Interviewer: You've been in a lot of films lately, but this one; when
you hear that you're going to be in a cast with Michael Caine,
Morgan Freeman, Woody Harrelson, and Mark Ruffalo, were you
like, "Sign me up.
I'm ready to go"?
Dave: I told my friends that I grew up with, who was in the film, and they
were like, "How the hell did you sneak into that?"
I'm like, "Dude, I don't know.
I'm keeping my mouth shut, doing the job.
Hopefully, they don't fire me before this is over."
It was incredible, man.
It's literally every single person involved is
someone that I really do respect and I go out to see all of
their movies.
Even if one of these people was attached, I
probably would have been excited to do it.
You've got 40 of them; there's a million people in this movie.
Just to be around these guys, and to see their process, to pick
their brain, ask them questions about their career, and how they
got to where they are, it was invaluable.
Interviewer: It seemed like you had a great chemistry.
There's the 4 Horseman; you, Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher,
and then Woody.
It seemed like there was a great dynamic between
the 4 of you, that bled through to the characters.
Dave: It's one of these things where during this junkets, people will
always say, "We got along so well," but we really did.
Even last night, we're here at the junket, we haven't
seen each other in months.
We went to Woody's place and we played a little foosball, played a little catch phrase, had
a lot to drink.
By the end of the night, we're all saying, "I
love you.
I hope there's a sequel."
It is one of those casts; we did really bond.
Interviewer: What kind of research, or did you talk to real magicians
and study magic, and be able to do the sleight of hand that . .
.
Dave: We had a magic consultant on set, David [inaudible: 01:31] who . . .
we didn't have a lot of time to rehearse, so he basically during
the week of rehearsal, he taught us the basis.
For me, sleight of hand stuff, making cards appear, throwing
playing cards.
It's one of these things where he gave us the basics,
said, "I hope you guys practice, but I can't force you to."
I take moviemaking as an opportunity to be a nerd, and really
dive into this world that I otherwise probably wouldn't.
I was at home, watching TV and practicing my tricks for hours on end.
Interviewer: You get that opportunity to really learn something new
with every move you do.
Dave: It's part of your job.
Interviewer: It's fantastic.
Dave: Exactly.
Otherwise, you don't have the time to sit there and learn
sleight of hand magic tricks.
You got a real job, right?
Interviewer: Yeah.
I don't know if you're an X Men fan, but you made me
think of Gambit when you threw the cards.
Dave: Sure.
Interviewer: You know what I'm talking about?
Dave: I know who you're talking about.
Interviewer: Do you get that reference?
Dave: Oh, yeah.
Interviewer: Right on.
Dave: I'll show you some Gambit stuff right now.
Interviewer: What do you got?
Dave: I got you.
All right.
Look at the poster.
Interviewer: Okay.
Dave: I'm going to try to hit myself.
Ooh.
Right over my head.
Interviewer: Ooh.
Close.
Only missed it by a little bit.
Dave: I'm disappointed in myself.
Interviewer: No, you were good.
Dave: I feel embarrassed.
Interviewer: Let me ask you about another great scene; there's a magic
fight scene you have with Mark Ruffalo.
Tell me about the choreography for that.
Dave: It was great, man.
Again, we spent a lot of time rehearsing that scene, pretty much from day-1.
Every free moment we had, we were going to stunt training.
I loved it, though, man.
I want to do a full-on action movie, where we're doing action
from the beginning to the end, not just one little
sequence.
I don't know.
I hope the scene feels unique when it comes to fight
scenes.
Obviously, there's been a million fight scenes throughout movie history, but this one incorporates
magic.
We've never seen that before.
Interviewer: No.
It's totally different.
Dave: Yeah.
I hope people walk away, and they're like, "That was a really
cool, unique fight scene."
Interviewer: Last thing; let me ask you about working with the
director, Louis Leterrier.
Dave: He has a different style than I've ever worked with before, in the
sense that everything feels grander.
He has multiple cameras swinging in and out of the scenes.
It's one of those things like there's so much going on during filming, that
you have no idea how this is going to culminate into a film.
Then you see the final product, and he had a vision all the
time.
The camera literally never stops moving, and it really
helps with the pace and the energy for a movie like this.