How Now You See Me's cast 'holds space' for social justice

A little magic and chosen family could save the world. At least that’s at the heart of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, the third installment in the franchise about magicians who use prestidigitation to take down the wealthy and powerful. In this case, the original “Four Horsemen” team up with scrappy newcomers played by Justice Smith, Ariana Greenblatt, and Dominic Sessa to stop Rosamund Pike’s deliciously craven diamond heiress, Veronika Vanderberg.

The film is a “Robin Hood” story with the magicians holding the one percent accountable and giving back to the rest of the population; several cast members, including Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco, and Pike, tell Out. And Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, from director Ruben Fleischer, refreshingly skewers Veronika’s family legacy of exploiting workers and the planet while mining for baubles and posing as philanthropists.

A heist that involves retrieving a precious stone from Veronika is the film’s central plot, but the Horsemen, played by Eisenberg, Franco, Isla Fisher, and Woody Harrelson, create an extended family with young magicians Charlie (Smith), June (Greenblatt), and Bosco (Sessa), who’ve already made a life together in a hidden apartment.

“I really like the theme of found family in this film,” says Smith, the queer star of I Saw the TV Glow and Genera+ion.

Ariana Greenblatt, Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Jesse Eisenberg in 'Now You See Me: Now You Don't'Courtesy Lionsgate

“We made a habit of making sure that the three of us — Ariana and Dom, whenever you saw our characters on screen, that we only had love for each other, we only supported each other,” Smith says. “Because these three characters — they do not have to be together. They choose to be together and celebrate each other's differences. And I do feel like there is a parallel to how we are in the [queer] community of…just coming together and, like, taking care of each other.”

Though Greenblatt’s June has a home with Charlie and Bosco, a sisterhood forms when she meets Fisher’s escape artist Henley. A thread throughout Now You See Me points out the male-centric world of magic, where women have long been relegated to being props. June and Henley escape those chains.

“It's just exciting to be in an environment and play a character in a very male-dominated field. And I think she [June] really found her place, and she took up space, and she did what she does best. And she holds space. She actually holds space,” Greenblatt (Barbie, In the Heights) says. “It's really important for me to pick characters that if a young girl is watching at home or watching me, she feels empowered and inspired, no matter how cliche those words might get.”

Rosamund Pike in 'Now You See Me: Now You Don't'Courtesy Lionsgate

Throughout her career, Pike has played a few of film’s great villains, including as the ultimate “cool girl” in Gone Girl and as a lesbian swindling the elderly in I Care a Lot. In Now You See Me, and with a diabolical South African accent, she adds Veronika to that list. The Pride & Prejudice star touches on the film’s timely theme of the hypocrisy of white feminism.

“To do justice to this brilliant franchise, you have to give them a villain who's kind of worthy of it and complex enough. And it's about magic. It's about truth and illusion. And I think if you can present a villain who also deals in truth and illusion, then that's interesting,” Pike says. “A woman who presents one face to the world, but in reality, is something different, then that sort of lends itself to the themes of the film. I quickly latched on to the fact that I wanted Veronica to be the kind of woman who thinks she's a feminist, thinks she's doing in good service for other women, and in fact, is doing none of that.”

“The film is a popcorn movie that makes people think, even if they’re not aware of it,” she adds. “There's a fervor that ties in with something they intrinsically feel. And it's a pleasure to watch these [wealthy, powerful] people fall. And I wanted to create a villain that would be a pleasure for people to watch.”

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is in theaters on November 14.