*Clip of Brad as JD in Thelma & Louise*

Voice-over BW: Thelma & Louise made Brad Pitt a star and a sex symbol. And he’s been fighting both ever since.

*Pictures of baby Brad*

Voice-over BW: Born in Oklahoma, and raised in Missouri, Brad grew up in a devoted Baptist family before packing up his Nissan and heading for Hollywood. His first big break was on TV’s Growing Pains.

*Clip of Brad in Growing Pains*

*Clip of Brad as Jerry in the movie The Mexican*

Voice-over BW: In his film work he has defined himself as an anti hero.

*Clip of the movies Interview with the vampire + Twelve Monkeys*

Brad: Consciously picking roles that don’t trade in his athletic physique or movie star looks.

*Clip of the movie Legends of the Fall*

Voice-over BW: In fact, his primary interest seems to be architecture. Often described as shy and a loner, he’s surprised the Hollywood community when in July 29th of last year, he married Friends star Jennifer Aniston.

BW: People magazine twice has dubbed you, Brad, as the Sexiest Man Alive.

George: Yea he’s the only…

BW: But George, you received this honor only once.

George: Yea. I know.

Brad: This is a sore subject.

George: This is a little sore.

BW: Is it still something that I shouldn’t be bringing up?

George: Well… I’m gonna take him downs soon again.

Brad: [Sighs and whispers] George please…

BW: He’s been very upset.

Brad: It’s, you know, he came to me early in the shooting and said ‘how? How?’ and I tried to tell him you know, if he wants it, he’s gotta write in, he’s gotta send gifts, you know? He’s gotta go after it if he wants it.

George: But we’ve since let that go we’ve come to sort of an agreement that it’s Matt’s turn.

Matt: Your alternate story about you, George is runner up, Brad was the Sexiest Man, but if anything happens to Brad, George and I step in…

George: If for any reason, Brad can’t serve.

Julia: His duties.

Brad; knowing how badly George wants it.

George: [Laughs]

*Clip of young George as a toddler*

Voice-over BW: From the beginning, it seemed like George Clooney had bad karma that followed him from a previous life. Sure he was handsome, charming, talented, and from a Kentucky family with a famous dad Nick and a famous singing aunt Rosemary. But life threw him nothing but rotten tomatoes.

*Clip of George in the movie Return of the Killer Tomatoes*

Voice-over BW: So many bad movies and failed TV shows, ER was just what the doctor ordered.

*Clip of George as a doctor in the TV show ER*

Voice-over BW: it catapulted him to films and now he can’t seem to miss, from Three Kings… to The Perfect Storm. He has established himself as the nicest superstar to ever hang around a catering truck. He met two people on the set of the 1998 film Out of Sight. Director Steven Soderbergh who would agree to helm Ocean’s Eleven and actor Don Cheadle.

BW: George and Don. You were good friends before Ocean’s Eleven. Both of you appeared in Out of Sight.

Don: That’s right.

BW: Right.

George: I don’t care for Don.

Don: One day I came on the set of Out of Sight and we had to have our fight scene at the end of the movie, which I loved cause it’s so sloppy and not like a movie fight you know, it’s like a real, how people fight.

*Clip of the fight scene in Out of Sight*

Voice-over BW: Actors have a tendency to gush when they talk about Don Cheadle, the son of a psychologist and a school teacher. Don left his Denver home for two reasons; college and warmer weather.

*Clip of Hill Street Blues*

Voice-over BW: He stayed cause he started getting work. After Hill Street Blues, and a lot of other TV roles, Don got Hollywood’s attention in a supporting role in Devil in a Blue Dress.

*Clip of the movie Devil in a Blue Dress*

Voice-over BW: He also stood out in Traffic.

*Clip of the movie Traffic*

Voice-over BW: Directed by: Steven Soderbergh. That name keeps coming up.

