Actors Jeremy Strong and John Magaro discuss their film 'The Big Short'

Jeremy Strong, Steve Carell, Adam McKay, Ryan Gosling, Brad Grey, Brad Pitt and John Magaro attend the New York premiere of "The Big Short." Image courtesy Paramount Pictures.

“The Big Short,” based on the book by Michael Lewis, revisits the roots of the 2008 financial collapse by focusing on several people who knew the economy would go bust. Led by actors Steve Carrell, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale and Brad Pitt, those characters bet against the historically stable housing bubble, receiving much derision and flak until the event actually occurred. The movie also points out how easy it was for traders to get away with massive fraud and deception, as well as how easily distracted the American people were at the time.

Jeremy Strong, who plays trader Vinnie Daniel, and John Magaro, who portrays aspiring trader Charlie Gellar, participated in a round table interview to discuss the film, learning about the financial system, and how actors keep their own personal viewpoints from influencing their performances. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. A full version of the recorded interview is available here.

Question: (Director) Adam McKay isn't known for political dramas; how did he sell this to you?

Jeremy Strong: Well, I mean, I think it was more about Adam was pitched to Plan B, which is Brad Pitt's company he runs with Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, and the movie I think had been kind of stalled in turnaround at Paramount. Adam's agent I think said Adam loves this book and he really wants to direct the movie and I think they thought that was really inspired kind of knock out idea. And I think it was; if you spend 30 seconds with Adam it becomes apparent very quickly that he is a brilliant guy and that he just happened to have one kind of platform and make one kind of film. But I think he's eminently capable of breaking out of that mold and doing something different. He understood this stuff and he really cares about it, so it was a real passion project for him.

John Magaro: Yeah, there was no them pitching me on this. They offered me a job. But on top of that, I read the script and I knew I wanted to be a part of this right away. I mean I knew it was something special, I connected with the storytelling I connected with the characters. It just seemed like a lot of fun, so it was me pitching myself.

Strong: “Moneyball,” I loved “Moneyball.”

Magaro: Yeah.

Strong: I hadn't read Michael Lewis' book but as soon as I heard they were doing it I went out and read the book and I was amazed at how, like, gripping it is; it's like a Robert Ludlum book. It really reads at a clip and it has a real engine to it and it's a great story. And that's what he excels at, I think, is taking, in this case, is something that is a very arcane, esoteric subject and he kind of zeroes in on what is really compelling human drama that can unfold within that as a backdrop. And that, to me, I think the movie's very much a human drama that incidentally is about these financial instruments, but it's about these people and the crisis of faith they all go through.

Q: Many of the actors have been very vocal about the political element behind the film. What did you guys think of the political element?

Magaro: You know what, when I initially read it, I didn't look at it as a political piece. I looked at it more from the characters' standpoint and the struggles of the characters, and by the end I didn't exactly see who was the exact villain. I saw more of an analysis of the situation and that there were wrongs but the wrongs were sort of spread around. I don't think you can point to one individual person who created it or cultivated the fraud or whatever. I didn't see such a political tone to it.

Strong: I think, and I'm sure other people feel differently, I think in order to do this job as an actor it's important to remain apolitical because your job really is to connect on an emphatic level to the character and to their point of view. So you're really just one instrument in the orchestra and Adam is the one who has the perspective that's sort of macro perspective. But I think our job is to sort of figure out what makes this person tick. In this case, the character I play had a very strong perspective on all of this, a very innate mistrust of the system and a real contempt for criminality and fraud. So he landed in the middle of the perfect storm in terms of expressing... I mean one thing that Michael Lewis writes about is that all of these people are essentially expressing an emotional point of view through a trade. So in this case we're all betting against something because we are all pessimists and we don't trust the powers that be. So that trade is an expression of an underlying, deeper thing. So as an actor I think that's where we have to go.

Magaro: Yeah, so many things we do to some degree subconsciously or on our own put blinders on to those tones. Especially for Charlie and Jamie (Shipley, played by Finn Wittrock), and there story line is more seasoned Wall Street traders hedge fund analysts, they're new to this and they sense something might be wrong but they don't really know the actual implications until Brad's character lays it down to them toward the end of the film.

Strong: There is a political aspect to it in so far that the character has a political aspect to it. Which you then try to embody.

