How the Coen Brothers Nearly Starred in Ocean’s Eleven
Steven Soderbergh almost cast the Coen brothers in Ocean’s Eleven, a move he didn’t dismiss as a bad idea. Find out how close they came to joining the blockbuster’s star-studded cast.
It’s not unusual for well-known directors to pop up on screen, whether sneaking in for a quick cameo or taking on a proper role in their own or someone else’s film. But Joel and Ethan Coen have never really shown much interest in that side of things. Their combined acting credits are limited to blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearances in Sam Raimi’s Crimewave and Darkman, where they played a couple of reporters at an execution and the driver of a familiar Oldsmobile, respectively. If they’d wanted to follow Alfred Hitchcock’s habit of lurking in the background, they would’ve done it by now. And you’d never catch them pulling a Tarantino or M Night Shyamalan, popping up repeatedly in their own films and giving performances that, let’s be honest, aren’t exactly Oscar-worthy.
Still, there was a moment when the Coens could have ended up with actual speaking roles in a major Hollywood production, even if the idea came as a surprise to the bloke directing it. When a film’s main draw is packing in as many famous faces as possible, why not throw a couple of celebrated filmmakers into the mix? Casting them as brothers wouldn’t have been a stretch, either. That was the original plan for Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven, which raked in $450 million at the box office. The roles of Turk and Virgil Malloy were first meant for Luke and Owen Wilson, but they had to pull out due to clashes with Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums. In the end, Casey Affleck and Scott Caan landed the parts, even though they don’t look much like siblings. But back in September 2000, just four months before filming kicked off, word got around that Warner Bros were eyeing none other than Joel and Ethan Coen for the roles—a move that would’ve been a real talking point.
Behind the Scenes: Casting Twists and Turns
Soderbergh himself doesn’t recall if the Coens were ever seriously in the running, but he reckons George Clooney, who’s worked with both him and the Coens, might have had a hand in it.
“It doesn’t sound like a terrible idea,”
he said.
“And I’m sure George had a hand in that, because he had just worked with them.”
He went on,
“If it didn’t get shot fairly quickly by one of us, they would have shot it down pretty quickly, I’m sure. Hey, it’s not the worst casting idea I’ve ever heard, I’ll say that.”
Soderbergh seemed open to the idea, but knowing the Coens aren’t exactly trained actors, he suspected their scenes would have needed to be filmed at a cracking pace. Otherwise, he doubted they’d have stuck around for it.
What Might Have Been
In the end, things worked out as they did. Even if Joel and Ethan had ended up playing the Malloy brothers, it’s hard to picture them sticking with the franchise for the sequels. Still, it’s a fascinating bit of what-if trivia for film buffs. The thought of the Coens trading their director’s chairs for a spot in one of Hollywood’s biggest heist films is enough to make any cinephile pause for a moment.