George: Steven says ‘if you can get Don in your film, get him in your film cause he makes your films better that’s the kinda actor he is and that’s why you wanna work with him’.

Brad: Cheadle is fearless.

George: $10 [Holds his hand up to receive money from Don]

Brad: $20 [Holds his hand up to receive money from Don]

Don: [Pretends to get his wallet out of his back pocket]

Brad: Fearless.

George: I got the card.

BW: [Laughs]

George: And Andy is just… Andy is a bobcat in a sack!

Brad + George: [Both laughing real loud]

BW: Well Julia and Brad.

BW: So you played opposite of each other in The Mexican. Now you’re together again. So is it finally a friendship or are you just two people who work together and that’s every so often?

Julia: Finally?

Brad: I agree, it’s contractual.

Julia: We’re contractual friends? [Smacks Brad’s leg]

Brad: Yes, and I’ll show up in a Julia Roberts film. What did you say?

Julia: That’s what you said. [Laughs]

Brad: Once every two years.

George: It’s actually good for our careers to show up in one of her films

Julia: Come on back home boys, I’ll fix it

*Clip of the movie The Mexican*

Voice-over BW: It’s true. Julia Roberts can fix careers. She is movie magic, hands down the biggest actress in the world today.

*Clip of the movie Pretty Woman*

Voice-over BW: The pretty woman from Smerna, Georgia sells magazines the way Starbucks sells cappuccino. Every time she looks into the direction of a man, she is immediately assumed to be paired with him, in love with him, soon to be marrying him. Up until a few months ago she seemed to have everything except an Oscar. That changed with Erin Brockovich directed by, yes, Steven Soderbergh.

*Clip of the movie Erin Brockovich*

BW: What’s the best thing of working with her? And what’s the worst?

Brad: Her efflorescence. [Looks and smiles at Julia]

BW: Awww, her conviviality.

Julia: [Mumbles some words to Brad]

Brad: Yes. Yes you are, aren’t ya?

Don: Okay.

Brad: The surprise of the day

BW: And what’s the best thing of working with him?

Julia: Brad is never…

Don: … on time.

*They all laugh, and especially George*

BW: Is that true?

Brad: I’ve nothing to say

George: [Laughs]

Julia: Brad is never unhappy. And I love that cause I, I mean I love to be happy, we all can be frustrated or tired or whatever but he’s always…

Brad: He’s what?

Julia: [Puts her hand on his thigh] I said you’re never unhappy.

Brad: Oh, that’s sweet, we gotta talk [Takes her hand in hers and pats it]

Julia: No, but I mean, I just mean in a sort of soulful way. It’s a happy, he’s a happy souled person to me. And I like to be near him.

BW: Okay, moving right along. Matt and Brad you are both college drop-outs.

*Silence*

Matt: So that’s what we have in common?

BW: That’s what you have in common guys.

*Brad and Matt shake hands*

Matt: Nice going! I’ve been 4 years short.

George: Me too [Shakes Brad’s hand]

Matt: Are you a drop-out too?

George: I was 3 years in college but I was a freshman…

BW: Do any of you regret having left school, left university?

George: No, in fact I suggest all you kids at home drop outta school and become a movie star [Laughs]

BW: [Laughs] Gosh, what a good start. Oh this is gonna be a very educational special we’re doing. Now okay, George and Matt and Andy. George you wanted to be a pro baseball player, you tried out for the Cincinnati Red.

George: Yes!

Matt: Did you really?

George: Yea. Two years straight.

Matt: I didn’t know that.

BW: And Matt you play basketball.

Matt: Well yea but not well.

Brad: He’s a great man.

George: We could actually, we got a good team, we gotta pretty good Ocean’s… right here

Matt: He’s a really good player [points at George]

George: This 5 right here, we’ll take on the Ya Ya Sisterhood right now!

Julia: 5 men…

George: That’s 6 so on the bench.

BW: Again… Julia, why won’t they ask you Julia?

