In 'Ocean’s Twelve' Tess Looks Like Julia Roberts, So Do They Know They All Look Like Famous People?

This piece is literally 15 years in the making. I've been obsessed with one particular plot point of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean’s Twelve since I first saw it 22 years ago (wait, what?) and anytime I've interviewed someone who was involved in the making of Ocean’s Twelve, I always ask about this. Also, these interviews took place over the course of 12 years and were always when the person being interviewed was promoting something else. So here, for the first time, I'm putting all of these quotes together in one place.

Now, the scene in question involves Julia Roberts's character, Tess Ocean. In an effort to get close enough to a valuable egg being shown at a museum, Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon) comes up with an idea: since Tess looks exactly like Julia Roberts, Tess could pretend she's Julia Roberts, using her fame for special access to the museum and the egg. The only problem is Bruce Willis happens to be at the museum and realizes this particular Julia Roberts is an imposter.

Okay, so, if Julia Roberts exists in the Ocean’s Twelve universe, and we know everyone is keenly aware that Tess Oceans looks exactly like Julia Roberts, does everyone else know they look like their famous counterparts? When Linus is cooking up this idea, did he consider he could have done the same thing posing as Matt Damon? Or is there no Matt Damon in the Oceans’ Twelve universe? I need to know this!

"In Ocean’s Twelve, since Tess knows she looks like Julia Roberts, does everyone else know they look like a famous person?" Between 2011 and 2023 I asked a version of this question to Seven Soderbergh, Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, and George Clooney. (Sadly, I did also interview Don Cheadle once for Iron Man 3, but we ran out of time before I could get to it. Also I messed up not asking Bruce Willis about this when he randomly called me out of the blue, which was only about a month after the Soderbergh interview. If you were involved in Ocean’s Twelve and want to be added to The Article Of Record about Ocean’s Twelve, please email me at mikethehardpass@gmail.com.)

Let's start with Steven Soderbergh...