Eight Days

Eight Days Steven Soderbergh pitched baseball as a kid, but, as a filmmaker, his stamina is that of a marathon champ. Last year, Soderbergh made back-to-back critical and commercial hits. The 44-year-old next made history by sweeping Best Director nominations for both Erin Brockovich and Traffic at the Academy Awards, winning for the latter. And between prepping for a sequel to his I 989 career-launcher sex, lies and videotape, he has completed another ambitious, and, possibly, his glossiest, movie. Ocean's Eleven opens next week. The heist thriller is a blockbuster remake of a 1960 cult classic of the same title. Soderbergh pulled double duty by directing and serving as cinematographer, while the cast swell with heavyweights. George Clooney top-bills as the con man, masterminding an extravagant single night raid on the three prime casinos of Las Vegas; Brad Pitt is his card sharp cohort; Matt Damon and Don Cheadle among their handpicked gang of 11. Andy Garcia is the tycoon owner of the joints they're targeting, and playing Clooney's ex-wife turned Garcia's moll is Julia Roberts whom Soderbergh had steered to a Best Actress Oscar for Erin Brockovich. These are major stars with a box-office value totaling more than any casino haul. And yet, to help keep the project's budget down and simply for the opportunity to work with Soderbergh, they all agreed to cut their fee. How does Soderbergh do it? By ensuring everyone has fun. Indeed, the ensemble of Hollywood high-rollers doesn't seem to ever take themselves seriously, much less their interview today with 8 DAYS at The Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills.
8 DAYS: (To George Clooney) I see you've grown a moustache. George Clooney: Actually I glue it on every morning. Andy Garcia: (To no one in particular) Where's Don? A publicist announces that Don Cheadle is on the phone and will join us shortly. So, who's your favourite Rat Pack member from the original Ocean's 11? Clooney: That's hard... I mean, I love Dean Martin. Nobody was better than Frank Sinatra but you've gotta love Dean. Frank was the king, Sammy Davis Jr. was the most talented, but Dean was flat-out fun. He made me laugh. And you. Steven? Steven Soderbergh: I was aware of the Rat Pack but I didn't follow them. Except for Ocean's 11, I hadn't seen any of their films. I wasn't cool. Matt? Matt Damon: (Pretends to mishear Brat Pack for Rat Pack) I thought Judd Nelson was really underrated. Everyone titters. Steven, given the size and calibre of the ensemble cast, how did you foster camaraderie among them? Soderbergh: It's part of the casting process. You choose not only actors you think are right for the roles but people you know, either personally or by reputation, who are going to be team players. And after that? Soderbergh: We threw a lot of parties while filming on location, in Las Vegas. Rehearsal was us just hanging out. Damon: These two (gestures at Clooney and Garcia) invited me to the room the night before my first day at work. I assumed we were going to rehearse and brought my script. Instead they told jokes and we laughed and then it was, "See you in the morning!" Deciding to do Ocean's Eleven was a no-brainer. The script was fantastic. He was directing it (points at Soderbergh). He was starring in it (points at Clooney). I knew the film would be a great work experience and that it would deliver on its promise. A movie ticket nowadays costs nine bucks. You re asking people to part with a load of money and you should.... Clooney: . . . you should entertain. Damon: You should give them their money's worth and Ocean's Eleven does more than that. Soderbergh: We all thought, when's the last movie that had five major stars? But once you have the five, more than that, in fact, with Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Elliott Gould also included, how do you keep every character interesting? Clooney: The script makes a big difference. Garcia: Particularly with my character. It was important that Terry Benedict not be a stock villain, that you believe him as someone who's very powerful, very controlling. Damon: You're not the bad guy in the movie. The bad guys are those robbing him. As the famous tagline from the original Ocean's 11 says, "In any other town, they'd be the bad guys. Garcia: It's the thieves the audience are rooting for. Did you study any real-life tycoon for the role? Garcia: Jerry Weintraub (Ocean's Eleven producer). Hearty laughter all round. Garcia: A part speaks to you in very specific ways. You interpret and personalize it, drawing the parallels that come to you, and proceed from there. A mako shark was my analogy for Terry Benedict. He bit hard. He ate. He split. Clooney: My research animal was a chipmunk. I surreptitiously gathered nuts. Damon: I felt it would be a mistake to get too heavy about the preparation. Once you step in those shoes, you 're the character. There's nothing you can do that's wrong. Clooney: Matt works from the outside out. Everyone laughs. Except Damon. Damon: Well, yeah, you know, the intense exploring of neuroses isn't me. . (trails off embarrassed) Garcia: There's also the danger when actors think about only their parts in the movie as opposed to the story. Clooney: Yeah, the less self-indulgent, the better the story will be served. Cheadle: (Enters the room looks around and looks disoriented) Hi. Garcia: Don was a prima dona even on the set. Always showing up late. I was surprised, George, when you earlier named Dean Martin the Rat Packer you like best, because isn't it the Sinatra role you're taking over in the current Ocean's Eleven? Clooney: But I'm not trying to be Frank Sinatra. I'm just playing Danny Ocean which is the character he played. Garcia: The characters are different. Only their names are still the same. (To Cheadle) Which means you're not Sammy Davis Jr. even though you played Davis in [the 1998 telemovie] The Rat Pack. Cheadle: No. Like George said, no one's Dean, no one's Frank. Our Ocean's Eleven is completely different. Damon: Don plays an explosives expert from London's East End. I don't think Davis had a Cockney accent. Soderbergh: Our script is a total re-imagining of the '61 picture. What remains apart from the title? Soderbergh: The base premise of the heist. Clooney: And the rounding up of the 11 men. You get the feeling these guys had the time of their lives doing the movie. That translates into our film. But we're never going to be as cool as Frank and Dean and Sammy. There's no point even trying. Define "cool." Soderbergh: "Cool" is doing your own thing, which doesn't mean it'll always be popular. You were in the midst of shooting this movie when you won the Academy Award for Best Director for Traffic. Soderbergh: Mm-hmm. Cheadle: They read out the wrong name. Did anything change when you returned to the set the next morning? Soderbergh: You're not any better. You're not any smarter. You just get stopped in public more. Also, mainstream recognition brings new pressure. You think you can continue to experiment like with your early works sex, lies and videotape and Kafka? To do your own thing and do it your way? Cheadle: Stephen has always done things his way. Garcia: How do you go about doing anything if it's not from a personal point of view? Stephen's got to shoot from his hip. Soderbergh: From the day I started making features, I've refused to draw a line between independent films and studio films. Perhaps the Oscar has been a confidence boost instead? Soderbergh: I was scared coming into Ocean's Eleven. I had my standards of how a big, fast, physical film like this ought to be put together. There were times when I felt like I was on top of the game. But often, something would click late which was frustrating because I'd look at a sequence and think, "If I knew two weeks ago what I know now I'd shoot very differently" But at the end of the day I also remember that people go to movies because they're interested in stories and characters. The stuff I'm talking about is just my own. Sticking to the script and casting well is what matters.
Thanks to Katie for this story and pics