Deal them in: Atlantic City casino employees seek roles in “Ocean’s Eleven” remake

John Curran

Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2000 | 3 a.m.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - Hoping to get lucky, hundreds of starry-eyed casino dealers, cocktail waitresses and actors turned out Tuesday at a casting call for "Ocean's Eleven," a movie to be shot on location here next year.

The movie, a remake of a 1960 film starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., features George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt in a tale about an ex-con planning a casino heist.

More than 400 people will be hired locally for work as extras and minor characters in scenes shot at Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino and the White House Sub Shop.

The heist will be shot in Las Vegas. But director Steven Soderbergh ("Erin Brockovich," "The Limey," "sex, lies and videotape") insisted on location shoots in Atlantic City, according to unit production manager Charles Miller.

"Soderbergh is very particular about authenticity. We could have easily shot in Vegas and pretended it was in Atlantic City, but he wants it to be real," Miller said.

The filming will take place around Feb. 11. Clooney will be the only star shooting scenes in Atlantic City.

Resumes and head shots in hand, the aspiring actors - some newcomers, some veteran extras - flocked to the Atlantic City Convention Center, where casting director Rich King invited 60 at a time into a room for a description of the movie and a primer on the less-than-glamorous work it will require of them.

"It's not real exciting sometimes," King said. "It's a lot of the same thing, over and over again. If the scene shows George getting dealt his cards, you may do it over again 18 times if he flubs his lines."

"It's a long day, and you have to be willing to work. Don't come to me and say, 'I gotta' get home because the baby sitter has to leave,' " King said.

Extras get $75 for the first 10 hours and overtime pay after that, he said. The first 80 hires must be members of the Screen Actors Guild, he said.

There were several of those on hand Tuesday, including Claridge Casino Hotel dealer David Palmieri, 43, who has landed roles as gamblers, dealers, police officers and mob soldiers in "Unbreakable," "Summer of Sam," "Analyze This," and "Rounders," among other films.

"They told me I'd have a good chance because I'm a dealer," Palmieri said.

Others had no acting experience, coming to the casting call just out of curiosity.

"I loved Frank Sinatra; that's why I'm here. He sent me a teddy bear with flowers once, after I met him," said Maria Marcy, 85, of Ventnor.

Amanda Mazzoni, 13, of Pittsgrove, had an even better reason.

"My Mom, she said if I came, I'd get out of school. So I thought I'd try my luck," she said.

The reason so many extras are needed is because some of the scenes take place on the casino floor, and the film's producers want it to be crowded, Miller said.

Soderbergh decided to add a scene at the White House Sub Shop after eating lunch there while scouting potential shooting locations, Miller said. In it, Clooney will carry on a conversation with someone he just met at Caesars.

The sub shop, which opened in 1946, is a local institution frequented by casino headliners and politicians.

"We're going to close all day for them," said sub-maker Phil LaRocca, the White House's unofficial spokesman. "We welcome it. It will be inconvenient, of course, but we know it helps the city."

Some scenes will be shot at a New Jersey prison, but Miller said the arrangements were not final yet, and he would not name which one.

No release date is set for the Warner Bros. movie.