Looming over the Plaza San Martin in the heart of Argentina’s colourful, eclectic capital city is the elegant Belle Epoque-era Circulo Militar, an emblem of the rich history and European flavour that earned Buenos Aires the nickname “The Paris of South America”. Stepping through the iron gates and up the steps to the palace’s dark, stately interior, one expects to find a museum-like stasis within the gallery of rooms and vast, dome-like rotunda — but appearances can be deceiving.

Anticipation, dance music and swirling lasers are in the air, emanating from all the way down the hall, where large wooden doors give way to a 21st century party now raging within the 100-year-old rotunda. The shifting LED light dances off the stark lines of a Plexiglas racecar, like a blueprint sculpted to three-dimensional life. Through an adjacent doorway, a fully stocked bar is bathed in an electric aqua glow.

An army of beautiful people dressed to the nines completes the illusion … but not quite. Suddenly, we see all the classic signs that is, indeed, a movie set — it all depends on where you look. 

SMOOTH OPERATOR WITH SHATTERPROOF COOL

It’s day 48 of the 60-day shooting schedule on Focus, a slick, sophisticated and sexy heist film starring Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Rodrigo Santoro, Gerald McRaney, BD Wong and Adrian Martinez from the writing-directing team Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. With locations sprawling from Manhattan to New Orleans to the south-eastern edge of the continent, the film plunges us into the intoxicating yet treacherous underground of con artistes, where the world’s most savvy and elite international players become high-value targets in an escalating series of elaborate cons, which reaches its apex at a global racing event in Buenos Aires.

Will Smith plays Nicky Spurgeon, a smooth operator with a million-dollar smile and a shatterproof cool — just don’t turn your back on him.  “You’re going to love him,” Smith assured reporters at a press conference in the San Telmo neighbourhood a few days earlier. “He grew up in a family of con men. So really, the story is about him breaking away from his childhood. And in the business of cons, where he grew up, there’s no room for love.”

As afternoon winds down toward evening here at the Circulo Militar, it’s impossible to miss a jubilant roar that rings out from the street outside the windows, where the plaza —  and a crowd of hundreds of fans — is bathed in Golden Hour light. As an SUV glides up the driveway and pops open its doors, their jubilant cheer coalesces into a single name — “Will!”— and there is no longer any doubt who has arrived. And Will Smith does not disappoint. 

Beaming his 1,000-watt smile, the lanky star slowly works his way down the block — shaking hands, high-fiving kids balanced on their parents’ shoulders, cracking jokes and taking selfies with fans — and the crowd loves him for it. By the time he gives his final wave and ventures through the iron gates to the waiting set inside, it’s clear the feeling is mutual.

“The minute Will walks on set, it’s like the sun comes out,” says producer Denise Di Novi. “It’s just part of who he is. His outlook on life is so extraordinary and when you couple that with his kindness and generosity, his high level of talent, and then throw in this god-given charisma, the effect is pretty staggering. He just makes going to work fun.”

ALWAYS ON THE HUNT TO WIN

In Focus, Buenos Aires plays itself, and Di Novi tells us it’s nothing short of another character in the film. “John and Glenn have chosen beautiful, fascinating locations that will bring Buenos Aires to life in this film — as a city of magic, mystery and romance — in a way that will be exciting for people to see.”

On a quick break before cameras roll, we find Ficarra and Requa in a baroque parlour set up as a video village, with large monitors and wiring sharing space with posh furniture, chandeliers and a gallery of sober paintings that hang from the velvet walls.

The duo have long wanted to invent a story that would bring them to Buenos Aires, not only because of the allure of the city itself but also because of the singular atmosphere it brings to the screen. “We knew it would be a great world in which to set this story, between its European flavour and the fact that it’s totally undershot in American movies,” Requa says. Plus, Ficarra adds, “The wine is excellent.”

They marvel at Smith’s energy, commitment and sheer talent, using words like “transcendent” and “a joy”. Notes Ficarra: “He’s a really good person — ever-interesting, ever-hungry. He’s always on the hunt to win.” 

If it’s hard to reconcile the charming, eminently likeable actor with the slick master of misdirection he plays in the film, it’s because the filmmakers couldn’t resist that potent dichotomy. “The Will Smith we all know is this charismatic, smiling, nice guy, and that really appealed to us — the idea of having that quality unfold in the first half of the movie as just something he turned on whenever it was convenient,” Ficarra elaborates. “Then, as you watch Nicky unravel over the course of the second half of the movie, you still love him, even though he does some bad things.”

