Cast of 'Ocean's Thirteen' shares a lucky chemistry

Six of the Ocean's Thirteen cast members George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle and franchise newcomer Ellen Barkin sat down with USA TODAY in Cap D'Antibes, near where the film will have its Cannes premiere today.

Ocean's Eleven did a pretty fair job of turning Vegas upside down. Ocean's Twelve turned romantic, with stops in Lake Como and Rome. Ocean's Thirteen, which opens stateside on June 8, returns to Vegas, where the guys take on Willy Bank, a sleazy hotel tycoon played by Al Pacino, who cheated Elliott Gould out of his half of the next great hotel on the Strip.

"This (edition) is about stickin' up for your friends," Clooney says.
"And no, the (Bank) character is not Steve Wynn," Cheadle says. Which sets off a chorus of "Noooooot Steve Wynn.

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"They kept asking me if I was playing Steve Wynn on the first one," Andy Garcia says. "And I said no "
"No, you were (Kirk) Kerkorian," Clooney interjects.
"I was playing (Wynn's) wife," Garcia jokes.

It's a cast that seems to enjoy each other, trading wiseacre patter and ribaldries with ease. Maybe that's the result of working together and feeling comfortable or being pros and knowing the territory. Clooney and Damon often finish each other's thoughts.

And Pitt is mostly happy to take it all in from the corner.
During the six years since Steven Soderbergh remade the original 1960 Rat Pack vehicle, a lot of changes have transpired for the cast. It's Pitt, however, who takes the lead in articulating it all.

"Besides us all growing up a bit," he says, "our families have grown immensely. Mine specifically. (He now shares four children with Angelina Jolie.

) That's kind of the beauty of it. We know each other for a good amount of time now. We know each other's families, and these automatic rhythms begin immediately when we get on the set again.

That's with the same crew, as well."
"You see the five or six of us here," Damon says, "but in reality it's a huge crew the same 200 people."
More bantering ensues, proving their sincerity in pushing a movie that everyone who is involved wants to be a cash cow.

Then Damon stops things on a dime and changes the subject to Darfur. "We've been trying to raise money and awareness here (in Cannes) to try to redirect some of the attention brought to bear on a film opening to the crisis there."
Adds Clooney: "Strangely, there's more attention on (Darfur) in the United States than here.

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Ocean's Thirteen the rap of Cannes: Cast members Andy Garcia, left, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Don Cheadle and Ellen Barkin hold court at the Hotel Eden Rock in Cannes, France.