By Ruben V. Nepales
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 19:52:00 05/23/2008

LOS ANGELES, California—“I very nearly lost my mind,” admitted “Across the Universe” star Jim Sturgess about staying in Las Vegas for over a month to shoot “21,” his latest film.

Jim, who won fans as the lead in the Beatles music-inspired “Across…,” plays one of the M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) students who are recruited by an unorthodox math professor (Kevin Spacey) to make millions of dollars at blackjack tables in Las Vegas casinos.

The high stakes action-adventure, directed by Robert Luketic (“Legally Blonde,” “Monster-in-Law”), is based on Ben Mezrich’s “Bringing Down the House,” which reveals how a real-life team of gifted college students beat casinos in Vegas and elsewhere around the world by counting cards and using an elaborate system of signals.

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