Helen Barlow
If you're hoping that George Clooney might do action roles again, it will never happen. That's the word from the actor-director, who is now more famous for serious work such as Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck. He has hardly had any great success in action movies and, in typical Clooney style, those roles have become part of his comedy routine when dealing with the press.
"The first time I cried in a movie was at the premiere of Batman & Robin; Peacemaker II? Nah. I'm too old to do action films. It's no good now; I could fall apart. I think they're made for people of a certain age and I'm not of that age any more."
At 46, Clooney looks lean, leaner even than before he stacked on 14 kilos to play an overweight CIA agent in Syriana. That film could have led to his undoing; he had an accident performing his own stunt during the torture scene so that spinal fluid came dripping out of his nose.
Today, talking up his thriller Michael Clayton at the Venice Film Festival, he is effectively launching his first extensive publicity campaign since his 2006 Oscar win as best supporting actor for Syriana: he was likewise nominated as director and co-writer for Good Night, and Good Luck.
He is also determined to show that he is as fit as a fiddle.
"I am fine now," he says. "I have just finished a movie called Leatherheads which I wrote, directed and starred in. I had to play football with a bunch of 21-year-olds. I must have been stupid, but I felt OK."
He co-stars in the 1920s romantic comedy with Renee Zellweger, whom he once dated, but he doesn't mention that. Nor does he mention his current girlfriend, Sarah Larson, a cocktail waitress he met at the premiere for Ocean's 13 and with whom he had a subsequent motorcycle accident.
Larson did not make it onto the Venice red carpet for the Michael Clayton premiere, but accompanied her beau to the film's lavish party, where Clooney allowed himself to be photographed as he bent over to kiss her at the dinner table. In Toronto when interrogated by the Americans, he deflected questions about his "new love".
"Have I ever talked about my private life?" he responded with that ever-present grin.
He does, however, open up about the passing of his pet pig, Max. Has he been able to replace him?
"You can't replace a good pig like that. He has not been replaced. I have not been home to Los Angeles since I left on January 3 to go to the Carolinas to shoot the movie. You cannot get a pig on the road. Well, you can, but people will talk."
Like Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck, Michael Clayton is a production from Section Eight, the company Clooney established with Steven Soderbergh to make films that Hollywood studios would generally pass on - stories that raise the intellectual bar and that are intended to resonate with an audience well after being viewed. This smart thriller about corporate greed is directed by Tony Gilroy, who wrote the screenplays for the Bourne trilogy.
Clooney plays the title character, a tough-minded corporate fixer for a high-profile Manhattan law firm that is being taken over by a British conglomerate headed by Tilda Swinton. As the film opens, the firm's top litigator (Tom Wilkinson) has been working against a high-profile class action that recalls Erin Brockovich, but he has lost his nerve and is having a breakdown.
Clooney's Clayton is tough in the workplace, but is divorced and has mounting gambling debts; while Swinton's corporate CEO chooses the wrong path for the corporate good. All three characters have lost their way and are at their wit's end.
For Clooney, the film is not political.
"It's more a genre film, a well-made thriller like films from the '70s [such as] The Parallax View or The Candidate. You could take these characters and you could supplant them in the health care system or politics or virtually anywhere that corruption exists," he says.
Still carrying the extra weight from Syriana and sporting stubble and his naturally grey hair in the film, Clooney didn't have to conjure his character's exhaustion - he had just come from his 2006 Oscar campaign.
"It is a campaign where you actually kiss babies, but Academy members mostly," he frowns.
"You are trying to convince yourself you are doing it for the film, but you start to feel unclean about yourself. It was press screenings every night, flying to London for the BAFTAs. I felt beat up. I still could not exercise because of this injury. It did not take much to look like that."
The day after Michael Clayton wrapped and the Oscars were done and dusted, Clooney was on a plane to Darfur with his dad.
"There was something inside of me which made me want to go out and do something else. There is this weird thing that happens. It [the Oscars] stops being about promoting a film, more like comparing art. Once you start saying that David Strathairn is better than Philip Seymour Hoffman ... that is something which makes you want to go and stand in Chad for 10 days."
Now, after directing a comedy, he is happily retaining his upbeat mood by re-teaming with the Coen Brothers for Burn After Reading.
"It's one of the reasons I am growing this beard," he notes, rubbing his stubble. "Do you like it? There is a lot of testosterone in my family.
"The Coens' film has nothing to do with politics. It's as wrong as it can be. I wish I could understand it. I tell them I don't understand it. They go: 'Yeah ... heh, heh, heh.' In the story I'm having an affair with Tilda - I need a stepladder! [Swinton jokes how Clooney thinks she's a man!] I play my third idiot for the Coens after O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Intolerable Cruelty. They seem to find knucklehead funny with me."
Brad Pitt, Clooney's close friend since the Ocean's movies, also stars in the film. Together with Don Cheadle and Matt Damon they have raised about $US10 million ($11 million) at their Darfur Not On Our Watch fund-raisers. A family that plays together, raises funds together. Clooney likes the idea of an extended creative family. He came to showbusiness via his famous aunt, the singer Rosemary Clooney, but it was his TV anchorman dad Nick who instilled in him his resolve.
"There are just certain moments when you ask yourself, 'What you are doing to help the world?' I grew up around famous people. My father was a big star for a time. My aunt Rosemary was a big star. I saw it and I saw how little it has to do with you. The problem with famous people is that they actually start to think of themselves as geniuses. They think: 'Of course I am famous - I have earned it all.'
