10 things we learned at the 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' reunion

Patrick Ryan | USA TODAY

It's been more than a decade since the Soggy Bottom Boys were in a tight spot.

Yes, the Coen brothers' Southern fable O Brother, Where Art Thou? is now 15 years old. Sure, it's not the most momentous of anniversaries, but if you can get George Clooney to come celebrate it, why not? Clooney, who played escaped convict Ulysses in the 2000 film, reunited with co-stars Tim Blake Nelson (Delmar) and John Turturro (Pete) at the New York Film Festival Tuesday night to swap stories with filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen.

Here are some of our favorite things we learned:

1.George's favorite scene to shoot was the political rally. Thanks, in part, to Charles Durning as incumbent governor "Pappy" O'Daniel, who danced along to the Soggy Bottom Boys' Man of Constant Sorrow. "He's a big guy and he's a great hoofer," Clooney tells USA TODAY on the carpet. "He got onstage and started dancing out of the blue, and we just had the time of our lives that night. All of it, the whole shoot was fun."

2. He hasn't changed much since O Brother. Through the years, Clooney has reunited with the Coens on films such as Burn After Reading and their upcoming Hail, Caesar! But he's still very much the same guy. "Same sense of humor, the same understanding of the material that we do," Joel tells us. "George is a big movie star, but he's got a complete lack of vanity when he comes to work with us, which is really interesting and charming. He's perfectly willing to go wherever we ask him to, which is the mark of a real actor."

3. Yes, he was a prankster even then. "I'm afraid so," says Joel, although he won't say what sorts of tricks Clooney pulled. Any hints, George? "It was 15 years ago," he laughs. "I don't remember what I did yesterday right now."

4. Shooting the Ku Klux Klan scene was predictably bizarre. About a third of O Brother was shot in California, including the lynching bonfire, in which Ulysses, Delmar and Pete save Tommy (Chris Tommy King) from the KKK. "There was a moment when we were out in Los Angeles, with all these guys dressed in Ku Klux Klan hoods, right across from the Van Nuys Airport where all these planes were coming in," Clooney told us. "They had to be thinking, 'This is mortifying that I'm moving to L.A.' "

5. John hasn't seen the film in years. The last time was "with my son, Diego, at home a couple years ago," Turturro tells us. "I love the movie and I love the Coens. Their movies have a lot of layers to them. ... They're always surprising." Nelson remembers seeing the movie for the first time at Cannes in 2000. "It was one of the standout moments of my life, being at the Palais, seeing the film in front of that audience," he says. "I'll never forget it."

6. It wasn't always based on the Odyssey. Yes, there's a one-eyed man and sirens, but O Brother wasn't originally going to be a Deep South interpretation of Homer's epic poem. In fact, the Coens initially envisioned it as a road movie inspired by The Wizard of Oz. "But at some point, we looked at each other and said, 'They're trying to get home. Let's just say it's the Odyssey,' " Joel told the crowd in a post-screening Q&A.

7. George's uncle helped him with his accent. Before shooting started, Clooney says he sent his uncle, Jack, the O Brother script and a tape recorder so he could study his Southern accent. "After about two months of shooting, Joel and Ethan came over and said, 'Let me ask you something. You say every word exactly as written, except you don't say 'hell' and you don't say 'damn.' Why do you do that?' And I said, 'I listen to the tape recorder and my Uncle Jack is a Baptist from Kentucky. Folks talk like that: they don't say hell and they don't say damn.' He rewrote the Coens."

8. The toughest scene to film was the baptism. Delmar and Pete get redeemed after happening across a baptism in the woods, but it wasn't such a holy experience for those behind the camera. O Brother's director of photography, the legendary Roger Deakins, attached a camera to an 80-foot crane to capture the massive congregation wading into the lake. "All the grips were up to (their thighs) in mud and they're getting bit by crayfish," Deakins said. "It was disgusting." And don't even get him started on the water moccasins.

9. The Coens knew O Brother inside and out. "I've never worked with any other directors who hold the movies so tightly in their heads," Deakins said. "You can try to trip them up and ask a question about something, and it's impossible." Although, "you can play one off the other," Clooney added. "Each of them will give you notes and you go, 'Oh, that's a much better note. Thanks, Ethan.' "

10. They wish they could make minor changes. The Coens don't often go back and watch their own work. But after seeing O Brother again at the festival, they wish they could go back and fix it. "After the fact, most of what you notice is editing — editing things you would do a little bit differently," Ethan says. "Minor in the scheme of things, but I just can't help myself." As for Turturro, "I could've made some more big faces. That was some serious subtle (expletive) going on," he joked.