For British actor, starring role is good deal

Jim Sturgess (left, with Laurence Fishburne) plays card-counter Ben Campbell in "21." The film, which also stars Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth, opens March 28. (Peter iovino)

Ben Campbell in the new movie "21" is just a quiet MIT undergraduate until Las Vegas flash and the adrenaline rush of high-stakes betting ignite his fast-living alter-ego.

To make the character work, "he just had to be completely mild in every kind of way," said Jim Sturgess, the 26-year-old British actor who plays the part. The challenge was to portray Ben as "straight-down-the line" yet definitely "not a nerd."

"If it was going to be some 'Revenge of the Nerd' kind of movie, it wasn't going to interest me," Sturgess explained while in Boston for the movie's local premiere. "But it's about a real kid and a real situation."

On a recent Monday morning, Sturgess sported a boxy gray sweatshirt and the prior day's stubble. Forgoing the Bristol Lounge's fancy omelets, he tucked into a plate of scrambled eggs and sausage. Formality is not the modus operandi for the actor, who grew up in a small village outside London and discovered performing, he said, because play rehearsals were a way to get out of class.

Sturgess was hand-picked for the role of "21" just as Jeff Ma, Ben's real-life counterpart, was personally selected for the MIT card-counting team whose story is told in the movie.

The actor was asked for an audition tape by "21" director Robert Luketic. At the time, Sturgess was filming "The Other Boleyn Girl" and "stuck out in rural England in some old castle somewhere," he said.

He borrowed equipment from the crew and slapped together an ad hoc video and sent it to Luketic, who said he knew the actor had the right look for the role when he watched an early cut of Julie Taymor's 2007 Beatles musical "Across the Universe," in which Sturgess starred (and sang) as one of the romantic leads, a working-class lad named Jude.

The video confirmed Luketic's instinct.

"As crude as it was - he was starting and stopping [the camera] himself - I was blown away by the stretch and how prepared the reading was," said Luketic by phone from Los Angeles. "I was at my wit's end looking for who was gonna play this guy. It had to be someone who could be a sweet kid from the suburbs of Boston, who has a good heart, and can put an Armani suit on and strut through a casino. Jim had the ability to focus that I wanted in the character, a sense of serenity."

But Sturgess was hardly strutting during his maiden voyage to Vegas before the filming began. Coming from the Boston portion of the shoot, he felt as jarred as his character.

"I was terrified," he explained. "I arrived first because I wanted to soak it up and get a feel for the place. I remember going out on my own and going into a casino for the first time - I was just bowled over. Where do you start? What are you supposed to do? I think I walked around for a good 15 minutes before I dared even sit down at a table."

LIZA WEISSTUCH