting down with him I just offered him the role, because I knew he would really invest 100%. There was no other kind of person that could play his character the way he did, and certainly not to those levels. I noticed really big stars like Ben Affleck were playing such smaller roles. Was that intentional?
I think he saw the comedic benefit of being a guy who just goes up and does his thing and kind of suddenly is taken out of the movie. Ben was just a real trooper. He really got it and really understood that people would get a kick out of that. Some of your shots in Smokin' Aces were very interesting. What can you say about your shooting style?
I shot the film to mirror each of the characters and whatever was the most appropriate for each individual. A lot of the stuff is really highly stylized and feels kind of glamorous and other parts are down and dirty and nasty. There's a scene in the end where Common and Jeremy are in that bathroom. It's Common and his reflection and he's talking to Jeremy's reflection. I love that because visually we were trying to tell a story without landing on somebody. How do you feel about people comparing you to other directors like Tarantino and Guy Ritchie?
You're gonna get it. It's inevitable. It's shortsighted and lazy and every other thing. I have great, tremendous respect for those guys. I think they've set a bar. It disappoints me and discourages me that there are far less opportunities for movies like that now - how they have become audacious while other movies are programmed to do really well. It's really disconcerting, but maybe this genre in and of itself is kind of tapped out. Guy Ritchie's last movie, Revolver, you can't even see over here. I don't know what's happening right now. Do you think that this industry doesn't recognize this genre as much as others?
It doesn't feel like it right now. We'll see, especially right now with Grindhouse coming out. I think there's an avoidance of these types of films. It seems that the taste for it now is skewed in a different direction. It's going a little more toward the lower end that doesn't require a tremendous amount of emotional investment. Or maybe moviegoers are just getting dumber. What can fans expect on the DVD that's different from what they already saw in the theater?
I think the film lends itself to a repeat viewing. It will be a much better movie the second time now that you have a roadmap of the film to help you understand it a little bit more. There's also an alternate ending, the actual original scripted ending, which should be a lot of fun.
home