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PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF CURT TELCH ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES (GOLDEN NUGGET); LAS VEGAS SUN ARCHIVES (LAMB, FAMILY) CAM: When Michael walks into the room with that whole mob group, it's a trip! That ego in his character is so out there. We'd never worked together before, but I always thought he was a really great actor. He's lovely; and, like he said, he's passionate about his family, which I dig. What do your kids think of your work? CAM: Mine have never seen anything I've ever done. They're pretty little still, especially my daughter. My two boys get that I have a different name when I'm working; I go by my married name in my real life. So when people come up and say, "Are you Carrie-Anne Moss?" they are like, "Why do peo- ple think that's your name?!" [Laughs] I want to protect their innocence for as long as I can and not bombard them with my journey. I think that when my children do see The Matrix, they won't believe it— that that's the woman who tells them not to play with guns in the backyard, who says not to be violent and rough. I may have to just say, "Sorry guys, I'm a hypocrite!" You've both done a lot of TV and movies. Is there an adjustment one has to make when doing one or the other? CAM: A little bit. With a movie you have a begin- ning, middle, and an end, so you have a clear focus as to the arc of your character. Here you're more at the mercy of the writers, and you have to just trust that process. MC: This is essentially being shot with the high-end production values of a feature film—down to every last detail. We basically re-created old Fremont Street. You can drive down the street and walk into Club Savoy and walk into the middle of the casino, all in one shot. It's stunning. They had a bac- carat table in there, and [the set designer] sees it and says, "No, no, this is from the wrong period; it's from the '70s—you've gotta get the right one." And same goes for the costumes. It makes it easier for me as an actor to walk into that space and be transported into that period. Do you think Vegas is better today or back then? "Vegas must have been incredibly exciting back then." —Michael Chiklis A VEGAS LEGEND GETS HIS DUE. to period detail in its telling of '60s-era Sin City, from its spot-on re-creation of Fremont Street's Golden Nugget, right down to the vintage heels on Carrie-Anne Moss's feet. Unlike the main role portrayed by Dennis H Quaid, Michael Chiklis's and Moss's characters are fictional creations. Chiklis plays ruthless Vincent Savino, an amalgam of the kinds of mobsters who descended on Vegas in the '60s. "He's a career mob operator in the gambling world," Walker says, "who has been given the reigns of a new, but troubled, casino." Moss plays the assistant DA, even though there weren't women in high-powered legal positions here quite yet. "But it was easier for women then to get a foothold in the West than in the much more rigid East Coast," Pileggi says. "Not long after, Sandra Day O'Connor hung up her shingle in Arizona." It is Dennis Quaid who has the challenge of stepping into the boots of real-life Vegas legend Ralph Lamb, a hometown hero who reigned as sheriff from 1961 to 1979. elmed by screenwriters Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas, Casino) and Greg Walker (Without a Trace), Vegas pays immaculate attention "Ralph's had quite a life," Quaid says. "He was the sheriff for 20 years, when Vegas became Vegas as we know it. Ralph had a lot to do with shaping that." For Lamb, a fourth-generation rancher who now lives a quiet life (still in Vegas) at age 85, seeing his life story on screen makes him feel wanted. "Very few people get this kind of treatment," he says. Then again, very few people can recount real-life cowboys- versus-mobsters tales. "Everything was pretty exciting back then," says Lamb. "I remember on one occasion chasing a guy in an airplane; we chased him till he ran out of gas and made him land just north of the Las Vegas air terminal. He had 12 sacks of marijuana." (As for Quaid's portrayal of him, he says, "He does a great job—it must be tough to just put on a hat and be someone else.") Where would Vegas be had Lamb not stepped up? "I hate to take the glory for something I was getting paid for," he says with his famous no- BS attitude. "I was elected, and I did what the people wanted me to do." Sheriff Ralph Lamb, circa 1976. Ralph with his sisters Myrtle Howery and Wanda Peccole and his brother Phil Lamb. CAM: Just because I'm very old-fashioned, I think I would have liked the innocence of it back then a lit- tle more—if there was any. [Laughs] MC: From a comfort and accommodations stand- point, today, without question. But looking at it from a romantic standpoint, it must have been incredibly exciting back then, and really brand-new, and you know—the Rat Pack, man. Think about some guy from Podunk, Iowa, back then; it must've been mind-blowing! As it is, it's still mind-blowing. V Vegas re-created old Fremont Street, including the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino. VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 91