George: You’re right, that was wrong of me.

Julia: That was wrong of you. What a shock!

George: You know, with the 5 of us…

Julia: See? [Looks at BW]

BW: There you are, ya know…

Julia: To know George is to…

BW: Is to be left out of the basketball game. So what’s all this stuff that we heard about you the two having this big romance?

Julia: We live together! I don’t know what the big mystery is.

George: Oh there was no mystery it was a giant romance.

Julia: [Laughs]

BW: You lived together for the whole… that’s the whole reason?

Julia: Oh yea we lived together now. He’s pressuring to get married, just back off.

George: Marry me and have my child.

Julia: [Laughs and shivers]

Andy: Or someone else’s child

George: Or anybody’s

BW: What happens when this comes out and people take you seriously? And you’re about to date, they say it is serious right?

Julia: No I just think it’s hilarious. I refer to him as my boyfriend George Clooney. That’s his whole title now. Yea.

George: I think we got rid of it pretty quick when I said I was breaking up Tom and Nicole.

Julia: Yea, that was good

George: That sorta stopped it all.

Julia: When do ya sleep?

George: That was rough.

BW: So you just brought up, I didn’t bring it up, you mentioned the word marriage.

George: Oh boy, so you’re just using it against me?

BW: There you are. So in our last interview you said…

Julia: This is gonna be great.

George: Hold on. [Takes his glass of water and sprinkles water by his eyes, so it looks like he is crying]

BW: That you would never marry again, and you didn’t have a glass of water and you didn’t plan to have children.

George: [Pretends to be crying]

BW: [Laughs] Oh cry. Get it over with, cry your heart out. Have you changed your mind?

George: [Runs his fingers over his eyes] I can’t talk.

*Everybody laughs*

BW: Just try

George: It just hurts really

BW: I know but I wanna hurt you more

George: This will help; this will actually be a clip

BW: That’s right

Brad: [Laughs loud]

Andy: ‘The Barbara Walters Special!’

Don: ‘It just hurts a little.’

Matt: ‘They got Clooney there crying?! Oh my God I gotta watch that!’

*Everybody is still laughing*

BW: ‘And Julia Roberts is living with him now?’ Alright but you know what? Two of your past co-stars

George: Yes.

BW: Nicole Kidman and Michelle Pfeiffer, bet you $10,000 each right? That you would have a child by the time you were 40. They do, you don’t. You’re 40. Come on, what did you do with the money?

George: I sent it back to them.

BW: Did you really?

George: Mhm.

BW: They paid you?

George: Yes they did as a matter of fact and I sent it back and said double or nothing [laughs] until I’m 50.

BW: But no, George, no marriage, no children, still feel that way?

George: I don’t know. Yea I really don’t know.

BW: How’s Max the pig?

George: Fat.

BW: how big is he?

George: About 200 pounds.

*Clip of George’s pet, Max the Pig*

BW: Does he still sleep in your bed?

George: That’s a little personal.

Julia: A 200 pound pig, that is sick George.

Andy: He wasn’t always 200 pounds.

George: No he was smaller. Should I just dump him cause he put on a little weight is that what you are saying?

*Everybody laughs*

BW: Don’t start to cry again, just cause I mentioned Max the Pig, don’t cry again.

George: There is no pig in my bed.

Andy: I think when the right girl comes his way, he’ll bite.

George: Then that pig will just come in the bed…

BW: But Don, you also have talked about not wanting to be married.

Julia: Are you not married?

Don: No I’m not married. Not legally. Not on paper.

BW: Haven’t you ever discussed this?

Julia: I just thought that she was your wife, she’s fabulous, you should marry her.

Don: I call her my wife, she’s my wife.

*Clip of Don and his wife Bridget Coulter*

BW: But not with a certificate.

Don: Not with a certificate.

Julia: With a choice. Every day you make a choice to love that lady.

Don: See? That’s right.

