You've seen him in everything from "Boogie Nights" to "Bulworth", and now celebrated supporting actor, Don Cheadle, does the business again, as explosives expert Basher in "Ocean's Eleven".

Why is your character, Basher, a Cockney?

At one point, another character was going to be British and Steven thought, well, I don't know if we want to be courting comparisons. Then that didn't happen and he said we could change it to make him American, but I said, "well, let me just try it? It's not like there aren't any black Londoners." I wanted to do something different and I thought it would add another colour to this palette of 11 guys.

Do you know any rhyming slang?

It was like a Calculus test - you take the test and then you empty that file, and it's gone.

How did you enjoy the all-star aspect of the movie?

There seems to be some kind of latent desire to see that. I think it would have worked better if it had been like "Ten Little Indians", killing us off every ten minutes. You know, who's the next star they're going to pick off? You've got to kill stars. If you're not killing stars, I mean, what's it about?

Were you out drinking every night with the rest of the guys?

I had my family with me the whole time, so I went back to my room. I know there are stories out there, some of which have already hit the papers, but that's not really me.