You didn’t shave your head then?

No, it was a bald cap. We talked about it, about the best way of doing it. I did it for The Brothers Grimm. I wore a wig for The Brothers Grimm and I was bald underneath. I loved that! It was really liberating, actually. You get out of the shower and you dry instantly!

You also wore a fake nose on Ocean’s Thirteen. Wasn’t that an inside joke?

Well, when I did The Brothers Grimm there was a big fight between Terry Gilliam and me, and the studio. Terry wanted me to have this prosthetic nose. He wanted it to look like my nose had been broken.

So we tested the piece out and it really worked; you couldn’t tell it was a prosthetic nose. Like this one on The Informant! – it’s very subtle. In fact, it’s the same make-up artist who did the nose in The Brothers Grimm.

But the Weinstein brothers came down on the side of, “You can’t put your actor on a poster and have him not be recognisable in a big movie.” Basically, you can’t do a prosthetic nose in a big movie.

So I always took it that Steven gave me this ridiculously big nose in Ocean’s Thirteen for no reason at all. I mean, there’s no reason for Linus to put this nose on.

So for Steven, it was about solidarity with a fellow director, to say to that studio, not only can we put a nose on the very same actor in a ‘bigger’ movie, we can put a bigger nose on him!

What is it that you admire about Soderbergh?

Formally, nobody has pushed the envelope more than Steven. He’s done every kind of movie. He’s totally fascinated by form. He’s basically tried everything. And he’s always in production.

He’s either in pre-production, production or post-production at all times, since sex, lies, and videotape. He has not stopped. Not once. Not for a minute.

And he’ll go do The Girlfriend Experience… which he shot in 15 days! Fifteen days! They don’t shoot TV shows in that time. It’s absurd he did that. He’s never been over-budget and he’s never been over-schedule.

Next: Soderbergh, Spielberg, Eastwood