George: That’s a good answer.

Brad: But what, let me see. It was really nice to watch, they’ve a really strong, strong bond. They seemed… Don and his wife and his little girls, it’s really…

BW: You proposed to your wife the first time you met her.

Andy: Yes.

BW: How did you know?

George: The first time you met her you did?

Andy: Yea.

Julia: ‘Nice to meet you, marry me’

BW: First time you met her…

Matt: Wow.

*Picture of Andy and Marivi Garcia*

Andy: I said ‘hi, would you marry me?’

BW: How did you know?

Andy: Well I just looked at her and I knew. It was like, you know, bang!

Brad: Latin lover.

BW: And it’s been what, 20 years?

Andy: It’s your fault George

George: That’s a good one

Andy: George proposes every night.

George: Yea I do.

Brad: [Laughs]

George: I proposed this morning and it didn’t work…

BW: But one of these days they’re gonna yes and then…

George: Then I’m in trouble.

BW: So far hadn’t gotten to you Julia.

Julia: Go ahead Barbara, I’m not afraid of you. I mean you know. Ask me anything you want, I’m married to all these boys, we’ve 15 children, and they’re all in the closet.

George: [Laughs] they’re coming out.

BW: You know what? That’ll do it for me.

Julia: Does it for me! [Laughs]

BW: Matt, what about you?

Matt: Me? Marriage? Not really on my horizon. You know? I tell ya honestly look, that is something I want in my life some day I’m sure or so. I always look around at people in the industry whether they’re on a crew or in a cast or directing or producing or whatever and, to see if they can pull it off and these 3 guys actually do it as well as anybody I’ve ever seen. They’re really good.

George: Thank you.

BW: Brad? Let’s hear something wonderful about marriage. You’ve been married now a year.

Brad: What, really what I’ve been surprised about is, I find it very soothing. The every day of it. Really valuable. Having this base and this connection. That you then go out in the world and do whatever you want and know you got this thing.

BW: What’s the difference between the way you are now, and the way you were before you got married?

Brad: I would certainly say, much more grounded I guess. And…

Matt: Geez what were you like before?

Brad: [Smiles] Yea man. Flighty…

Julia: I’ll tell ya.

Brad: Flighty was the word. And… God I love you guys, I’m gonna cry.

BW: You know you and I have a connection.

Andy: Oh yea?

BW: We went to the same… do you know this?

Andy: High school!

BW: We went to the same high school in Miami Beach.

Andy: Miami Beach High

BW: We weren’t exactly there at the same time

Andy: No.

BW: We were like a couple years separated

Andy: Whatever you want.

Don: [Laughs]

*Clip of the movie Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead*

Voice-over BW: Actually, Andy and Don Cheadle made a movie together. Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead. They weren’t in the same scene and probably never met. Andy Garcia was 5 when his father, a prominent lawyer and avocado farmer fled Castro’s Cuba. They started over in Miami from scratch. Andy probably would’ve studied music if he hadn’t become an actor. He had a break through role in The Untouchables, opposite Kevin Costner.

*Clip of the movie The Untouchables + The Godfather: part III*

Voice-over BW: And got better reviews than the movie in Godfather III, opposite Al Pacino. He’s intense and intelligent and puts both parties to good use as the only really bad guy in Ocean’s Eleven.

*Clip of the movie Ocean’s Eleven*

BW: I have on final question. Those of you who are not, at this moment married; do you promise me that you will stay unmarried or not be secretly married until this special airs, so help you.

Julia: When’s it airing?

Matt: [Mumbles the same kinda question as Julia]

*Everybody laughs*

George: I’m fine with it.

BW: You’re okay with it.

Brad: George is safe.

Matt: Yea no, I’m fine with it

BW: You’re cool with it?

Julia: I’m cool.

George: You don’t even answer cause you’re getting…

BW: Okay. Remember, this is one towards the end of November.

