While George Clooney didn’t want to film Ticket to Paradise without Julia Roberts, the actress only joined the movie to taunt her co-star and “be snarky” to him.

There’s a plethora of reasons why actors can join or reject a movie: a great script, an outstanding director, a solid paycheck, a personal preference… But sometimes, it merely comes down to who you’re going to be working with. Many former co-stars are happy to reunite for a new project, and that affects their decisions drastically.

This is pretty much what happened with Julia Roberts and George Clooney when they were invited to join the cast of Ticket to Paradise.

Both actors were motivated by the opportunity to work together once again — save for the fact that, unlike Clooney, Roberts has an admittedly darker ulterior motive: she wanted to taunt her co-star.

The two iconic actors have been great friends for many years now, and they thoroughly enjoy being playfully mean to each other. Their friendly chemistry is a spectacle in itself, and for that reason alone, Clooney agreed to join the Ticket to Paradise cast under only one condition: if Julia Roberts would be his co-star.

“We met with Steven Soderbergh, and we sat on the floor of a hotel and made jokes for about five hours.

For us it’s always been fairly easy, you know? I remember reading [the script] and calling Julia and I said ‘It only works if you do it,’ and she said the same thing, so luckily it worked out. It was lucky nonsense. But it’s fun to work with friends. And Julia,” laughs the actor.

His friend and colleague had a similar motivation to join the project, but it was admittedly darker and crueler…in the most hilarious way. Julia Roberts just wanted to have her friend play the part of a hopelessly still-enamored husband to whom she could be snarky and mean.

“Just the chance to be really snarky to George jumped out at me! Just to see him so pathetically in love with me,” joked Roberts during an interview with The AU Review.

This would’ve sounded horrible if it came from someone who wasn’t one of George Clooney’s best friends, but when Julia Roberts says it, you know it’s all fun and games. At the end of the day, the two actors have already worked together on more than one occasion and have maintained their fantastic friendship.

So it’s not like Clooney didn’t know exactly what to expect from Roberts.