Lay the Favourite

LAY THE FAVOURITE EEN FILM VAN STEPHEN FREARS WILD BUNCH WILLEMSSTRAAT 24 B – 1015 JD – AMSTERDAM WWW.WILDBUNCH.NL [email protected] WILDBUNCHblx LAY THE FAVOURITE – STEPHEN FREARS PROJECT SUMMARY EEN PRODUCTIE VAN RUBY FILMS, EMMETT/FURLA FILMS & WILD BUNCH IN SAMENWERKING MET JACKSON INVESTMENT GROUP, LIPSYNC & RANDOM HOUSE FILMS TAAL ENGELS LENGTE 94 MINUTEN GENRE DRAMA LAND VAN HERKOMST USA REGISSEUR STEPHEN FREARS HOOFDROLLEN BRUCE WILLIS, REBECCA HALL, CATHERINE ZETA-JONES VINCE VAUGHN & JOSHUA JACKSON GEBASEERD OP HET BOEK: ‘LAY THE FAVOURITE: A MEMOIR OF GAMBLING’ VAN BETH RAYMER DVD RELEASEDATUM 18 JUNI 2013 KIJKWIJZER SYNOPSIS Vrolijke dromer Beth besluit aan een nieuwe carrière te beginnen en vertrekt naar Las Vegas om serveerster te worden. Eenmaal daar wordt ze al snel opgemerkt door Dink, een van de meest succesvolle gokkers van de stad. Als hij haar een baan aanbiedt, blijkt Beth een natuurtalent te zijn en een aanwinst voor zijn team. Het snelle leven in de gokwereld bevalt haar goed en dat ze ondertussen voor Dink gevallen is lijkt het alleen maar beter te maken, totdat zijn vrouw -de prachtige maar jaloerse Tulip- ten tonele verschijnt. CAST DINK BRUCE WILLIS BETH REBECCA HALL TULIP CATHERINE ZETA-JONES JEREMY JOSHUA JACKSON ROSIE VINCE VAUGHN DARREN JOEL MURRAY HOLLY LAUREN PREPON FRANKIE FRANK GRILLO DAVE GREENBERG JOHN CARROLL LYNCH MARCIA GREENBERG ANDREA FRANKLE CREW DIRECTOR STEPHEN FREARS SCREENWRITER D.V. DEVINCENTIS PRODUCERS ANTHONY BREGMAN RANDALL EMMETT EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS AGNÈS MENTRE JAMES W. SKOTCHDOPOLE RICHARD JACKSON CURTIS JACKSON D.O.P. MICHAEL MCDONOUGH EDITOR MICK AUDSLEY COSTUME DESIGNER CHRISTOPHER PETERSON MUSIC JAMES SEYMOUR BRETT CASTING VICTORIA THOMAS LAY THE FAVOURITE – STEPHEN FREARS ABOUT THE PRODUCTION Luck, as anyone who has ever dropped a coin into a slot machine knows, can be a tricky dance partner. But then there are people like Beth Raymer, who, against the odds, seem to be able to make their own luck when they need it most. Only a few years ago, Raymer was a private dancer whose greatest ambition was becoming a cocktail waitress; now she is a best-selling author with a masters degree from Columbia and the subject of the film “Lay the favourite,” based on her memoir Lay the favourite: A Memoir of Gambling. Directed by Oscar- nominated veteran Stephen Frears (“Dangerous Liaisons”, “The Queen,” “Dirty Pretty Things,” “The Grifters”), Lay the favourite” casts Rebecca Hall (“Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” “Please Give”) as Beth Raymer, and features a star-studded cast including Bruce Willis, Vince Vaughn, Catherine Zeta Jones, Laura Prepon, Joshua Jackson and Corbin Bernsen. Screenwriter D.V. DeVincentis (who co-wrote “High Fidelity” directed by Frears, and “Grosse Point Blank”) was immediately intrigued by both the subject and the main character. “I’ve never met anyone like her,” he says of the real-life Beth Raymer. “She’s one of the most confident people I’ve ever met. It’s very innate. She had to have been born the way she is. And she’s just completely sweet and has a really intriguing outlook on the world. She can always find really interesting things to think about and to laugh about.” Curiously, DeVincentis was initially only given Raymer’s book proposal. “D.V. was actually writing the script simultaneously with Beth writing her memoir,” explains producer Anthony Bregman. “He would call her up and ask her, ‘Well, what happened in this situation?’ I’m not sure who came out ahead in the game, but they both ended up finishing about the same time.” For DeVincentis, the challenge was focusing Raymer’s memoir (which includes more incidents from her unusual life than could be featured in the film) and capturing her unique writer’s voice and personality. “I just stole as much of her as I possibly could,” he admits, “because it’s so good. The way Beth makes decisions, the way she looks at the world and her moral compass.” Creating the movie version of Beth, for the writer, meant fashioning someone who is an “extremely intelligent, inventive, passionate person with no direction, and seemingly not a lot of self-control. She’s kind of a wonderfully positive mess who is a bad-decision-making machine,” says DeVincentis of Beth in the early part of the story. “But she’s someone who has a sense that there is a better way to live. Because she is a force of nature, she has to overreach – sometimes to her detriment – but it draws her out into the world, and eventually it allows her to meet Dink.” Meeting Dink – a successful but neurotic professional gambler who has started to let his unusual career affect his marriage – sets of an unusual (by Hollywood standards) relationship that is flirtatious and