Kate Bosworth a Beautiful Gambler in “21”

Kate Bosworth has established herself as one of the very best young actors working in Hollywood today thanks to diverse roles in a range of films – playing a talented surfer in “Blue Crush” and a feminist Lois Lane in “Superman Returns” -– that are good examples of her desire to keep searching for new challenges. Now she stars in Columbia Pictures new thriller “21,” a recent No. 1 hit in the U.S.

The 25-year-old actress spent six memorably vivid weeks in Las Vegas filming the casino thriller. “It was an extraordinary time,” she says. “Everyone describes Vegas as the adult Disneyland which I can kind of understand although I think it’s a bit more debauched than that!” she laughs.

Bosworth was reunited with much-adored collaborator Kevin Spacey who stars as college professor Mickey Rosa and produces “21” and forged new friendships with the young cast who play a group of M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) students who took the casinos for millions of dollars.

“We all became very close,” she says. “It was such fun for me. I was working with many people that I’d never met before, like Jim Sturgess who is so talented. He is a wonderful person and so down to earth.”

“And also working alongside people that I’ve had the pleasure of working with in the past and love dearly. And that’s nice too because there is a certain familiarity established. I think the value of familiarity is true especially with a director because there’s a specific dynamic between a director and an actor; one of a deep mutual trust.”

Kate plays Jill Taylor and Sturgess (“Across The Universe,” “The Other Boleyn Girl”) play two of the team of students who used a complex method called ‘card counting’ to win big at blackjack in the Vegas casinos.

Basically, it’s a system whereby one player, the decoy, sits in on a game of blackjack – 21 – and meticulously, mentally logs the cards that are dealt. When a deck becomes ‘hot’ – with not many cards left in the pack and mostly high ones – he alerts his friend with a pre-arranged signal. The second player then joins the game and gambles heavily knowing that the odds that he will beat the house have increased substantially in his favor. It sounds an awful lot easier than it is.

Kate herself dabbled at the tables during downtime in Vegas but has a healthy attitude to gambling. “I won overall, but I’m a pretty safe gambler,” she says. “I was one of those people who would make twenty bucks and think to myself ‘OK, I’m going to leave for the night’ and the next night I would make 40 and say, ‘OK, I’m done.’ I was up about $200 by the time we all left for Boston. I think Jim left with more, you’ll have to ask him!”

Opening soon across the Philippines, “21” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.