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Clooney enlisted the help of Damon and Roberts to pull off his masterwork: The three of them took to hauling the Bellagio's giant statues and plants to the front of Weintraub's villa late at night. "Every day he'd have something else outside his door so he couldn't get outl" Clooney says with a giggle. "One time he was wearing these tight spandex bicycle shorts, and he opened the door, and I went to Matt, 'Remind me never to get old,' and [Weintraub.J went, 'Hey, f**k you !.' So~ the next night we took the statue, and Julia, Matt, and I got black trash bags and taped and molded them to look like bicycle shorts on the statue. " Always a good sport, Weintraub was dubbed the production's host. "Steven took care of them during the day; I handled things after that," he says. Weintraub was the guy who made one phone call and got the best steak house in town to open after hours for a dinner with C.1ooney, Roberts, Damon, Affleck, and director Gus Van Sant, who was visiting the set. He threw parties for any occasion, most lavishly in honor of Soderbergh and Roberts's Oscar victories, which came during the shoot. "Everybody got loaded. Itwas like prom night," recalls screenwriter Ted Griffin of the awards blowout. "Everyone was dancing, and Julia got up and made a little speech wearing a T -shirt that had Soderbergh's picture and her nickname for him, which is 'melange: because he's like an amalgam of so many things." By all accounts, Soderbergh had little interest in partaking in many of the extracurricular activities. While Pitt, Roberts, and the rest of the cast joined in with varying degrees of regularity, Clooney and Damon were the stalwarts. Stamina was tested. Hangover coping skills were stretched. But call times were always made. "I did get caught once where I was out just blazing with the boys," Clooney says. "I had changed my theory about drinking, land I was going] with vodka and soda and nothing sweet, so there's no hangover. When I got back at like four in the morning, I had a message that said I had to work the next morning at 6 A.M. And when the alarm went off two hours later, I felt pretty good. I was going, 'My theory works.' When I went in the bathroom and looked at myself, I realiz:d I wasn't hung over because 1, I was stIll sauced. That was the one time I got a real surprIse.
THE MONKEY BUSINESS ON ANY CLOONEY SET 151 serious business, a creative endeavor unto itself, with its own set of rules and terminology. Successfully pulling a prank is to "get" someone. Clooney calls himself an "I got you" kind of guy. And retaliation, while not mandatory, is expected, respected, and encouraged. Most important, " it's considered bad form to reveal the most incriminating or character-damaging stunts. The farting contest between Pitt and Clooney on the Warners jet was one of the production's most patently South Park moments. "When you're at 3°,000 feet and you can't crack a window, it can be particularly upsetting," recalls Griffin, who was one of the eight passengers aboard. "Brad came up with the winner, which absolutely flattened all of us." Clooney swears that no one "got" him during the Ocean's Eleven shoot. "They tried," he says, "but they're, like, terrified of what would happen." As of this writing, though, that score may have changed. Pitt called back after being interviewed for this story to say that he'd forgotten an incident involving Clooney that concerned him. "He wanted to know how he, too, could be People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive two times running," Pitt says, straining to maintain his deadpan. "I told him flat out, he's got to want it badly enough. He's got to write in every day. He's got to send flowers. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I don't think he has it, because I know it's very important to him." Snort. Snort. Pitt can barely contain himself. "I'd like to help in his campaign. It's important to him." Gotcha. Despite: the one-upmanship and high-altitude hijinks, no one wanted to repeat the mistakes of the original film. " Steven would say, 'If having a great time making a movie translated into a good movie:, then The Cannonball Run would have been the greatest movie ever made,' " Griffin says. "We all had a consciousness that eventhoughwewerein Vegas, it shouldn't be one bigscrew-off." Clooney was especially tough on himself while shooting a pivotal monologue scene, in which Ocean lays out the plans for the heist. "By the time we got around to shooting George, it was like three or four in the morning," Griffin recalls. "George did the speech over and over, and I think he got really pissed at himself for not having it solid. I saw him pretty much punch a wall because he flattened a line. I think the problem was that he's a guy who tries not to be self -absorbed when he's working, and on set, he's focused quite often not on what he's doing, but on the whole shebang, on making sure he's in a good movie."