Julia: … Getting a little tight…

BW: Julia can you wait till then?

Julia: We might have to call and unbook that.

George: One of the greatest pranks ever. Just get married and screw it up.

*Commercial Break*

*Clip of the 6 stars and Barbara Walters, walking down a path, talking with each other*

Voice-over BW: The cast of Ocean’s Eleven is a near perfect cross section of America. George Clooney and Julia Roberts are from the South. Matt Damon from Boston. Brad Pitt from the Mid-West. Andy Garcia is from Miami/ Cuba. And Don Cheadle grew up in Nebraska and Colorado. For this reason I wanted to ask them how they all felt about the attacks on our country.

BW: Tell me how the events of September 11th and what has happened to this country have affected you?

*Complete silence*

BW: Matt do you do anything different now?

Matt: I was in New York when that happened and I’ve been in New York. It’s a pretty incredible time to be there too. But it certainly affects everything. It affects my thinking more than my actions probably.

BW: Andy. You came to this country when you were 5 years old. You fled; you and your family fled Castro’s Cuba. So freedom must have a very special meaning to you?

Andy: Oh my, my father and my mother sacrificed everything. For us to have the ability to be free. And that’s a thing that, that’s what people die for. And when you have it, you grow up in it; you could take that for granted.

Brad: Right.

Andy: But I don’t take that for granted because I know what we’ve been through in order to enjoy that, that freedom. And what the people that we left behind, the kinda feelings they don’t enjoy.

Brad: Yea this catastrophic event is really, certainly for me and I feel like our culture made us appreciate again what we have. It’s a reminder of these freedoms and to see us actually embracing other people’s convictions, other religions and standing together which is really what America is found on.

Andy: It is such a unity that I find, you know? I think people are coming together with a greater consciousness to try to make them leap forward like Brad said to us the future. I mean we’re trying to raise children in this new world and what’s in store for our children if we don’t make the right steps.

BW: Don how old are your children?

Don: 7 and 5.

BW: Do they have any understanding of this?

Don: How do you say to a 7 and 5 year old, we said there was an accident this morning, there were planes, they hit a building and they were like ‘Oh wow why what happened? Was it on purpose?’ We said yes it was on purpose. And the hardest thing for them to fathom was; why someone would hurt themselves, I can see hurting somebody else but why would you hurt yourself? They couldn’t conceptionalize that and we couldn’t explain it.

BW: George you helped to organize the celebrity telethon that raised money for the world trade center

Brad: It was a fantastic night.

Julia: it was a great night it was a really remarkable night.

George: It was one of those great moments in you know, in your life. It was close to $2 million when we finished and that’s you know? That’s a considerate amount of money that will actually affect and help people who were hurt.

Brad: It’s a fact that most people I think, sitting in front of CNN that we, you know you just felt impotent. Being here, not being there on Ground Zero being able to help out, wanting to help out. Doing anything you could. And that we had that opportunity and George really did and run with making it as a big as it could be and I’ve got a lot of respect for that. And it was just a tremendous feeling being able to do something.

Andy: It was a tremendous honor.

Brad: It really was.

BW: Did you know what you were gonna say when you came up?

Julia: I didn’t. I spent all day frustrated thinking what shall I say? Because what I wanna say is everything’s gonna be okay. But I don’t wanna lie to people. I’ve no idea if everything will be okay. And then I made the mistake of watching the entire show in the green room cause, you know, for like an hour and a half. Overcome with everything that I saw. And everything that I heard. So I was a semi jumble of thoughts when I got out there. But I think that all you can really do is just really participate in the day. Whether it would be because of some huge hideous event or because we only have a number of days to walk the earth so, to me it is just about saying; I love you. To the people that I love as much as I can. And it has kinda heightened my hard awareness of all the people and things around me. Yea I kinda had to wheel it in that night I got a little bit… But it’s a tremendously emotional time.

Brad: Yes it is.

