PARK CITY, Utah (AP) – Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn ventured deep into the heart of America to film the gambling drama “Mississippi Grind,” a gritty, 70s-style road trip movie about two near-strangers travelling from Dubuque, Iowa to New Orleans.
The production spanned the heartland as they drove all over Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana and Alabama, going to little towns and little casinos and off the beaten path racing tracks, often filming the “road trip” scenes while they were also actually travelling elsewhere.
“I got to go to place that I’d never see otherwise,” said Reynolds on Sunday. “I love the South. I go all over the South all the time. My wife (Blake Lively) and I are addicted to New Orleans. But we’ve never been to those steamboat casinos or anything like that.”
To prepare for their roles as expert gamblers, the two went out on the town with a “poker czar” a few times before they were “thrown to the wolves with genuine, 14-hour a day sitting at a table grinding killers,” said Mendelsohn.
“They see us coming and they slide over to that table,” added Reynolds.