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CALENDAR
8th February: Side Effects released (US)
15th March: Side Effects released (UK)
THE FANLISTING
There are 445 fans listed in the Steven Soderbergh fanlisting. If you're a Soderbergh fan, add your name to the list!
UPCOMING PROJECTS
LET THEM ALL TALK
Information | Photos | Official website
Released: 2020
KILL SWITCH
Information | Photos | Official website
Released: 2020
ADVERTS
NEW & UPCOMING DVDS
Now available from Amazon.com:
 Haywire
Contagion
Now available from Amazon.co.uk:
Contagion
DVDs that include an audio commentary track from Steven:
Clean, Shaven - Criterion Collection
Point Blank
The Graduate (40th Anniversary Collector's Edition)
The Third Man - Criterion Collection
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
ADVERTS
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Heist Society
The coolest thieves on the block are leaving Las Vegas. Ocean's Twelve takes
Hollywood's newest rat pack around the world - bit did they have fun? God,
yes...
(Total Film, February 2005) So we are at the Bighorn
golf club in Palm Desert, California, an upscale retreat two hours out of Los
Angeles. Total Film spots Michael Douglas padding around one of the velvety
greens, as the missus looks on...
"My husband is playing golf with these guys because they all get along so
great," says Catherine Zeta Jones with undisguised glee. "What they all have in
common is they're just regular guys once you take the 'movie star' away." Those
"regular guys" being George Clooney, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt.
Total Filrn has been invited to this A-list love-in by producer Jerry Weintraub,
who insists that the chumminess isn't the usual brand of hollow Hollywood
back-slapping. "They're all good friends," he says. "So they all wanted to come
back." But, as Damon confirms, it still took a hefty nag from returning director
Steven Soderbergh's producing partner Clooney to reunite this modern-day Rat
Pack. "George called me and said, 'We're doing this again but we don't want it
to be one of those sequels where everyone's price goes up' Damon pauses, a grin
spreading across his face. "So he said, 'We're cutting the salaries to five
percent less than last time!"'
"Steven and I have a rule," cuts in Clooney, resting a hand on Damon's shoulder.
"We only work with people that we want to work with. It's part of the 'life's
too short' theory. When we're putting these projects together, we look around at
our friends first and say, 'This is what we're doing and we'd love you to be
involved.' Of course, the danger with a film like this is that it can end up
being really fun to shoot and yet not look fun on screen. But that's what
happens if you don't have Steven Soderbergh directing.'
Clooney and co certainly talk a good game, but it's hard to shake the feeling
that the original's $6oo million take might have had just a little something to
do with the gang getting together for a sequel. Maths over art, maybe?
Apparently not - Soderbergh first tabled the idea to Weintraub over dinner
during the Ocean's Eleven promotional tour. "I'd fallen in love with Rome on my
first visit," says the director with unwavering conviction. "Suddenly,
I began
thinking about what the story and structure might be and the idea of setting it
in Europe began to take hold."
Ocean's Twelve is set three years after Danny Ocean (Clooney) and his crew -
fronted by detail guy Rusty Ryan (Pitt), upstart pickpocket Linus Caldwell
(Damon), explosives geek Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) and safecracker Frank Catton
(Bernie Mac) - pulled off one of the most daring heists in history. After
splitting and frittering away the $160 million snatch from casino boss Terry
Benedict's (Andy Carcia) Vegas vault, they've been going straight and laying
low.
But then Benedict tracks them down, and the gang reconvene for three jobs across
Europe: good for the characters (settling the beef with Benedict), the viewers
(much cooing at the pretty Euro- spots) and, clearly, a fine, boozy old time for
the actors.
During Soderbergh's Ocean's Twelve dreamtime, Weintraub passed him a script
being developed for John Woo - Honour Among Thieves - about an Italian-French
thief who tries to move in on the heist of an American thief. The project was
quickly snapped up and Honour's writer George Nolfi was brought in to help
Soderbergh overlay it on to his own ideas.
The process turned up an added twist: a beautiful Europol agent, Isabel Lahiri
(Zeta-Jones), pursuing Italio-Frenchie Fracois Toulour (Vincent Cassel) and
struggling with old-flame flickers for Tolour's American rival. A few more
tweaks (Cassel's character leads Benedict to the original eleven; Zeta-Jones's
character's affections were
switched to Pitt to allow Clooney and Cassel to face off) and Soderbergh had his
sequel.
"I think the character stuff in Ocean's Twelve, is
even more interesting than in the first film" says Soderbergh. "Part of the fun here is
seeing what each of the characters has done with their money and watching them
find out who busted them with Benedict. Of course, once they've got that they have to
decide what to do about it...'