Julia: And my sister is in New York and just the franticness when I was calling her phone number and couldn’t get through and couldn’t get through and the miracle that I actually finally did get through to her and was able to talk to her and then call everybody else in my family and said that she was okay and that my brother-in-law was okay and got a hold of my friends and it was really, intense.

Matt: And that’s the really hard thing about it is you spent and it feels like myself, that all morning I move into my apartment at 1am that morning. So I woke up to that in New York. And the first thing was I, who do I know there and a bunch of guys I went to college with work there so it was the whole morning of emailing and calling and trying to track these people down. And it took over a day to get news of everybody. And everybody that I knew survived it, they got out and so you have this tremendous feeling of joy followed by this tremendous feeling of guilt. Because you go ‘wait a minute, that’s not you know… yes all of my inner circle made it you know? But there’s thousands and thousands and thousand of families and friends and inner circles that have just been broken up by this and.’

George: It’s the same thing as the assassinations of the 60s you know it’s that same type of feeling. We wake up now in a different world and the world is different when you go to the airport and it’s different when you go into a public building, and it is different. Those are just tiny reminders. I don’t worry about my safety; I’m not concerned with opening a letter. I’m concerned with us as a country and how it hurts. And it will continue to hurt as it did with losing John and Bobby and Martin in 1960. And Malcolm. It affected us to the core, the same sort of, when you go, how could this happen? How could it?

Matt: but it’s slightly different in that those guys were bigger than life and part… you know there were heroes of ours. Whereas these people who were slaughtered were people like us, you know? I mean it could’ve been me if I’d decided not to be an actor. If I had went into that world, I could’ve been there. And these guys got up and women had their coffee and bagel and went to work and just, that was the choice they were facing.

Andy: … to the people that laid their life down knowing they were going to die.

Matt: Those guys ran up to the 80th floor with fire equipment, I mean are you kidding me? It’s unbelievable. It’s just so beyond I mean it is, it does give you a feeling of impotence when you’re saying; how do I help? You know?

Andy: They were prepared to die.

Matt: Yea.

BW: I think it has affected the entire country and our whole way of living.

Brad: If not the world, New York. It’s bigger than the United States. New York City belongs to the world. I wanna see those buildings rebuild. I would love to see them rebuild and rebuild even taller and an idea I like is that at the point of impact is that we leave that section empty. [Creating an image with this hands] Like we would, you’d see the structure through and we just glass it out. The point of impact, the 7th floors, the 10th floors and we build up above it and you take those floors up above.

Julia: You’re the architect of the family.

Brad: No but as a symbol as, so we don’t forget but also so that, it is important to America that we get our symbol back.

BW: I wanna ask you; what do you think each of you can do? Or do you feel that it’s…

Andy: I think we have a responsibility in the film industry to bring that kind of compassion and sensibility to, in the work that we do. And the kinda films that we make.

Julia: Well just in the life that you live. I don’t work enough to say that’s my contribution. I mean it has to be…

Andy: No, granted. But…

Julia: Every compassion is to perfect word, to be compassioned to

Andy: You’ve to walk your talk.

Julia: Everywhere you go, you know? Every expression on your face.

George: You’ve to show up. I think that’s… we all sort of understand that. We’ve all been there already which is you gotta show up. We got things we can do that other people can’t do. We can help them. We can help bring focus to that.

Brad: And still follow up with, we’re entertainers, let’s get out and entertain.

BW: I appreciate all of you giving your views. And I thank you Andy, and Don, and George, and Brad, and Matt, and Julia cause I know you now for so many years.

Julia: [Smiles]

BW: It’s been a pleasure to be with all of you. Thank you.

*Everybody says thank you*

*End of interview*

BW: Our thanks to Julia, George, Brad, Matt, Andy and Don. It was a pleasure to be a part of your ratpack, even if only for a day. And thank you at home for watching. Goodnight.

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