As it slowly works its way towards filming, more actors have been named to participate in screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s first soiree into filmmaking with Molly’s Game. The actors are all character actors that have had a great deal of success in television and films and they will be taking up peripheral roles in Molly’s Game.
First up is Chris O’Dowd, best known for his roles in the films Bridesmaids and This is 40 and for adding his talents to the HBO series Girls. In 2014, O’Dowd made his Broadway debut in the play Of Mice and Men and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor. O’Dowd will take on the role of the New York player who introduces Bloom, to be played by Academy Award nominated actor Jessica Chastain, to the Russian mob.
Joining O’Dowd in the film is Jeremy Strong, who most recently starred in the Academy Award nominated film The Big Short and previously starred with Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty. He has also had roles in other prominent films such as the Steven Spielberg film Lincoln and Ava DuVernay’s Selma. Strong will play the real estate agent/“party dude” who first gets Bloom organizing the games before she takes them over for good.
Bill Camp has earned notice for his work on the HBO series The Night Of, but he has an involvement that goes back to one of poker’s seminal moments. Camp was a part of the notable poker film Rounders, playing “Eisenberg” (one of the players at the table in the Taj Mahal when the denizens of the “Chesterfield Club” journey to New Jersey). In Molly’s Game, Camp will play a participant in the games that gets behind in what he owes the other players in the game.
Finally, Graham Greene will take to the screen in the film as the judge that hears Bloom’s case. Greene is an actor whose resume is lengthy, dating back to 1976 and including appearances in the films Dancing with Wolves, Die Hard with a Vengeance and The Green Mile. Graham has also appeared on a myriad of television programs, including L. A. Law, Northern Exposure and Murder, She Wrote.
Along with these gentlemen and Chastain, noted actors Idris Elba (playing Bloom’s attorney), Kevin Costner (Bloom’s father), Broadway star Brian d’Arcy James and Michael Cera are a part of the proceedings.
The film in based on the “tell all” story that Molly Bloom, the former skiing champion who, after a debilitating injury, took to organizing high stakes poker games for Hollywood’s elite initially and then New York City’s richest and most powerful people. The games, which could see six-figure swings per hand, made Bloom quite a bit of money, but they also brought attention. In fact, it was after her move to New York City that Bloom was arrested as a part of a Russian gambling ring; the only woman charged, she plea bargained to a misdemeanor and received probation in 2013.
The book itself was seen by some as more air than sizzle as it failed to name names and dish the dirt on the participants in the games. In Hollywood, it is well known that actors Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire were all a part of the game, with Maguire being slightly pointed out as a less-than pleasant person. It was also the setting for a lawsuit after businessman Bradley Ruderman participated in the poker nights offered by Bloom, often losing massive amounts of money that was eventually found to have been the property of clients of his hedge fund schemes. But Bloom didn’t offer any stories that could be constituted as tarnishing any of the images of the players in the game.
Sorkin, who is responsible for adapting the book into a screenplay for the movie, has stated that he will hold to the Bloom “no names” mantra, not mixing in any of the alleged dirt on the participants. Molly’s Game will be his first directorial effort after being the creator and writer of such television programs as The West Wing, The Newsroom and Sports Night, the play and movie A Few Good Men and the movies The Social Network, Bulworth, Moneyball and Steve Jobs.
The film began filming earlier this month, but no firm release date has been set other than “sometime in 2017.” Despite a strong cast, whether the film captures the attention of the poker world remains to be seen.
