After starring in films like Unbroken, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty, stars Jeremy Strong and John Magaro tackle another real life story in the Wall Street drama-comedy The Big Short.

The Big Short, due out on Dec. 23, tells the true story of four outsiders who predicted the credit and housing bubble collapse of the mid-2000s and how they bet against the banks to profit against their greed. The film is directed by Adam McKay (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Step Brothers) and features an A-list cast of Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale.

Two of the film’s supporting actors, Jeremy Strong and John Magaro, play two guys who try to take advantage of the banks’ lack of foresight. Strong plays investment guru Vinny Daniel while Magaro plays Charlie Gellar, a trust fund kid that is trying to make a name for himself. One of the challenges for both of the actors was researching and understanding the complicated financial world.

“We tried to master the world this movie takes place in and be in command of the language and all of that,” Strong said.

“The language and not making it seem like jargon, but making it seem like art and having passion was probably the biggest challenge,” said Magaro.

Along with researching before shooting the movie, both actors were able to spend time with their real life counterpart. While getting a better understanding of the financial language was certainly a goal, they hoped to gain more knowledge on who their characters were in real life.

“It was a goldmine for me that there was a real person that you could spend time with and then by osmosis take on their characteristics,” Strong said. “Then it was very a huge responsibility to play a real person because you want to do them justice and portray them in an accurate way so that they’ll feel happy with the way they were portrayed. It was an invaluable asset to have him in my corner.”

Magaro also mentioned something similar as he said that Charlie Gellar was always willing to answer questions via Skype, phone call, or even visiting the shoot in New Orleans. He also added that having so many conversations with Gellar helped him in ways he did not anticipate.

“With Adam [McKay] there was a great amount of freedom on set, so when we would get to some improv moments it was great to have had those conversations with those guys because you knew what they would say in that situation,” Magaro said.

McKay’s style is certainly all over The Big Short, and both actors mentioned that his style is part of the appeal of doing this movie.

“My initial reaction to the script was immediate an infinity for it because it is so well written. It was so funny on the page,” Magaro said. “As a lover of film, even if I was not a part of this, I would love this film. It’s a new approach that you can say other things are like it, but I don’t think there’s anything that close to it.”

Strong had a somewhat different reaction to the script as he mentioned that while he found it to be very funny, it was terrifying as well.

“It was all a discovery for me and it was a troubling and unsettling series of discoveries… their pillars of faith in financial institutions and in Wall Street were gradually undermined by the kind of reckless and irresponsible behavior they were seeing,” said Strong.

The Big Short is in theaters Dec. 23 and is rated R for pervasive language and some sexuality/nudity. Check back on Dec. 23 for our review of the movie.