"I Fell Asleep": 20 Years Ago, the Filming of This Thriller with an Incredible Cast Was Boring for Vincent Cassel

Vincent Cassel has acted alongside the biggest Hollywood stars, but his memory of the cult franchise "Ocean’s" is far from passionate. Between creative freedom and assumed disinterest, he offers a very honest perspective.

In an interview with GQ on YouTube in 2023 (via Télé 7 Jours), Vincent Cassel candidly reflected on his participation in Steven Soderbergh's Ocean’s saga. Between filming memories, personal astonishment, and iconic scenes, the French actor provided quite an unexpected view of this Hollywood experience.

In 2004, the French actor indeed joined the prestigious cast of Ocean’s Twelve, a few years after the success of Ocean’s Eleven. He plays François Toulour, aka the "Night Fox," an elegant and formidable thief.

In this sequel, he shares the screen with a host of international stars: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Andy Garcia. The director later called him back for the third installment, Ocean’s Thirteen, completing the trilogy.

A Prestigious Franchise... But Not Necessarily His Favorite

Despite the scale of the project and the impressive cast, Vincent Cassel did not develop a particular attachment to this saga. He admitted this outright during the interview. He notably recounts a very particular experience during the reshoots for the third film...

"When I accepted Ocean’s Twelve, I hadn’t seen Ocean’s Eleven. To be completely honest, it’s not really my thing. For Ocean’s Thirteen, we had to do reshoots, so we all went to Las Vegas. Steven Soderbergh takes us up to his crazy suite to show us the assembled film, without the missing scenes. I fell asleep."

Warner Bros. Pictures

Total Freedom on the Set of Ocean’s 12

While his involvement in the saga didn’t particularly excite him from a cinephile perspective, Vincent Cassel still has a very strong memory of his filming experience, especially due to the freedom granted by Steven Soderbergh.

The actor particularly mentions the famous capoeira scene, which he significantly contributed to shaping.

"Steven Soderbergh lets me do whatever I want. He takes me to the museum set, which cost a fortune and will be used for 48 hours. He says to me: ‘You have the stunt team, you figure it out, and we’ll come this afternoon to shoot.’ The guy arrives, asks us what we want to do, and I basically explain a bit about what he should do in terms of staging. He says: ‘Okay, so how does it start?’ And we do it."

Between his assumed disinterest in the final result and the great artistic freedom on set, Vincent Cassel thus retains an ambivalent experience of the Ocean’s saga. A prestigious participation, but lived without necessarily the enthusiasm one might imagine in the face of such a Hollywood production.

The main Ocean’s saga is now available for streaming on HBO Max and Canal+, as well as on Prime Video for all films, except Ocean’s Twelve.