Molly's Game (2017)
Trivia
Jump to:
Spoilers (2)
It's widely believed that "Player X" is based on Tobey Maguire.
Molly Bloom told Aaron Sorkin that she wanted Jessica Chastain to play her. Bloom is a year younger than Chastain in real life.
According to Molly Bloom, the most money she'd ever seen lost in a card game session in one night was $100 million. The losing player settled the debt the following day.
Because of schedules, Idris Elba and Jessica Chastain had only 10 days to shoot. They shot 45 pages in the first 6 days. They rehearsed off-set before shooting began, and between takes.
All of the extras in the card games are professional poker players. First-time director Aaron Sorkin wanted realism, right down to the way players handled cards during games.
During one of the earlier poker games in the movie, one of the players can be seen wearing headphones. This is no doubt a nod to Leonardo DiCaprio who, according to the book, wore headphones and listened to music while playing during Molly's early games. DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire are close friends.
Molly says that the center of the galaxy smells of "rum and raspberries" due to ethyl formate. Both are true - ethyl formate does smell like rum with a hint of raspberry and it is one of the organic compounds that have been detected in clouds at the center of the Milky Way.
According to writer/director Aaron Sorkin, the actors would play poker between takes with the professional poker players who appeared as extras in the card game scenes. The extras, who are usually paid $90 for a 12-hour work day, were often the highest-paid people on the set.
Since this was his directorial debut, Aaron Sorkin often called his friend David Fincher for shooting tips. They'd previously collaborated on The Social Network (2010). He also found Kevin Costner supportive during the shoot (Costner has directed three movies including Dances with Wolves, for which he won a Best Director Oscar).
Molly Bloom's younger brother Jeremy Bloom was also a skier. He was a 3-time World Champion, 2-time Olympian, an 11-time World Cup Gold Medalist, and was inducted into the US Skiing Hall of Fame in 2013. He was also an All-American college football player at the University of Colorado. He was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, but never played football professionally. In April 2010, Mr. Bloom founded the marketing software company Integrate. The company was named as the "Best New Company" at the American Business Awards in New York City, and Forbes Magazine called him one of the 30 most influential people in technology under the age of 30.
Idris Elba's character works for the fictional law firm of Gage Whitney. Gage Whitney (also called Gage Whitney Pace) appears multiple times in Aaron Sorkin's work. In The West Wing (1999), Sam Seaborn worked there before joining the Bartlet presidential campaign. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006) and The Newsroom (2012) also mention the firm.
At Molly's first poker game, she says that she Googled music that poker players liked, and had to come up with a playlist from just one Kenny Rogers song. The famous song, which inspired a short video of the same name, is "The Gambler".
Card player Brad Marion, played by Brian d'Arcy James, is portraying real life ponzi scheme hedge fund fraudster Bradley Ruderman. Other celebrities involved, and later being sued to recoup money lost by Ruderman for his creditors by a bankruptcy trustee are Nick Cassavetes, Gabe Kaplan and professional poker player Dan Bilzerian.
When Molly enters Dean's poker room for the first time, writing on the wall says "Quo Vadimus", which is the title of the series Sports Night's last episode. Both Molly's Game (2017) and Sports Night (1998) were written by Aaron Sorkin. "Quo Vadimus" is Latin for "Where are we going?"
Although she plays her mother, Claire Rankin is only six years older than Jessica Chastain.
Early in the movie, Molly is seen driving a green 1997-2001 Jeep Cherokee Sport. The same make, model, trim package & color of vehicle is driven twenty years earlier, by Mike (Matt Damon) the main character in the high stakes poker film Rounders (1998).
Graham Greene and Kevin Costner played together in Dances with Wolves (1990).
Jeremy Strong and Joey Brooks have now done 3 projects together in quick succession with The Big Short (2015), Succession (2018), and Molly's Game (2017), all of a financial theme.
Piper Howell's and Stephanie Herfield's debuts.
Spoilers
Molly Bloom is banned from Canada because she pleaded guilty to a federal crime in the United States. She was granted a 48-hour pass to visit Canada for the movie's premiere at TIFF. Ironically, the film was shot in Canada.
