“Lucky You” is the first Hollywood film to be set against the excitement and drama of the recent worldwide poker phenomenon, and the filmmakers went to great lengths to accurately represent the world of high-stakes cash games and tournament play in Las Vegas, circa 2003. For assistance, they turned first to poker legend Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson. In addition to serving as the film’s poker consultant, Brunson was in a position to have a special insight into the central characters of “Lucky You.” Like Robert Duvall’s character, L.C. Cheever, Brunson is a two-time World Series of Poker Champion and is considered an icon in the world of poker. And, like L.C., Brunson also has a son, Todd Brunson, who has followed in his father’s footsteps and will forever be faced with the legacy of his more-famous father.

Sam Farha in a World Series of Poker scene with Eric Bana on the Benny’s Bullpen set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “Lucky You.” The film also stars Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall. Photo: Merie W. Wallace

Matt Savage, who has been a tournament director for some of the biggest events in poker, served as the film’s tournament consultant, and professional poker player Jason Lester, who finished fourth in the WSOP Main Event in 2003, acted as a consultant for the scenes involving the film’s climactic Main Event championship. Brunson, Savage and Lester also make cameo appearances in the movie.

The first order of business was to teach Bana and Duvall how to play poker like seasoned pros. “Robert Duvall and Eric Bana trained for months in order to play side-by-side with the poker professionals who appear in the film. Their goal was not to become expert players, per se, but to be able to sit at the table and handle their cards and their chips like the experts,” explains Hanson. “Robert also had the privilege of spending a considerable amount of time with Doyle Brunson. And while his character is not based on Doyle, it was certainly informed by Robert’s experiences with him.”

While hanging out with Brunson, Duvall discovered that, in the poker world, the definition of a celebrity is quite different. “I went down with Doyle to the casino in Commerce, California, and almost nobody came up to me at all. I don’t even know if they recognized me. He was definitely the star when we walked in there.”

Eric Bana also benefited from time spent with some real-life poker pros, both on and off the set. “It lifted our game because it’s impossible for it not to rub off,” the actor says. “For instance, a scene that might only be a minute onscreen could take us days to shoot, so that’s hours and hours sitting around with these guys, and all you’re doing between takes is talking poker. It definitely elevated my ability to sell my character as someone who knows his way around a poker table.”

“With millions of people watching poker on television, it was vital to maintain the authenticity of not only the game but its players,” states Hanson. To that end, Brunson, Lester and Savage were joined onscreen by some of today’s most recognizable poker pros: Jack Binion, Johnny Chan, Hoyt Corkins, Antonio Esfandiari, Sam Farha, Chris Ferguson, Ted Forrest, Phil Hellmuth, Chau Giang, Barry Greenstein, Dan Harrington, Karina Jett, John Juanda, Erick Lindgren, Minh Ly, Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, Mimi Tran, Cyndy Violette, Marsha Waggoner and Robert Williamson III.

“It was very important that we surround the actors with people who really know how to play the game, how to handle their chips, and how to bet,” Hanson asserts. “To me, that was more important than having people who could just deliver the lines. Poker is very much a game of looks and attitude.”

In fact, apart from Eric Bana and Robert Duvall, one of the only Hollywood actors with a major role at the poker table is Emmy winner Jean Smart in the role of Michelle Lewis. Smart’s character was inspired by one of poker’s most successful female professionals, Jennifer Harman, while Harman herself appears in the film as a fictional player named Shannon Kincaid. Poker pros John Hennigan and David Oppenheim also portray fictional characters in the movie.

Sam Farha comments that the pros were impressed with the director’s commitment to accuracy. “He would ask us, ‘Is that how you’d play it? Is this how the betting would go?’ He wanted us to give our opinions. I think he did a great job.”

Hanson valued the guidance of all the players, but none more so than Doyle Brunson. “We wanted the poker in the movie to be valid, so we based every hand of cards on a real hand, either from tournament play or an observed cash game,” the director offers. “We were lucky enough to enlist Doyle early on as our poker consultant. I went over every hand with him—the sequence of the cards and the betting—taking his advice and making adjustments. Doyle, of course, knows better than anyone that there are no hard and fast rules of play: players make unpredictable moves and luck is definitely part of the game. That’s why poker is endlessly fascinating.”

Throughout the production, the presence of the real poker players was invaluable to the filmmakers, who went to great lengths to accurately represent not only the world of tournament play but the less public high-stakes cash games in Las Vegas. No detail was overlooked; even the dealers at the tables were all longtime poker dealers who were recruited for the film from local casinos during filming in Las Vegas.