GEORGE CLOONEY KNOWS BETTER THAN MOST WHAT it's like to be on the losing end of that equation. Though he has showbiz in his blood-his father ,Nick, was a Cincinnati newscaster who went on to host a classic movie showonAMC; his aunt is singer Rosemary Clooney; his cousin is actor Miguel Ferrer-he is still something of a self-made man. There are few stars at Clooney's level who prevailed despite years of failed television pilots, shlocky horror flicks, and a few real hide-the-evidence turns on such shows as The Facts of Life and Sisters. Looking at the first ten years of Clooney's resume, it's not hard to imagine the joke reel that might be assembled for that charity retrospective he talks about. But what makes him different, both from actors who see spectacular success too early and those who never do, is that he recognizes the value of having struggled. "Luckily, I didn't get famous untilI was 33, so Ihad the opportunityto screw up a lot businesswisewithout really damaging anything:' he says. "I learned about acting before I got famous. And it doesn't make you a great actor, but it puts you in a position of understanding when you're a bad actor, and trying to avoid that." At the moment, barreling down the highway and leaving the faux Mexican homestead behind, Clooney's most concerned with avoiding things like red lights, traffic, and unnecessary detours. 'I got to tell you, I haven't been this badly lost in a long time," he says, turning into a residential neighborhood to go around the block and avoid the stop sign. "You are going to be very pleased with this m~e," he promises. "Now I'll beat all these guys !" He likes to ratchet up the suspense in the name of adventure, even when there's nothing particularly adventurous going on. It' s also about manic energy: Clooney is never engaged in fewer than three tasks at once. He'll be describing his favorite scene in All the President's Men in startling detail while driving with one hand and blindly rummaging through the backseat of his car with the other. "The world is my trash can," he observes, interrupting his own treatise on realism in '70S cinema. "Every guy's back seat 'is just filled with junk." The root beer bottle rattling around back there doesn't exactly rate a slob disclaimer, but Clooney's compulsive humility has long been a valuable tool. It has kept his ego in check and helped him realize that when it comes to roles, size doesn't count-it's all about the company you keep. That philosophy has served him well since 1994, when he took an ensemble role in ER instead of an offer to star in his own series. "It helped that I had done 150 episodes of television, so I didn't need to show off anymore," he says. "I felt like I just fit in. I was so proud that we didn't take moments. But by the third season, they started writing these soap operas that were like, 'Somebody is dying in that room! ' "
CLOONEY HAS ALSO STUCK WITH ENSEMBLE WORK because it provides a comfortable place to hide. "I certainly have things that I know I don't do well," he says, running his hand through his hair and pondering a pass at a McDonald's drive-thru. "you try to do a little bit more and stick your neck out, and I feel a little more protected as an actor in an ensemble." "George is a better actor than he thinks he is," Soderbergh says. "Maybe it's about opportunity and context." Which is exactly what Out of Sightoffered both men when they needed it most. Soderbergh had had little success since sex, lies, and videotape. And Clooney was flogging himself in the press for Batman & Robin. "The movie's no good, and I'm no good in it," he said over and over and, in fact, is still saying right now. Out of Sight, a smart sexy story about criminals with a conscience, was his first bid to remove himself from the star-making machinery and embrace something authentic in his work. "We were both people who were considered to have a lot of potential," Soderbergh says. "And we finally delivered creatively on that promise." After Out of Sight, Clooney shrewdly sought out roles he thought might be Clooney-appropriate, waiting until bigger stars dropped out. In the case of the Gulf War dark comedy Three Kings, Clint Eastwood was originally set to play the lead and Clooney was being considered for the role that eventually went to Mark Wahlberg. Clooney snagged Eastwood's part when the older actor went off to direct and star in True Crime. With The Perfect Storm, Clooney jumped into the running for a role that was slated for Mel Gibson. When the studio balked at Gibson's hefty price tag, Clooney cut his fee and scored his first bona fide blockbuster. "I had had nice singles, but I needed a home run," he says. "If you're going to make a big action film that's going to help you get other films made, it might as well be a true story where... next page