TIFF 2024 'The Luckiest Man in America': Paul Walter Hauser becomes controversial 1980s game show winner

Filmmaker Samir Oliveros takes us back to a 1980s game show scandal in The Luckiest Man in America, which premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Paul Walter Hauser plays Ohio ice cream truck driver Michael Larson who won more than $110,000 in 1984 on the CBS show Press Your Luck.

Larson's win has often been described as a scandal due to conflicting opinions about whether he cheated, or just really brilliantly found a loophole in the system. Larson memorized the "Big Board" lighting patterns on Press Your Luck, so he was able to freeze the board on cash and prizes every single time, avoiding the "Whammy" that clears a player's winnings. As the amount he was winning continued to grow, Larson became a concern for the network.

Oliveros first became aware of the Press Your Luck Larson controversy after a trip to a Goodwill where he purchased a number of VHS tapes.

"I usually like to go and watch these abandoned memories, I think they're always really good inspiration for movies," Oliveros told Yahoo Canada.

The filmmaker stumbled upon a recording of Press Your Luck and was intrigued by the show, eventually researching the series and finding out about the Larson scandal. Initially, Oliveros thought someone must have made a movie about this already, but realizing it's a story that has yet to be told in a movie, he jumped at the opportunity.

When we start the story, Larson initially enters the audition room for Press Your Luck after he pretends to be someone else, a man who's actually registered to try out to be on the show. Despite the deceit, the show's co-creator Bill Carruthers (David Strathairn) liked Larson and thought he would be someone America would want to root for, which ultimately led to Larson being on Press Your Luck hosted by Peter Tomarken (Goggins).

"The idea was to not judge him, because obviously there's a lot of debate if he was cheating or not," Oliveros said. "I just wanted to make sure that we had a glimpse into this man who was very complex, who was good and had a big heart, but the way of accomplishing his dreams were always very unorthodox, and allow for the audience to be the one that did the judgment."

"I do believe that what he did was not cheating and it was actually quite admirable to just show up on set after six months of prepping for something and just making sure that you could execute it under a lot of pressure, which is kind of what we have to do as filmmakers. ... Michael was set on finding unorthodox ways to accomplish his dreams and that's why ... I kind of relate. As an international filmmaker trying to break into Hollywood, you're always looking for ways that are outside of the box in order to make your movie happen, because if you go the traditional Hollywood way it's pretty much impossible as somebody that has not made an English language movie."

'All the executives were bickering'

The Luckiest Man in America is largely told through two components, what's happening on the show and what's happening behind-the-scenes in the control room. When the show's executives start to get concerned about the amount of money Larson is winning, Carruthers is looking for someone to blame, which largely falls on the show's casting director, played by Shamier Anderson, who never actually wanted Larson on the show, who then tries to get Larson removed by looking into his past.

Oliveros revealed that much of that part of the story came from Bill Carruthers Jr., who was a consultant on the movie, and provided significant details on what happened when Larson auditioned.

"He told us that ... all the executives were bickering and trying to figure out what was happening and who to blame," Oliveros said. "We wanted to be very faithful to that, because that's also part of the drama of the movie."

"I think it's beautiful that we have that contrast of, you have a lot of crazy stuff happening downstairs, but you also have a lot of crazy stuff happening upstairs, and the people downstairs don't know that. ... The people upstairs need to save face and keep it under control and under wraps. So it gives for a lot of dramatic irony, and I usually love that, when films get into that."

'There were a lot of parallels between Michael and Paul'

But The Luckiest Man in America goes beyond just the game show element of the story. As Larson gets further into his winnings, we start to learn more about him, his home life and his motivations for wanting to be on the show, including a desire to provide for his daughter and her mother.

"That was the biggest challenge, because we always said that we wanted to operate like we were peeling an onion, so that you initially see this outer core of somebody, and then you start removing layers until you get to the emotional heart and understand what makes them beat," Oliveros said. "We realized pretty early on that in order to pull off the onion peeling we were going to have to answer four questions, which were, what is he doing? How is he doing it? Who is he? And why?"

"I think we were able to pull off the onion peeling to get into his heart towards the later part of the movie, so that then you find yourself rooting for a complex character and in this place where you don't know if you should feel good about it or not. But I think that complex characters are usually the most interesting ones and the most memorable ones."

In the "onion peeling" strategy to tell this story, there are moments where Hauser really takes us into the emotional side of Larson, where the facade of this great game show player starts to crack. Oliveros shared that Hauser's execution was assisted by his personal connection to the story.

"When I spoke to Paul the first time, he invited me over to his house, and we spoke about the movie and the character, and I described the onion situation to him," Oliveros shared. "But it was important for us to know about [Michael's] past, to understand what we could reach into."

"So [Paul] told me a little bit about his his history and the fact that he almost sacrificed his current marriage, so there were a lot of parallels between Michael and Paul. So that's why I believe that he was able to to find those places pretty easily."

The next TIFF screenings of The Luckiest Man in America are on Sept. 12 and Sept. 13