This included sending Julia Roberts, the biggest female movie star in the world at the time, a cheeky note with a $20 bill that read, 'We hear you now make 20 a film now.' 'Then Steven and George went after our cast.' Not only did Clooney reduce his own fee, but he personally reached out to the other lead actors to convince them to take a pay cut so the project could get greenlit. 'George became the first to cut his salary,' producer Jerry Weintraub explained in an interview.

George Clooney was the first actor Soderbergh pitched the film to in the titular role of Danny Ocean, and things really got rolling when Clooney agreed to take a pay cut to make the film. In true heist movie fashion, the studio had a trump card up their sleeve: The fact that the movie was going to be directed by Steven Soderbergh, one of the industry's hottest filmmakers at the time that everyone wanted to work with. As it turns out, it really was impossible to make a movie with that star cast where every actor would be paid their usual signing fee.

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