PARK CITY, Utah -- At the best of times, casting a movie is like extracting a rabbit from a hat.

But an independently financed romantic thriller set in 1900 Vienna, filmed in Prague and produced on a miniscule-by-Hollywood-standards budget of $15 million US?

Neil Burger, the writer and director of The Illusionist, didn't just get actors who would work for scale on his unusual, risky project -- he landed A-listers Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel.

Harry Houdini would be impressed.

The result, the spellbinding The Illusionist, premiered at Sundance this week with Biel and Giamatti in attendance. Norton was M.I.A. because he's busy preparing to shoot his next movie in New York.

Then again, Norton's disappearing act may have been for the best as it meant he didn't have to explain either himself or his attraction to the story.

"Edward is a bit of a mystery and he brings a powerful intensity to the part," Burger says of Norton, who portrays the title character -- a magician who may or may not have supernatural powers.

The Fight Club star, Burger recalls, went so far as to go on a diet to make his angular face more gaunt. "He transformed himself."

And given the modest budget, he adds, Norton "wasn't doing it for the paycheque."

Giamatti -- known for playing sadsacks in films such as the Oscar-winning Sideways -- portrays the police inspector ordered to investigate Norton's illusionist. Giamatti may seem an unlikely choice, but Burger explains he wanted him because -- while the character of a corrupt police inspector has no backstory in the script -- "all you have to look at is his eyes and they tell you everything about his life."

Burger chose Biel as a Viennese dutchess because, while her star is ascending, she's still "a relative newcomer -- merely by being young. But here, she's playing a real elegant classic beauty, which is different from the kick-ass babe we usually see her as. There's a delicate grace to her.

"Also, her character Sophie is fearless and has this courageous spirit which Jessica definitely has. You just try to cast the person as close as you can to the character."

The Illusionist, curiously, isn't the only forthcoming film featuring magicians at the turn of the 20th century.

Currently filming in Europe is The Prestige, starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as warring magicians in late-19th century England. It's being directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento).

Two period pieces about magicians in less than a year? Burger notes Hollywood has a history of making competing films about similar subjects. "I don't know why that is. There was a story about Ridley and Tony Scott developing Pancho Villa movies at the same time -- like, don't they talk? But our movie is very different from The Prestige."