Sandra Bullock’s new heist movie, Ocean’s 8, is the rare summer blockbuster that headlines an all-female cast—and never pits them against each other. The ensemble film, which also features Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna, Sarah Paulson, Mindy Kaling, and Helena Bonham Carter, doesn’t cast its stars as damsels in distress or harpies fighting for the same man: “What makes our film important is you see women working as a group, and how women treat each other and lift each other up,” Bullock said at the film’s premiere in New York Tuesday. “It’s also about recognizing talent. Women often say to other women, ‘Go out. I got your back.’ It’s the same with the seven incredibly talented individuals working on this film, who are so different. But they all have the same thing in common in wanting the best for the other one. When you treat each other with support, there is so much love, and that can equalize a lot of things.”
In Ocean’s 8, Debbie Ocean (Bullock)—the newly paroled sister of George Clooney’s Danny Ocean, star of Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen—has plotted a heist to steal a one-of-a-kind, $150 million Cartier diamond necklace right off the neck of an unsuspecting actress (Hathaway) at the Met Gala. To complete the mission, Ocean and her former partner in crime (Blanchett) recruit a computer hacker (Rihanna), a jeweler (Kaling), a washed-up fashion designer (Bonham Carter), a deft pickpocket (Awkwafina), and a fence con-artist-turned-suburban mom (Paulson).
Paulson said that the greatest advantage of working with an all-female cast is how generous they are about sharing their wisdom with one another.
“Men usually don’t do that,” said Paulson, who arrived at the premiere wearing a showstopping neon green Prada gown. “Women share their knowledge, and you then take their expertise based on their experience and apply it to your life, even if it’s something you have yet to experience. There’s something about women, and especially this group of women, where generosity was the name of the game. I even got online-shopping advice!”
Not only is Debbie’s squad kind and benevolent, but director-writer Gary Ross also chose a purposefully diverse cast.
“We are all women with different backgrounds coming together. I hope we can change the way people see what’s possible in this world and show how strong women can be, how funny they can be, and how diverse we are,” said Awkwafina, the actress-rapper born Nora Lum. “As an Asian-American woman, being in this movie, some girl will see it and they will know it’s possible, because there aren’t a lot of us out there. There has to be more.”
Hathaway, meanwhile, hopes that Ocean’s 8 will inspire Hollywood execs to green-light more projects about women.
“I really hope that it’s a hit, because then we can get more movies like this,” Hathaway said. “Right now, there’s still this lingering myth that movies starring women don’t do as well as films starring men, and it’s really hard to break through. And it’s pervasive. So if this movie does well, it’s going to help take down that myth.”
As the unofficial eighth member of the team, Hathaway—playing self-absorbed movie star Daphne Kluger—steals every scene in the movie. Early reviews are raving about the Oscar winner’s performance, including V.F.’s own.
“It was so much fun to come in and chew the scenery and take up as much space as she wanted with her big personality,” said Hathaway, who improvised a few of her own lines in the film. “Daphne is the person that I’ve tried very hard not to be, and I don’t know what it says about me that she came to me so easily. But it was really fun to get to spend some time with her. She’s just so expensive, and it was just lovely to do that.”
And while Bullock might emit an aura of confidence, she insists she is neither as self-assured nor as poised as her thieving alter ego, especially when walking down a red carpet.
“I have to remind myself it’s just a press line—own it when you are nervous,” the Oscar winner said. “You are only going to be judged once, and it will last maybe a week. And after a week, no one is judging you anymore. You just have to breathe through it and remember there are more important things in the world, like family and everyone is alive and healthy. There’s other people suffering and it sort of grounds you.”
As for the Hollywood gender-pay gap controversy, Bullock is proud to add her voice to the Time’s Up chorus. “I think it’s a human issue that goes beyond our industry,” she said. “We just want a spot at the table and to be treated equally. It’s about being supported.”