romantic, though ultimately unrequited, which evolves into a deep friendship and mutual respect from two very unlikely people. “The idea that these two people found each other is so extraordinary because they make no sense at all together,” says DeVincentis. It was that relationship and Raymer’s unusual rags-to-riches story that drew the interest of Stephen Frears. DeVincentis had mentioned the project to Frears very casually, but the director seemed to have Beth Raymer-like instincts for a winning bet. As the script moved towards production, DeVincentis was grateful to have Frears’ sure hand at the helm. “I just do what he tells me to do,” remarks the writer. “He’s so extraordinary and intuitive….he loves actors and trusts them to do what they do. He is the same way about writers, which is so inspiring because you feel valued and like what you do is important. He’s unlike anyone else I’ve ever met or worked with, and the writing never stops.” Frears echoes that thought, and explains that his method of collaboration continues even when the cameras start rolling. “I know that other directors are terrified of writers being on the LAY THE FAVOURITE – STEPHEN FREARS set,” he says, “but to me it’s the most natural thing in the world. All you are doing is making a film, nothing more mysterious than that. You need another craftsman to do some of the work, and we’re constantly fiddling around with the script, so to me it was an absolutely natural choice to have D.V. involved all the way through.” Finding someone to play the part of Beth Raymer proved to be one of Frears’ most daunting challenges – he says that he put off casting the part for over a year, desperate to find the perfect actress, and naturally assuming that the role would go to a young American woman. “I wanted an American because, like a child, I thought ‘if it says American, I better get an American.’ But Rebecca Hall’s agent, a long time ago, suggested her. I finally met her and her agent nagged me for an audition, and with a great deal of grumpiness on my part, I agreed. She was dazzling, so what an idiot I am. I remember when I cast Anjelica Huston for ‘The Grifters’ I spent a year refusing to cast her and she was wonderful, too, so I have a good record of stupidity!” “I knew the moment that I read the script that it was going to be really special, a great experience to work on,” remembers Rebecca Hall. “I also knew that it was highly unlikely anyone would think of me for this role. Stephen pretty much laughed in my face when I said I wanted to do it, and his words at first were, literally, ‘I will never cast you.’ Which just turned me into a dog with a bone. He eventually let me audition, so from the beginning, my problem was knowing I desperately wanted to do this role, now how do I convince everyone else?” The role of Dink does not immediately suggest one of Hollywood’s better known action hero stars – Dink, after all, chugs Pepto Bismol to calm his nervous stomach and has put aside the chaos and danger of his early criminal life as a bookie in New York for a relatively safe (and completely legal) existence as a Las Vegas gambler. He’s also married to a beautiful but controlling wife and operates more on impulse than cold calculation. But everyone involved with the production enthuses about the choice of Bruce Willis to play the part. LAY THE FAVOURITE – STEPHEN FREARS Veteran producer Randall Emmett, who has worked with Willis before, is stunned at the actor’s work in “Lay the favourite.” “I’ve done movies more in the genre people have seen him in – action hero, leading man – and then when I came onto the set the first day I was completely in shock. He’s this smaller man, this very emotional man. I grew up with Bruce Willis watching him in ‘Die Hard,’ and here he is in tube socks and khaki shorts. He really took this character and became this guy, it’s just something I’ve never seen before.” “The truth is he is a great romantic actor,” says Stephen Frears. “A very graceful man, and he’s been very generous. When he performs, it is done with such realism and such depth and conviction. It’s been an absolute treat to work with him.” “Bruce did a great job of bringing his ‘Bruce-ness’ to it,” adds Anthony Bregman. “That’s much tougher to bring that stoic character into this place where he has to show all kinds of nervousness and vulnerability, part of the real Dink. It’s a great transformation, and I think it will be a real surprise to a lot of people to see Bruce in this role.” DeVincentis’ script is also filled with vibrant characters, making the film something of an ensemble piece, and their depth and complexity required the casting of a number of performers who are well- known as leads in supporting roles.

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