Q: But since you're not working on it, after the fact, does it piss you off how much people got away with?

Magaro: Yeah.

Strong: Now talking as a civilian so sure I think the movie makes you mad.

Magaro: I think it pisses these guys off too.

Strong: Yeah, it pissed Vinnie off for sure.

Magaro: But that being said, I can't point the blame on the right, I can't put the blame on the left. There's plenty of blame to be shucked around. I'm pissed off, and I know things need to change, but I'm not going to say this guy's the villain, that guy's the villain.

Strong: I would've just as happily played an exec at Goldman Sachs, you know what I mean? Outside of it I do have personal feelings but I kind of think that's not the arena to express that.

Q: Do you think that's part of the point of the film as a reminder it wasn't that long ago? There's still a lot of push for deregulation again; there are a lot of people who wouldn't mind those circumstances occurring again.

Strong: I think that's why Adam made the film and I think he felt it was urgent and he had a sense of outrage about it all and outrage in the sense that we as a culture are paying attention to white noise and Britney Spears; you guys saw the film, all the montages of popular culture, while all of this kind of stuff is going on. Sort of bread and circuses. And so I think he's made the film as a way of kind of igniting, hopefully, a larger examination and awareness and kind of a wake up call and I think the movie does make you mad. I think it can't not. But it also makes you laugh; he doesn't lose his sense of humor, which is what I think makes it so special. He takes something that could easily sermonizing and didactic and he makes it... I was really entertained by the movie, I was kind of amazed how much fun I had watching the movie.

Q: You both have solid careers already but you can't work with this cast without learning a few tricks. What did you guys each get working with them?

Magaro: Well working with McKay, first of all, is kind of... even if it's typical comedy it's such a master class on being quick, doing your homework, being able to shift at any moment and try something new and be spontaneous. And nobody does that like he does, so that was such a gift. And working with Brad, who is so funny that I don't think people don't realize how funny he is. But if we think of the great characters he's played like in “Snatch” or “True Romance” or “12 Monkeys” they're all kind of quirky, off the wall, kind of comical characters. And he brings such spec- specif- specifity. I can't even say the word. Specificity, Jesus.

Strong: And imagination.

Magaro: And imagination and nuance and detail to his work. Seeing that was something.

Strong: It's a hard question because I don't know if acting works that way. I don't think you pick up any tricks, but I think every experience you have sort of, you reinforce and discover your own way of working and you learn a lot from each process because they all demand different things from you. So I think there was a lot I think I learned from working on this and you always try to push your boundaries and go out on a different limb than you've gone out on before. So that inevitably makes you grow in a way we all do that in whatever our form is. In terms of these actors, I think they all have the same thing. I think they're all really talented people who are also each time struggling to find it and sometimes on the ropes and then sometimes inspired and sometimes knock it out of the park and we're all the same.

Magaro: I think it helps demystify it to some degree and that's, for any creative person, that's a nice reassuring thing to get once in a while.

Q: How did you guys dive into the subject? It's still not easy to grasp.

Magaro: Spending a lot of time, or as much time as we could, with our real-life versions of the characters.

Strong: Vinnie calls me synthetic Vinnie.

Magaro: Spending time with them, having them lay out what they went through and what they were dealing with at the time. We also had a great adviser, Adam Davidson, who was NPR's financial correspondent for a long time. He was involved with a great piece that was on NPR which also inspired Adam McKay in a lot of ways in the storytelling of our film. We had a lot of support. And for a month or two months before we started filming it was a crash course of trying to absorb as much as we could so we could apply it when we got on set.

Strong: I think it's probably similar to what you guys do. I think there's a journalistic aspect to acting in that you try to become an expert, try to become a sponge, you have the time when you're working on it you have an insatiable curiosity about a topic because you need to master it in the time you have. I read a ton of books, and there are great, great books about this. That Charles Ferguson documentary (“Inside Job”), there's a bunch of documentaries. Really, actors, I'm not an authority of any of this. What I'm trying to do is absorb enough of so I can have an understanding on an emotional level of what it all is.

We're trying to, I think, do enough, as much as we can possibly do to make it credible. But in terms of really understanding this stuff, it's all gone now. It's like you’re a rain cloud, you're absorbing it and you rain it all out in the performance and then it's gone.

Magaro: If I were you I would not give me money to invest.