Why Don Cheadle Wasn’t Credited For His Work In Ocean’s Eleven

Contrary to the “Eleven” in its title, only 10 of the main ensemble actors involved in “Ocean’s Eleven” were credited for the movie. Indeed, despite being a major player, then-future Marvel Cinematic Universe star Don Cheadle’s name doesn’t appear at all in the film’s credits.

Cheadle’s absence from the credits has confused fans of the Steven Soderbergh heist movie since its release in 2001. The actor was already a known quantity in Hollywood by the time the movie came out, and his character, the questionably Cockney-accented explosives expert Basher Tarr, gets plenty of screen time in the movie. Yet, if you pop over to IMDb, Cheadle is currently the 77th person on the cast credits page for “Ocean’s Eleven,” under the “uncredited” section after characters with names like “Dog Track Gambler” and “Woman in Casino.” What gives? Cheadle himself seems to have rarely spoken about the issue on the record, although in a 2009 interview posted to KamWilliams.com, he alluded to behind-the scenes drama that led to him asking to have his name removed from the movie.

“With ‘Ocean’s,’ there was some stuff that happened behind the scenes that I didn’t like how it went down, so I just said, ‘Take my name off it,'” Cheadle told an interviewer two years after the release of “Ocean’s Thirteen.” He didn’t clarify further, though outlets including the New Zealand Herald and WhatCulture have chalked the lack of credit up to a dispute about cast billing. According to the Herald, Cheadle wanted to have his name above the film’s title on promotional materials alongside Matt Damon, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt. The request was reportedly denied, despite the fact that Cheadle had a flourishing career at that point, with movies like “Devil in a Blue Dress,” “Boogie Nights,” and the Soderbergh-directed projects “Traffic” and “Out of Sight” under his belt. It’s worth noting that while this explanation is sometimes repeated as fact, it’s unclear to /Film whether it can be directly sourced back to Cheadle or others involved in the movie. Soderbergh himself has previously admitted that the first film’s production was chaotic.

For what it’s worth, Cheadle’s name appears in the credits of the second and third “Ocean’s” films, and he’s spoken somewhat positively about them in interviews since the trilogy wrapped. In 2023, he told GQ that the role involved “a lot of grinding on an accent that I’ve been both vilified and praised for,” but he also said filming the “Ocean’s” sequel was a great experience. “We just toured Europe in this big group, and it was a lot of fun, everybody just had a lot of fun together,” Cheadle recalled. Whatever the cause, the credits issue hasn’t stopped Cheadle from working with Soderbergh again, either: in addition to the other “Ocean’s” movies, the pair reunited for 2021’s “No Sudden Move,” a ’50s-set neo-noir in which Cheadle, appropriately, gets top billing.