Director Jon Osbeck Talks About His New Poker Movie ‘Down to the Felt’

Credit: Poker Scout

Down to the Felt is a movie now available on AppleTV and other outlets that makes a worthy entry into the poker movie library. To delve deeper into the film’s details, director Jon Osbeck joined PokerScout for an exclusive 30-minute interview. Osbeck is an actor and director from Columbus, Ohio, who takes pride in independent filmmaking.

Down to the Felt was released on Oct. 17 and can be streamed for less than $5 on AppleTV, YouTube, or Amazon Prime Video.

PokerScout: What was the goal of Down to the Felt? What type of film did you set out to make?

Osbeck: “When we started writing this film, we being myself and the other two writers, Dino Tripodis and Ralph Scott, it was still in the pandemic times. End of 2021. As a director, we had nothing to do at that time. So one of the the things to do was write. We thought, ‘let’s come up with something that’s unique to the three of us, where we can use our strengths, things that we know.’

I have to say that Dino (Tripodis) is absolutely bringing the poker-playing element to the story. We didn’t intend for this to be specifically a poker movie, although all of us do play it together. Admittedly out of the three of us who wrote it, I am definitely the worst player and least experienced.

But we absolutely loved using it as a metaphor for what the main character Paul was going through. Just wanted it to be a backdrop flavor to a fun action dark comedy. We initially set out to make a fun to watch but we all love poker and play it together so it seemed to all fit together.”

What’s your experience with poker? Do you play?

“Usually, it’s just for fun, cash games. I have played a few private tournaments, but again, I am just learning. I’m still learning. As a matter of fact, I was constantly checking with Dino about the poker scenes.”

Was there any consultation with a poker player about the poker scenes?

“Well, Dino is pretty experienced. He has won local tournaments and early-round qualification for the World Series of Poker. He even did it early on when we were writing the film. A couple of the actors had never played before. So when they came in to film the movie, we had a day where we went down to the local Italian club (in Columbus, Ohio) and had a day where we just played poker. We got them accustomed to the terminology and taught them about the game. And I think they were able to pull off looking like they knew how to play.

We wanted it to be nuanced, and another thing we wanted with this film is that I wanted people not to have time to think about the situation too much, and throw the viewer straight into the movie. We didn’t want them to have to overthink.”

Why was Columbus chosen as the setting?

“We are all from Columbus. I have lived here since I was 3. I have lived in other places, but pretty much all of my work has been here. We wanted to bring attention to Columbus and establish it as an independent film hub. We have a lot of talented crew, all of whom are from Columbus. The only people we brought in for the film were the top five on the call sheet, the actors. Everything else was Columbus, so we really wanted to try and put it on the map since we are all from here.”

You described how the movie is meant to use poker allegorically for these characters’ lives. Describe that a bit more.

“It starts with the title. Down to the Felt. A lot of people have asked me if this is a movie about billiards. That’s a valiant guess, but no. It’s been fun to explain to people. It means you push all your chips in, you’ve got nothing left but felt. And that overall is a metaphor for Paul, which was always the case for him. It was a working title for a long time until we chose it as the permanent title.

Paul’s personality carries the film. It’s great that you picked up on it; it’s not just about playing the cards but about playing the player. Paul’s whole approach to life is like ‘all in.’ That’s why he makes this hyper-stylized crazy deal for the movie.

But again, we didn’t want to make this a ‘poker movie’ like Rounders.”

What other movies influenced Down to the Felt?

“Rounders is probably the largest influence. Stylistically, as a director, I love the tone of that movie, and that’s the down I wanted to have in Down to the Felt. Molly’s Game was also a significant influence on the style of the games themselves. There was another movie, I don’t remember the name, with Jake Johnson about a gambler who has a bag of money that he runs out of, which also influenced this. (Editor’s note: Osbeck is referencing the 2017 film, Win It All)

But early on, we were pitching this to investors, we always used Rounders as the first comp.”

While less related to poker, what role does the Hitman play in the morality of the movie?

“You nailed it, really. It’s not until the end that Paul stops to think about what’s going to happen. But we found it interesting to make the hitman the moral compass. It was really fun to make the hitman archetype and give him a bit more depth. We found that audiences who saw this movie at festivals were kinda torn between which character they identified with more as the main character.”

(Spoiler Alert! The remainder of the interview includes a discussion of the plot. Do not read on if you wish to preserve suspense around the movie and its plot!)

Was the ending intentionally abrupt?

“We always wanted to have that what the hell moment at the end. Where that last scene crashes into that thing. We went back and forth, do we let the audience in early on who Erica is, or do we wait and make it a surprise with Paul? After a very small test group, we decided to, to use a poker term … we showed our cards and revealed to the audience who she was. And we also found the tension was interesting to have the audience know what Paul doesn’t for a while.”

It was interesting how, despite Paul thinking he had the upper hand, Erica really had the trump card in the end.

“Yeah, it’s great that you picked up on that. For as much as Paul thinks he’s totally in control of what he’s doing. These two people know more than he does.

We actually had more of that original scene with more poker. We had a whole half-day of poker scenes filmed, featuring great poker shots. I loved it. Really, really great shots of cards being put down, beautiful shots, but for the sake of editing, we had to cut it. We felt we needed to get to the main deal of the movie faster, and that scene lingered a bit too long.”