Julia Roberts and George Clooney have just . In the film, they play an ex-couple forced to work together to stop their daughter from marrying a man she just met in Bali.

is the first film that Clooney and Roberts have done together in six years. And while Roberts had done throughout her career, this is the first one she’s ever done with Clooney. And for her, he’s also the only leading man that made sense for this movie.

Julia Roberts And George Clooney Have Been Frequent Collaborators Over The Years

Clooney and Roberts’ friendship goes back over two decades when the stars first met for the star-studded ensemble film

. Clooney, who also served as one of the film’s producers, heard that Roberts was getting paid $20 million per picture back then.

And so, to convince her to join the cast, he attached a $20 bill to a script with the note, “I hear you get a $20 a picture now.” Since doing that movie together, they’ve never stopped collaborating.

In fact, Roberts even went on to star in Clooney’s directorial debut, . Over the years, they also reunited for the follow-up film . And years later, Roberts also starred alongside Meryl Streep, Margo Martindale, Dermot Mulroney, and Juliette Lewis in the dramedy , which Clooney produced.

Just a few years after that, the two friends also starred together in Jodie Foster’s crime drama . As it turns out, . “I sent George a script, he liked it and said yes,” the actress/director recalled. “He’s a producer himself, but to his credit he really let us make the movie we wanted to.”

Meanwhile, when it came to Roberts, Foster admitted that she thought the Oscar winner “would just say no; it never occurred to me she might say yes.” But perhaps, because it was Clooney who asked, Roberts signed on too. “George gave her the script, and talked to her,” Foster said. “It wasn’t very long before shooting that she said yes.

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And while the Clooney and Roberts have hung out on set a lot together, they didn’t get to do that much this time around. As it turns out, the stars had to shoot their scenes separately for Foster’s film. “Except for the first and last scene in the film, she was never in the same room with George,” Foster said of Roberts.

“They weren’t even in the city at the same time. Everything she did in the control room was either play back, green screen or acting against nothing.”

For Julia Roberts, Doing The Movie ‘Somehow Only Made Sense’ George Clooney

Now, several years may have passed since their last film collaboration but even then,

in mind when it came to the .

“It somehow only made sense with George, just based on our chemistry,” she explained. “We have a friendship that people are aware of, and we’re going into it as this divorced couple. Half of America probably thinks we divorced, so we have that going for us.”

To be clear, however, Ol Parker, the film’s writer and director, always had Clooney and Roberts in mind for the film. “They sent me the script, and it was clearly written for Julia and I. In fact, the characters’ names were originally Georgia and Julian,” Clooney recalled.

And when Clooney saw that, he knew he had to do it even if rom-coms weren’t exactly his strong suit.

“I hadn’t really done a romantic comedy since — I haven’t succeeded like Julia has in that forum — but I read it and thought, ‘Well, if Jules is up for it, I think this could be fun,’” he added.

At the same time, Roberts and Clooney weren’t just co-stars on , both A-listers served as producers on the film too. And for Roberts, working behind the scenes on this film also made perfect sense.

“This is a genre that I love to participate in and watch, and I think they are hard to get right,” the actress said. “There is a really simple math to it, but how do you make it special? How do you keep people interested when you can kind of predict what is coming?”

Just in case anyone is wondering if Roberts and Clooney ever dated before, . “Julia was always in a relationship, or I was in a relationship,” Clooney said. “And we were fast friends right away. So, it was nothing, but it's been nothing but fun for us. So, I don't think that was ever really a thing.”

Roberts also summed up their relationship perfectly when they appeared together on , saying, “I may know this person till the end of time.”