George Clooney reveals Mark Wahlberg and Johnny Depp turned down OCEAN’S ELEVEN and ‘now regret it’

George Clooney recently revealed a bit of movie trivia regarding Steven Soderbergh’S Ocean’s Eleven involving a couple of big Hollywood stars who turned down the opportunity to star in films.

During the 2023 TCM Classic Film Festival, Clooney and Soderbergh celebrated the classic 2001 film. During that event, Clooney shared that Mark Wahlberg AND Johnny Depp both were offered the role of Linus before it finally fell apart Matt Damon.

Clooney said: “Steven had just finished Erin Brockovich AND Traffic, and was nominated to direct both films. So, people really wanted to work with Steven.

Soderbergh went on to add that some actors turned down the offer with Clooney saying, “They did. Some very famous people told us to go f**k right away. Mark Wahlberg, Johnny Depp. There were others. Now they regret it. I regret doing the fucking Batman.

I liked what Damon brought to the role in the film, but I could also see Wahlberg in the role. Depp… not so much.

Soderberg went on to talk about how the idea went Ocean’s Eleven was born, saying, “It felt like the next iteration in my desire to work in the mainstream film business and make films that could be released in many theaters.”

Clooney added: “It’s also important to understand where we were at the time. At that time the studios were making very big, wide and not very good movies. Steven had this idea of ​​trying to infuse all this indie film stuff that all these young filmmakers were learning into the studio system. He would go back to the stuff they were doing from 1964 to 1975.”

When they finished delivering it worked out perfectly! I loved it first Ocean’s Eleven movie. The other two movies were fun too, but they weren’t as good as the first one. There was something magical about this.

Source: EW