Time Magazine sat down with some of the stars of Ocean’s 13 — Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Ellen Barkin — on the terrace at the Hotel du Cap in Cannes, France.
Here’s are some funny excerpts:
On the subject of charisma, you’ve each been called the last great movie star at one point or another. Are we really running out of movie stars, and is that, like, a problem?
CLOONEY: The last real movie stars were probably Redford and Newman. And things were different then. There wasn’t this amazing amount of magazines and information about them.
DAMON: We didn’t know anything about them.
CLOONEY: There was mystique. They’re 60 feet high, and you paid your buck and a half to go see them. But that’s gone. People know everything about everybody now.
PITT: Jaws came along and proved you could make huge money with blockbusters, and it set this thing in motion that has lowered the subject matter. People like George have been getting good stuff out there, but it’s an industry that pushes people out on the big stage too fast, before they’re ready, and it eats them up as well. It’s a different kind of arena now.
BARKIN: Think about it. Do we know anything about Robert Redford’s children? Does he even have any?
DAMON: I worked with him, and I don’t know.
PITT: I have four, if you haven’t heard.
As we’re talking, there are paparazzi in boats out in the harbor taking pictures. Having just been through the celebrity muck of Cannes, who gets it the worst?
CLOONEY: There’s no question, it’s Brad.
PITT: Well, exponentially, with us together …
CLOONEY: But even before he was with [Angelina Jolie], we used to chum the water with him.
PITT: This is not a joke. They used to send me out to take the hits.
CLOONEY: We were at the airport in Italy. So I walk off the plane, and it’s “Hey, Giorgio!” And I go, “Look! Brad Pitt!” and they’re gone.
DAMON: You described it once as “People were stepping on our faces trying to get to Brad.”
PITT: Ah, well, I don’t take it as a compliment.
Read the full Time interview with the Ocean’s 13 here.
