Trivia / Rounders

• Actor-Inspired Element: The script had Teddy's Oreo tell simply being the cookies being eaten or broken. John Malkovich added the touch of holding them up to his ear as if to listen to them.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Director John Dahl is a fan of sports movies and saw Rounders as his way into the genre. Edward Norton was an avid poker player already and despite his agent's insistence he shouldn't take "a sidekick role", Norton loved the knowledgeable script and signed on.
• The Cast Showoff: As broken down by a real-life casino security expert here, Edward Norton in the scene with the cop game really is performing genuine false shuffles, grips, and base dealing/hanging that actual card mechanics use in their scams.
• Defictionalization: Adam Savage of MythBusters fame got a (near) duplicate set of Teddy KGB's poker chips specially made by the same company that made the chips for this film (name withheld for legal reasons).
• Fake Russian: Teddy KGB, as played by John Malkovich.
• Life Imitates Art: Damon and Norton went on to play in the 1998 World Series of Poker, though they didn't last very long.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Johnny Chan did the film because his daughter was a fan of Matt Damon.
• Throw It In!: Edward Norton ad-libbed many of his lines, including "She crossed her legs too fast", which is a line from Chinatown.
• Wag the Director: Worm was originally supposed to smoke, but avid nonsmoker Edward Norton refused.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Neve Campbell turned down the role of Jo.
  • Edward Norton initially passed on Worm. According to the screenwriters, the audition finalists for the role were Mark Ruffalo, Steve Zahn, and Rory Cochrane.
  • In the original version of the script, Mike McDermott was going to make a move on Phil Hellmuth in the Atlantic City big-money game, not Johnny Chan.
• Write What You Know: Screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien were frequents in the New York underground poker scene in their twenties and wrote the film based on the things they heard and saw. One player in their circle was "Joey Bagels", who was a round-the-clock "grinder" (a conservative-betting player) who would leave at 6 a.m. to deliver bagels; this eventually formed the character "Joey Knish" in their script.

---