“Ben and Jack are terrific, the way they play off each other,” Levinson says. “Their energies are so different, which served us well for this movie because you want that collision of personalities. It allowed for these two characters to have a very interesting dynamic. Ben is great at building a slow burn, while Jack has the more expansive character. And for Ben, playing against that required more restraint, which I think is very hard to do.”
Despite their different approaches, Stiller and Black have only admiration for each other’s acting style. Stiller remarks, “Jack is really good because he doesn’t question it; he just goes for it. He commits to it 100 percent, which makes it a lot more fun to play opposite him.”
Black reciprocates, “Ben’s total commitment to whatever he’s doing is really impressive. There were times we’d be in a scene and I’d be in my own world. All of a sudden, I’d look over in his eyes and think, ‘He’s really listening. He’s totally in it.’ That’s what I tried to pick up from him—how to stay totally in the scene and in communication with the other actors.”
Tim’s envy might have burned itself out were it not for an oddball stranger, who calls himself J-Man, fueling the fire. Christopher Walken, who stars as J-Man, calls him, “a genuine bohemian. It’s hard to define, but he is reasonable in his own way. He sees an opportunity to make some money, but it’s not stealing. He thinks of it as a reward—they’re gonna give it to someone, so they might as well give it to him. He’s basically harmless, though.”
Barry Levinson says that he was thrilled to have Walken in the role, noting, “Chris is a really great actor, and extremely funny. He has a natural sense of comedy, but in a different way from what you might expect. He has a total commitment to any role he is doing; you can see it in his eyes. He is completely focused and just embodies the character. What makes him so great is he has such a command that he can find the essence of things in ways that continually surprise you. He had a line that was ‘Good for you, good for you, good for you,’ and he turned it into, ‘Good for you, good for you, good for you.’ It wasn’t meant to be hugely funny, but in that moment, he extracted something from it that wasn’t on the page. As a director, those moments are quite extraordinary.”
Walken says that one of the aspects of the story that intrigued him was the missed opportunity. “What if you had the chance and didn’t take it? It’s knowing that you were in the right place at the right moment and didn’t know it. I think that’s what happens in Tim’s case, and probably in a lot of cases.”
That missed opportunity not only threatens Tim and Nick’s friendship, but Tim’s marriage to Debbie Dingman, played by Rachel Weisz. Weisz offers, “The Dingmans have a very normal life: They’re not blissfully happy, but they are happy; they are not wealthy, but they’re not poor either. Their best friends, the Vanderparks, live across from them and there's not much to distinguish the two families—their houses are the same, even the two husbands’ jobs are the same. The only difference between them is that Nick is a dreamer, always coming up with these crazy ideas, but this time one of them pays off in billions of dollars. Debbie had wanted Tim to invest in Nick’s invention, but he refused, so she can’t help but be furious. If the Dingmans had just invested $2,000, they would have been as rich as the Vanderparks. The envy that creeps into their lives is very destructive to their marriage. But,” she adds, “it’s also about how money can make you crazy. In this movie, money makes everyone lose their minds.”
Movie Database
In Theaters