The numerous poker scenes in the film are not restricted to the No Limit Hold ‘Em tournaments with which television audiences are very familiar. They encompass both cash games and tournament play and include a mix of different poker games with varying levels of stakes. At the Bellagio, we see Huck “playing with the guppies” to build up his bankroll before he eventually moves up to the “Big Game,” where he plays with the game’s top pros.

Carol Fenelon remarks, “Most outsiders don’t know about the Big Game, but it is legendary in Las Vegas, and we went to some trouble to create a fictional but authentic version of it in the film. The ‘Big Game’ is a mixed game where the type of poker being played changes every half hour or so, unlike regular casino tables where one particular version of poker is played continuously. It is the pantheon of cash games where the biggest action and the best players are. The ‘Big Game’ is where Huck’s father plays whenever he’s in town, and Huck wants to prove he can compete at that level and win.”

“There’s a big difference between tournament play and the high-stakes games,” Jason Lester explains, adding that there is also a difference between playing and filming a poker tournament. “A poker tournament can go ten hours or more a day, but we play different hands. We don’t play the same hand for ten hours over and over,” he laughs.

“Filming the poker scenes was a challenge,” says Hanson, who teamed with cinematographer Peter Deming to capture all the action. “How do you film them in a way that makes it interesting? How do you differentiate one game dramatically from another? How do you make it special for audiences who are now used to watching poker on television? On television, the pocket camera allows the viewer to see the hole cards of all the players. Being ahead of the players is entertaining, but, of course, it’s not what playing the game is actually like. Additionally, when telling a story, I want the audience to identify with one character as much as possible. Consequently, we shot all the poker scenes from Huck’s point of view; we see only his hole cards and we watch him trying to figure out what the other players have. This invites the audience to think along with Huck and will hopefully help them to identify with him, too.”

To anyone who watches poker, the seemingly unconscious habit of shuffling stacks of chips is a definite indicator of long hours spent honing one’s skill in live games. It seemed appropriate to Bana and the filmmakers that Huck would have such a tic. While on location in Las Vegas, Bana, Hanson and Fenelon spent an afternoon at the home of one of the game’s best chip handlers, Antonio Esfandiari. Esfandiari taught Bana a three-chip hand manipulation that the actor can be seen using throughout the movie.

Apart from cards and chips, the role of Huck Cheever required that Bana also master a completely different skill set. “Eric not only had to learn to play poker, he also had to train to hit a golf ball like a player with a four handicap,” Hanson offers, referring to a pivotal sequence in which Huck is forced to take on a physically demanding bet. “He did that very well, too. Every golf shot in the movie is his.”

But only after hours spent on the links of Australia, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Bana concedes. “For me, the golf was the most daunting part of the making the film, because I’d played very, very little golf, and my game had usually been of great comedic value to my friends. You could have nicknamed me ‘The Slicer.’ But Curtis was very strict about it. He said, ‘You have to swing like you have a four handicap, so get to work.’ So I did, and it really paid off. I don’t know how many free golf lessons I had, but it was a lot,” he smiles.

The golfing scene in “Lucky You” is no ordinary game; it is part of an elaborate “proposition bet” conceived by an inveterate gambler named Ready Eddie, who is played by popular comic actor Horatio Sanz. Eddie gambles that Huck can’t run five miles and shoot 18 holes of golf in 78 strokes or under, all in three hours or less. If he can do it, Huck will win the $10,000 he needs to stake his entry into the World Series of Poker. If not, he’ll be another $10,000 in the hole.

Barrymore offers, “I think that’s a great sequence in the film because Billie—seduced by the excitement of the competition—finds herself rooting for Huck. But then his willingness to do anything to win causes her to distrust him once again.”

In the film, Ready Eddie is also engaged in an even more outlandish wager with a character named Lester, played by Saverio Guerra. Eddie bets Lester that he can’t live for one entire month in the men’s room at the Aladdin Hotel. What might seem even more peculiar than a guy having room service delivered to his lounge chair set up in a hotel men’s room is that the same guy appears to have a decidedly female bustline—the result of yet another unconventional bet.

If moviegoers assume the outrageous bets portrayed in “Lucky You” are merely the invention of the screenwriters, they would be in for a surprise. In fact, side bets—both impromptu and planned—are fairly commonplace among gamblers who call Las Vegas home.

Surrounded by poker pros and gamblers during filming, Eric Bana witnessed firsthand that anything could spark a vigorous round of betting. “We were sitting at a poker table with these guys for weeks on end and they’re just betting on everything,” he laughs. “They’d bet on how many takes we would do for that set-up, or how many times the camera would have to move for that scene…anything to get their juices flowing.”

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THE PERFECT BLUFF
The filmmakers’ dedication to verisimilitude was carried over into every aspect of the production, including the spot-on re-creation of the poker room at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino, which had been completely redecorated since 2003 when the story takes place.