BUT THEN THE GIRL WALKED IN

For the filmmakers, the seeds of the project grew out of their years wrestling with the question of whether there is any place for love in a world in which the currency is lies. “We would talk about this notion of a world full of lies and deception, and how interesting it would be to try to set a romance in that world — because love is about trust,” Requa notes.

Ficarra adds: “They’re on opposite sides of the trust spectrum — one is when you earn false trust and the other requires absolute trust. So the question is: can they coexist?” 

For Nicky, the answer’s clearly no … but then the girl walked in. 

Enter rookie con artiste Jess Barrett, who targets Nicky as a mark for a laughably amateur con, but winds up becoming his talented protege. She’s a natural, works magic with his crew, and the two are drawn like magnets. But if life has taught him anything, it’s that there’s no room for heart in this game. “The first part of the movie is about a rookie con artiste falling in love with a pro, and the second half is about them coming back together when she’s not a rookie anymore,” Requa offers.

At the close of a week-long hustle surrounding a championship football game in New Orleans, Nicky pulls a disappearing act on Jess.When fate — and the wealthy European racecar mogul Garriga, played by Rodrigo Santoro — draws them back together at the party being filmed tonight, Jess’s appearance on Garriga’s arm jolts eternally smooth operator Nicky irreparably off his game.

With an actor of Smith’s wattage, Ficarra and Requa knew they needed an actress who could essay the unstoppable force that meets the immovable object in Nicky. “… And then the girl walked in…” Requa smiles. “Margot came into the audition and she just blew our socks off. Everybody. She walked out of the room and that was it. We knew our job was finished.”

Tonight’s scene, listed as Scene 57 on the call sheet, unfolds at the celebration that kicks off the Buenos Aires Grand Prix. Along with Garriga’s forbidding security chief Ownes, played by Gerald McRaney, Garriga has enlisted Nicky’s skills to virtually guarantee a triumph for his team, and Nicky hatches a meticulous plot that begins tonight, at this party, where Nicky will appear very drunk and throw a very public, deceptively hard punch at Garriga.

Smith arrives on set looking cool in a bespoke tan suit and white shirt, with sneakers on his feet. After trading jokes with the extras milling around the party, Smith strides over to the nearby monitors to discuss the first shot of the night with the directors and cinematographer Xavier Grobet. 

Moments later, the extras collect themselves, Smith finds his mark, and the cry of “action!” echoes through the set as Nicky strides through the crowd, a floating Steadicam at his heels. After working his way into the aqua glow of the bar, he grabs the bartender’s attention to confess that he’s in recovery and asks to only be served water, no matter what he orders — an essential element of the con.

Once the shot is in the can, Smith moves to the monitor to watch the take with the filmmakers, shouting “Mucho gusto!” This continues into the night, as they roll take after take — inside the rotunda and within the aqua lounge itself — capturing the sequence from a multitude of angles, including a dolly shot that runs the length of the bar to spy Smith over the bartender’s shoulder as he makes his sobriety pitch.

“And … scene!” Requa calls out. “That was good.”

Smith says he’s fascinated with Nicky’s world, and the conflict between his profession and his heart, which informs the larger story Ficarra and Requa are telling. “At the centre of this film is the idea that lying and loving don’t go together,” he says. “So, until we are willing to actually show that we have warts and show that we’re scared and that we’re not all the things that we are working so hard to be perceived as, until we’re willing to let it all go and be authentic, we actually can’t have the very thing that we’re doing it for — which is the love and connection with other human beings. For me, that’s what was so exciting.” 

As Nicky says in the trailer: “At the end of the day, this is a game of focus.” 

FILM FACTS

• Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone were the original choices for the roles of Nicky and Jess.
• Will Smith and Margot Robbie are also scheduled to star together in the 2016 superhero film Suicide Squad. 
• Kristen Stewart dropped out citing the age difference between her and Smith — he’s 46, she 24. Margot Robbie, who replaced her, is two months younger than Stewart. 
• Eeleased in the US in February, the film has met with mixed reviews, with critics not warming to its “one too many twists and turns”, although its “glamorous setting” and the “charm of its stars” have been praised.

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