As is Soderbergh's style, Ocean's Twelve was shot light and breezy, the
bespectacled auteur determined to give it an off-the-cuff quality. But even he
had his
(quick) wits tested when Julia Robert, back as Danny's ex-wife Tess, discovered
she was pregnant with twins shortly before filming began. Soderbergh reworked the story
to incorporate the bump, giving the character a stronger role in the con itself,
allowing Roberts to indulge her comedic side.
" Steven changed things around so that it became even more fun for me," raves
Roberts, flashing famously wide smile. "This was my fourth film
with him and there are never days that drag. Part of his efficiency comes from
people being happy to serve the work and that was certainly the case on this
movie. We were all really on the team together.'
Clooney acknowledges that Roberts' pregnancy forced her mostly male co-stars to
behave a little differently. "We weren't quite as raunchy around her as we were
the first time because all of a sudden she was a mom. But she was like, 'Why are
you guys suddenly treating me like a grown-up now?"'
While Ocean's Eleven was shot on location in Atlantic City, Florida and in and
around Las Vegas's Bellagio Hotel, this time around the entire production went on the road for to weeks of filming in Chicago,
Amsterdam, Paris, Monte Carlo, Lake Como, Runic and Sicily.
'I'd like to say 1 had the time of my life on this film but I can't," groans a
stony faced Pitt. "Crappy locations, rotten food - especially in Italy -
and horrible company!"
Pitt's
full of praise for the new girl, though, dropping his comedy
routine the moment Catherine Zeta Jones's name is mentioned. "The thing about
Catherine is that there's this great beauty and elegance, but at the same time
she'll drink any one of
you under the table!"
In Paris, they filmed scenes at the
Sorbonne, the Australian Embassy, the Gare du Nord and various Parisian
neighborhoods. 'We were shooting at the Australian Embassy on a terrace overlooking
the Seine and the Eiffel tower', says Weintraub, "and I said to Steven, 'You
know, the Eiffel Tower is out there.' He said, 'That's a cliché, we don't need to show it.' But in the
finished film, an image of the
Eiffel Tower appears as a reflection in Brad's sunglasses in a shot that I think
will probably be studied by film students for the next 25 years.'
From Paris,
Clooney and co headed to the chocolate-box
Italian town of Lake Como, where they stayed at Clooney's modest villa. "At one
point at mv house, Brad and Jen were staying in the room above me and Matt was next
door, along with Steven, Jerry and Julia, so we were all under my one roof!"
Clooney grins,
evoking hazy memories of'70s movie-brat parties. "It felt like the Hearst
Castle for a while and it was
nothing but water balloon fights non-stop."
No surprise there, Clooney's fearsome reputation for cray-zee practical jokes
preceding him wherever goes. Thing is, Georgie boy now often gets a taste of his
own bitter medicine, with Pitt this time
starting things off by creating a mock call-sheet in Italian. Handing it out to
the crew prior to production, he included a stern note insisting that Clooney
was adamant all crew members should only refer to him by character name. "For a
month, everyone on the crew would say, 'Good morning, Mr Ocean' or, 'Lunch is
ready, Mr Ocean' until George finally figured out where it was coming from,'
Damon grins. He's looking at Pitt but his mischievous co-star is refusing to
take the credit - or the blame - for the stunt. Take his side of the story and
it was all Clooney's fault. "George's prima-donna behaviour became a problem on
this movie," he sighs. "He can paint it anyway he wants to, but it was a
problem."
Soderbergh's leading man retaliated by sneaking heavy-duty weights into Pitt's
prop luggage for a scene that required him to grab his bags and board a train in
one fluid movement. "The luggage was like iron but I found it added a level of
realism to the scene that I crave in my performances,' Pitt says, still playing
it straight. Then, finally, comes the smile. "It's all a testament to the
complete and utter immaturity that can happen when people are not serious about
their craft!"
Yet one person was left out of all the fun and games entirely. Victim of not one
practical joke during the entire shoot, Zeta-Jones was left feeling like the new
girl who didn't fit in - even though she's worked with both Soderbergh (Traffic)
and Clooney (Intolerable Cruelty) before.
"I thought George wasn't my friend because I was waiting for the big prank and
it never happened," she laments. "But when I told him, he just said, 'Catherine,
it could take three years!' Well, I've known him for two years now. So I'm going
to be looking over my shoulder a lot in the next year..."
Surely all this paradise couldn't come without a little trouble? Apart from
rumbles about Roberts demanding reshoots because she didn't like her pregnant
look, just about the only bum note in the whole affair was the budget hike
involved in schlepping the production around Europe. But even that was eased by
Weintraub's mateyness with the Italian ambassador.
Still, with all those matey comedy capers and elaborate wind-ups, it's a wonder
they ever got a film made at all. Total Film puts this to Clooney; he dismisses
it with a shrug. "Why shouldn't you work with friends?" he asks. "It's fun to
take a boat to work in the morning and it's fun to be somewhere as beautiful as
Lake Como, shooting a film. But the bottom line is the friends. I say that if
you can work with your friends, you do it!"
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