Ocean's Eleven: the press junket

I'm lost in the corridors of the Dorchester Hotel, feeling a little like Hugh Grant at the end of Notting Hill - ruffled, desperate and in search of Julia Roberts. Two burly minder types are guarding an open door, so I peek inside. A press conference is in progress. I can't see Julia, but in her stead is a veritable feast of Hollywood leading men - George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Andy Garcia are sitting in a line, firing quips towards a battery of salivating hacks. I'm politely nudged away from the door.

As I whimper something about being on the list, I'm told that my turn will come at the conference that follows this one. For today is junket day - which means hours of hard sell to the media - for Ocean's Eleven, the remake of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack heist movie. What I'm witnessing here is simply round one. But it turns out that Roberts is the only star not taking part in the charm offensive. Oh well, I don't have a floppy fringe anyway.

The boys more than make up for her loss. While junkets can often be tedious affairs, this is the comedy store version, with the actors, director Steven Soderbergh, and producer Jerry Weintraub riffing together on stage - and keen not to take themselves too seriously.

Journalist: George, is it right you took a reduced fee for this film, so that the other actors would do the same?

Clooney: That's what I told them. (Everybody laughs.) The truth of the matter is, Steven was the trump card. He is one of those directors who people really want to work with. And actors will do anything they can to work with him. But I hate to compliment him while he's sitting here.

Soderbergh: Especially since I didn't reduce my fee.

The one-liners and banter are deliberately in keeping with the matey ensemble of the movie, in which Clooney's Danny Ocean puts together a team of conmen and robbers (Pitt, Damon, Don Cheadle, Elliot Gould) to steal $150 million from three Las Vegas casinos. For Ocean, the heist is personal - the casino owner (Garcia) is dating his ex-wife, played by Roberts.

Soderbergh: I thought it would be fun for Julia to be the only woman in the film. So we sent her the script with a $20 bill enclosed saying, 'We hear you get 20 a picture.'

Clooney: And she kept the $20! We deducted it from Andy's salary.

Garcia: It was my salary.

Journalist: You're all used to being in your own star projects. How did it feel being part of an ensemble?

Garcia: There's a famous Stanislavsky quote, which is, 'There are no small roles, only small actors.'

Clooney: And there are a lot of small actors.

Ensemble, perhaps, but there's no escaping the fact that - on screen and in person - the pair carrying the charisma are Clooney and Pitt. Side by side in their matching sharp suits, one dark, the other golden, they are as seemingly unencumbered by vanity as only the naturally endowed can be.

Journalist: It was recently said that Brad Pitt has the burden of being the coolest man on the planet.

Clooney: I think he's the sex-i-est man alive.

Pitt: George is very bitter.

Clooney: You should have seen him when they took off his tiara...

And so it goes on. Aside from a Pitt reference to 11 September, nothing of consequence is said. But that's not the point - the point is to exude star wattage, to seduce the assembled British press into believing that they have 'interviewed' Hollywood, when in truth all we've done is laugh, listen and swoon.

We file out, glowing in star presence, armed with the embargoes that tell us when we can use our meagre pickings. For this isn't just 'entertainment'. It's business. The bottom line of junket day is to offer morsels of material, however small, that will promote a film. Today - the jokes, the charm, the bonhomie - is about newspaper copy, magazine covers and TV segments.

The camaraderie may be genuine, but so are the contracts that say, no doubt, that Clooney, Pitt and co have to publicise their movie. Their roadshow PR effort has so far helped to lift a cool $170 million from the US box office - and now it's aimed squarely at you.