After a couple of starts and stops – including a 15 month stint on Mission Impossible III before exiting that film – writer/director Joe Carnahan finally found his follow-up project to Narc in the dark action comedy Smokin’ Aces. Carnahan’s second feature film follows a super sleazy Las Vegas magician named Buddy 'Aces' Israel (Entourage scene-stealer Jeremy Piven) who decides to spill the beans about the mob to the FBI in order to save his own life. This causes mob boss Primo Sparazza to put a $1 million bounty on Aces’ head. Once the word gets around about Sparazza’s payout to whoever knocks off Aces, a motley bunch of hired killers show up to do the job.
Finding Different Ways to Portray Violence on Film: “This idea of the characters kind of influencing the way that the film was shot and the way the violence that you depict… I think that it has been done so much, so I think doing it in a way that was appropriate for each section. To me it’s like having a thesis statement. I can be a pretty dim bulb, man. I mean, I’m not the smartest person walking the earth so if I don’t have a clear mandate, or I don’t create something for myself to let me kind of guide the film by, then it gets very confusing and muddled. So when I went out I thought, ‘Well, for Alicia [Keys] and Taraji [P Henson] that is a very real situation, as it is for Ryan [Reynolds].’
When that guy gets hit with that 50 caliber, that’s essentially what’s going to happen. You actually fly apart. I wanted it to be really raw and nasty and have the sense of just absolute chaos, kind of exploding. In the same way that there’s a suddenness and a very violent, kind of vicious thing between Ray [Liotta] and Nestor Carbonell in the elevator. Then you get the Tremor Brothers and that kind of spectacle in the hallway with them and the security guys. And then you have the Tremor Brothers early in the film with Ben [Affleck] and those guys.
I’ve been lucky in my life that I haven’t really been involved in a tremendous amount of violence. I mean, I can count the fistfights I’ve been in on one hand. I’ll never pretend it’s like some kind of hardass that went into bars looking for fights. But of those moments, there’s been two of them that have been pretty extreme. Violence for me has this suddenness, and this immediacy, and then it’s gone. Very rarely is it something you linger on, or whatever. So, I just wanted the depiction of it to be that way.
In a lot of ways it’s not dissimilar from the stuff in Narc, this very sudden kind of, you know, eruptions of that. This is the first time I think I’ve actually consciously stylized a gunfight, or gun, you know, which I normally wouldn’t do because there’s a part of it that I think can border on irresponsibility because we do have such a love affair with firearms. I think it can lead to bad things if it’s done with this overly kind of glamorous [style]. But well, you say that, you say that you're immediately a hypocrite. Well, I'm fully aware of that. So, that's a hell of a way to end a question. I'm a hypocrite. Next question!”
Assembling the Cast of Smokin’ Aces: “You know, I write so that you’re enjoying it while you’re reading it, and it’s engaging. I think screenplays too often are just this kind of bastard form of literature and you just toss it off and who gives a damn, you know? But I didn’t approach it that way, and that’s what ultimately hooked a lot of the actors who didn’t do it for a lot of money. I think that they were doing it at some point for like a case of beer. That was what they were being paid - and Doritos. No, I mean, they came to this thing because of the script and also the ability to, like I told Jeremy [Piven], ‘This is like a shot for you to really go deep and to completely do a 180 on Ari Gold and the stuff that you’ve done in the past.’ I told Ryan [Reynolds], who is a brilliantly funny guy, both of them are, ‘I’m going to strip you of your ability to be that guy, to be the comic relief, and really hinge it on him dramatically.’
I think he’s a fantastic dramatic actor. I have this theory about guys who are really funny. [They] understand drama and anger and violence in this really unique way, and I think that both of them are certainly like that. Then you get somebody like Common and [Alicia Keys] who just come in and just kill it. Everybody responded to the script, and that was how we pulled people in. The movie was made for under $25 million. That’s like almost nothing, and I think that’s what got them.”
Casting Alicia Keys in Her First Feature Film Role: “[Keys and Common] were really fast learners and really, really available and open to the process. I was a fan of Alicia’s, obviously musically, and I went to see her in Oakland at the Paramount Theatre. I remember going backstage and you see Alicia onstage and she’s completely self-possessed [and] beautiful. But then you see her backstage and she’s this kid. I remember being struck like, ‘God she’s young.’ We were sitting down with her and I said something along the lines of, ‘Don’t let people put you in some chicken s**t romantic comedy. Let’s go do something really interesting. Don’t do that for your first role.’ She really loved the written material. She loved this idea of this utter kind of deviation and departure from ‘Alicia Keys, the Grammy-winning, hugely famous rock star’."
