From 'Hustlers' to 'Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,' journalists become fall film stars
Even as she was reporting it, Jessica Pressler had the sense that her story about a group of strippers-turned-criminals was the stuff movies are made of. The New York Magazine article had just the kind of juicy plot elements that Hollywood clamors for: Pole dancing! Illegal drugs! Wall Street suits brought down by their own greed!
So the instant her piece was published in December 2015, she sent it to filmmaker Adam McKay. Pressler had interviewed the director while he was making "The Big Short," a film about how the collapse of the housing bubble led to 2007 financial crisis. Her latest report, about how adult entertainment dancers stayed afloat during that same financial downturn by stealing money from their wealthy male clients, shared similar themes.
Pressler's instinct was correct: McKay bit, and his company ended up producing STX's "Hustlers," a movie based on the writer's piece "The Hustlers at Scores." But what she hadn't counted on was the fact that she herself would be part of the big-screen adaptation.
Sure, she understood the cinematic allure of her two main interview subjects - audacious, designer-clad strippers ultimately played by Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu - but was a magazine writer with a voice recorder really all that exciting?
Apparently, yes. Because not only was Julia Stiles cast to play a version of Pressler in "Hustlers" - which has already grossed in
