| REEL FACE: | REAL FACE: |
Jessica Chastain
Born: March 24, 1977 Birthplace: Sacramento, California, USA | Molly Bloom
Born: April 21, 1978 Birthplace: Loveland, Colorado, USA |
Kevin Costner
Born: January 18, 1955 Birthplace: Lynwood, California, USA | Larry Bloom
Born: abt 1939 Birthplace: USA |
Michael Cera
Born: June 7, 1988 Birthplace: Brampton, Ontario, Canada | Tobey Maguire
Born: June 27, 1975 Birthplace: Santa Monica, California, USA Renamed "Player X" in the movie |
Jeremy Strong
Born: December 25, 1978 Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts, USA | Darin Feinstein
Born: January 5, 1972 Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, USA Renamed "Dean Keith" in the movie |
Yes. The Molly's Game true story reveals that, like in the movie, former freestyle mogul skier Molly Bloom had never made it to the Olympics, in part due to an injury. "I was on the U.S. Ski Team," Bloom said during an interview on Ellen. "I was third in North America, and I crashed pretty horrifically on my Olympic qualifying run." With skiing out of the picture, Molly still felt a great deal of pressure to be successful. Her brother, Jeremy Bloom, was a two-time Olympian freestyle skier who was also a professional football player for the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers. Her other brother is a surgeon who graduated from Harvard Medical School. To learn more about her injury and time as a professional skier, read her book, Molly's Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World.
No. In answering the question, "How accurate is Molly's Game?" we learned that the real nightclub where the poker games initially took place was The Viper Room on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. The club had been partly owned by Johnny Depp from its opening in 1993 until 2004. It was a popular celebrity hangout and is famous for being the location where actor River Phoenix died of a drug overdose on Halloween morning in 1993.
Yes, at least that's what she states in her book Molly's Game. Portrayed by Jeremy Strong in the Molly's Game movie and referred to as Reardon Green in the book, Molly's boss, Darin Feinstein, wasn't the most pleasant of men. The scene in the movie when he yells at Molly (Jessica Chastain) for buying "poor people bagels" is real, according to her memoir.
Yes. Screenwriter/director Aaron Sorkin consulted Molly throughout the screenwriting process. He also relied heavily on her memoir of the same name (pictured below). -TIME
In researching the Molly's Game true story, we learned that initially the buy-in started at $10,000. "Ultimately, it got to $250,000," Molly Bloom said during an interview on Ellen. She became known as the "Poker Princess."
Molly ran two underground games that attracted some of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Macaulay Culkin, Alex Rodriguez, Pete Sampras and others. In her book, Bloom only mentions the celebrities who had already been outed in the media prior to the book being published. She stayed silent on the others, protecting their identities.
Yes. This is in Bloom's memoir. Like in the movie, she had hired a driver for security reasons. He introduced her to some of his mobster friends. They offered her protection for a slice of her profits. When she refused, a man showed up at her door with a gun. He roughed her up and threatened her family. He made off with her cash and jewelry, telling her that he had been sent by the mobsters. She was to be contacted about setting up a meeting but it never happened. Bloom read in the newspaper that the FBI had arrested close to 125 individuals in a large-scale mob roundup.
No. Obviously Molly Bloom did hire lawyers, but Charlie Jaffey is a fictional character. When writing the screenplay, Aaron Sorkin did not interview Bloom's real-life lawyer, Jim Walden (pictured below, right). Sorkin said he wanted to be able to fictionalize the character to best serve the story and not have to worry about keeping him historically accurate. However, Bloom says that, similar to the film, her criminal attorney, Jim Walden, did vouch for her for $250,000 that she didn't have. "It saved my butt," says Bloom. -Vice
"The very worst time I got screwed ended up costing me $250,000, and that really hurt," says Molly. "But I wrote the check—what are you going to do?" She says that she wasn't willing to resort to violence in order to collect, and if she was vetting the players properly, she wouldn't have to worry about not getting paid. -Vice
"The trajectory that I started out, from serving people drinks, then I became a game runner and operator, and then, ultimately, I became the bank," Molly explained. "So I was extending credit to these guys. I was essentially loaning them money, guaranteeing that money. I had to figure out - I had to do background checks and vet them to see if they were good for it. And I was getting stiffed a lot. I had to write big checks for people that didn't pay. So I started taking a percentage of the pot like Vegas does. And that was when I crossed over and broke a federal law."
"The feds first found out about it because a guy [hedge fund manager Bradley Ruderman] in my LA game was running a Ponzi scheme. He lost $5 million [of his investors' money] in the game and they came after all of us. That's how the celebrities got outed. That's how they found out about this game. And then, the feds started secretly following me and listening to our conversations." This is pretty much exactly how it unfolds in the movie. -Ellen
In 2011, the group of hedge fund investors who had been taken in Bradley Ruderman's Ponzi scheme ended up suing Tobey Maguire and other celebrities. The investors claimed the celebrities had won cash from Ruderman that belonged to them. -Business Insider
Yes. "I had left a huge mess of my life," says Molly. A big part of that was knowing that her mother had put her house up to help her pay her bail and legal fees. Her mother's sacrifice helped inspire her to write the book. "When I took in the personal inventory after the wreckage I had caused, the story itself seemed like the most monetizing asset so that I could be closer to paying these people back." After writing the book, she went around Hollywood trying to find a way to get a meeting with Aaron Sorkin. Her persistence paid off. They met and he was onboard for turning her story into a film. -Vice
In 2014, Bloom, who was 36 at the time, was cleared of a number of the charges she was facing and was sentenced to one year probation, 200 hours of community service, and a $1,000 fine. At the sentencing, her lawyer, Jim Walden, conveyed to the court that Bloom was in severe debt in part due to giving up $125,000 in poker profits as part of her plea. -USA Today
Molly is using her networking experience to reach fellow women and help them become successful. "I have a network, and I have a lot of lessons," says Molly. "I made a lot of mistakes. So I want to help women to be successful." She's working on developing localized co-working spaces for women in an effort to build community. She's also working in social media to that end as well. -Ellen
Expand your knowledge of the Molly's Game true story by watching the Molly Bloom interview below.