Ben Campbell in 21 (2005)
21 is the story of six MIT students who become experts at card counting in Black Jack and take millions from Las Vegas casinos. The film’s hero is Ben Campbell, played by British actor Tom Sturgess.
Ben is not a real person, but is loosely based on the real life Jeff Ma. At the time of the film’s release, there were objections to Sturgess’ casting because Ma is Asian-American.
The real Ma, who didn’t make the casting decision, told MIT’s student newspaper in 2008: “I think that part of it is being overblown a little bit, just because the reality is that if you had a movie made about you, what would be the most important thing? It wouldn’t necessarily be that it was incredibly accurate to life; It would be that it be a good movie. I wanted a great actor to portray me, and Jim is an unbelievable actor.”
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