Sandra Bullock, Mindy Kaling talk bonding over ‘Ocean’s 8’

When Ocean’s 8 began filming in October 2016 — with eight actresses reviving the testosterone-zested heist franchise that last winked at audiences in 2007 — Hillary Clinton was ahead in the polls, Harvey Weinstein was synonymous with Hollywood power, and few in the industry, let alone the public, had ever heard of the term “inclusion rider.”

The movie will be released on June 21 in the UAE in a dramatically different world. Tectonic shifts set off by the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements have thrust long overlooked perils for working women into sharp relief. And the film’s implicit argument — that the particular experiences of women have for too long been an afterthought — seems suddenly prescient.

On set, the stars deliberately cultivated an idealised simulacrum of the broader industry — female-led, open, nonhierarchical, mutually supportive. “We were all in the trailers sitting right next to each other — sharing, downloading, collaborating,” Sandra Bullock, who led a cast that included Cate Blanchett, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling and Anne Hathaway, said in a recent interview. “Everyone became a surrogate parent/best friend/therapist.”

Bullock, who was in Los Angeles, was joined by Kaling from New York in a three-way phone conversation and subsequent emails. Topics included double standards for men and women in Hollywood, Kaling’s secret on-set pregnancy, and the endurance of their all-star sisterhood, complete with lively group texting.

KALING: Thank you. That’s such an amazing thing to say.

BULLOCK: I underestimate myself constantly, constantly — whether it’s in my own mind or whether it actually exists. I don’t take the business side personally, but I take my work personally because that’s a year of your life. And when I see inequality, when I see condescension, when I see people who are prominently displayed on a card for a job they are not fit for, I have a visceral reaction now that I’ve never had before.

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