Actor and director Steven Soderbergh said the actors were in talks to play Linus, played by Matt Damon.
George Clooney talked about some of the Hollywood stars who turned down starring Ocean’s Eleven. During the TCM Classic Film Festival from 2023, Clooney and the director Steven Soderbergh celebrated the 2001 film. Clooney revealed that Mark Wahlberg and Johnny Depp were in talks to play Linus, the role that ultimately went to Matt Damon.
“Steven had just done Erin Brockovich and Traffic, and he was nominated for directing both movies,” Clooney said at the event, via Entertainment Weekly “So people really wanted to work with Steven.”
Soderbergh added that some actors turned down the offer and Clooney added: “They did. Some very famous people told us to fuck off, including Mark Wahlberg and Johnny Depp.. There were others. Now they regret it. I regret doing the fucking Batman.”
The director recalled that the idea of making Ocean’s Eleven it came about when he was looking to combine the work he was doing on independent films with major big-budget Hollywood films.
“It felt like the next iteration in my desire to work in the mainstream movie business and make movies that could be released in many theaters,” Soderbergh said.
Clooney added: “It’s also important to understand where we were at that time. Studios were making very big, wide, not very good movies at the time. Steven had the idea of trying to infuse all of this indie film stuff that all of these young filmmakers were learning into the studio system. He was going to go back to the things that they were doing from 1964 to 1975.”
Source: Ambito
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