"You have to capitalise on it. You have to be available for it. It came to me later in life, at age 33, so I do not take it for granted."
So what of that matinee idol, that gorgeous guy with all the girls? Clooney remains a confirmed bachelor since his early failed marriage to actress Talia Balsam, but steps out with an array of younger beauties.
"Settle down? I settle down nicely with a good glass of wine," Clooney said in our previous Venice interview. "A good glass of wine and a painkiller."
The guy popping champagne with girls and living the sweet life as depicted in his Martini ads is for real, Gilroy confirms.
"Yes, he's definitely got that going on, too. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know if anyone's ever been better at the job of movie star than George is."
Sphere: Related Content
If you're hoping that George Clooney might do action roles again, it will never happen. That's the word from the actor-director, who is now more famous for serious work such as Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck. He has hardly had any great success in action movies and, in typical Clooney style, those roles have become part of his comedy routine when dealing with the press.
"The first time I cried in a movie was at the premiere of Batman & Robin; Peacemaker II? Nah. I'm too old to do action films. It's no good now; I could fall apart. I think they're made for people of a certain age and I'm not of that age any more."
At 46, Clooney looks lean, leaner even than before he stacked on 14 kilos to play an overweight CIA agent in Syriana. That film could have led to his undoing; he had an accident performing his own stunt during the torture scene so that spinal fluid came dripping out of his nose.
Today, talking up his thriller Michael Clayton at the Venice Film Festival, he is effectively launching his first extensive publicity campaign since his 2006 Oscar win as best supporting actor for Syriana: he was likewise nominated as director and co-writer for Good Night, and Good Luck.
He is also determined to show that he is as fit as a fiddle.
"I am fine now," he says. "I have just finished a movie called Leatherheads which I wrote, directed and starred in. I had to play football with a bunch of 21-year-olds. I must have been stupid, but I felt OK."
He co-stars in the 1920s romantic comedy with Renee Zellweger, whom he once dated, but he doesn't mention that. Nor does he mention his current girlfriend, Sarah Larson, a cocktail waitress he met at the premiere for Ocean's 13 and with whom he had a subsequent motorcycle accident.
Larson did not make it onto the Venice red carpet for the Michael Clayton premiere, but accompanied her beau to the film's lavish party, where Clooney allowed himself to be photographed as he bent over to kiss her at the dinner table. In Toronto when interrogated by the Americans, he deflected questions about his "new love".
"Have I ever talked about my private life?" he responded with that ever-present grin.
He does, however, open up about the passing of his pet pig, Max. Has he been able to replace him?
"You can't replace a good pig like that. He has not been replaced. I have not been home to Los Angeles since I left on January 3 to go to the Carolinas to shoot the movie. You cannot get a pig on the road. Well, you can, but people will talk."
Like Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck, Michael Clayton is a production from Section Eight, the company Clooney established with Steven Soderbergh to make films that Hollywood studios would generally pass on - stories that raise the intellectual bar and that are intended to resonate with an audience well after being viewed. This smart thriller about corporate greed is directed by Tony Gilroy, who wrote the screenplays for the Bourne trilogy.
Clooney plays the title character, a tough-minded corporate fixer for a high-profile Manhattan law firm that is being taken over by a British conglomerate headed by Tilda Swinton. As the film opens, the firm's top litigator (Tom Wilkinson) has been working against a high-profile class action that recalls Erin Brockovich, but he has lost his nerve and is having a breakdown.
Clooney's Clayton is tough in the workplace, but is divorced and has mounting gambling debts; while Swinton's corporate CEO chooses the wrong path for the corporate good. All three characters have lost their way and are at their wit's end.
For Clooney, the film is not political.
"It's more a genre film, a well-made thriller like films from the '70s [such as] The Parallax View or The Candidate. You could take these characters and you could supplant them in the health care system or politics or virtually anywhere that corruption exists," he says.
Still carrying the extra weight from Syriana and sporting stubble and his naturally grey hair in the film, Clooney didn't have to conjure his character's exhaustion - he had just come from his 2006 Oscar campaign.
"It is a campaign where you actually kiss babies, but Academy members mostly," he frowns.
"You are trying to convince yourself you are doing it for the film, but you start to feel unclean about yourself. It was press screenings every night, flying to London for the BAFTAs. I felt beat up. I still could not exercise because of this injury. It did not take much to look like that."
The day after Michael Clayton wrapped and the Oscars were done and dusted, Clooney was on a plane to Darfur with his dad.
"There was something inside of me which made me want to go out and do something else. There is this weird thing that happens. It [the Oscars] stops being about promoting a film, more like comparing art. Once you start saying that David Strathairn is better than Philip Seymour Hoffman ... that is something which makes you want to go and stand in Chad for 10 days."
Now, after directing a comedy, he is happily retaining his upbeat mood by re-teaming with the Coen Brothers for Burn After Reading.
"It's one of the reasons I am growing this beard," he notes, rubbing his stubble. "Do you like it? There is a lot of testosterone in my family.
"The Coens' film has nothing to do with politics. It's as wrong as it can be. I wish I could understand it. I tell them I don't understand it. They go: 'Yeah ... heh, heh, heh.' In the story I'm having an affair with Tilda - I need a stepladder! [Swinton jokes how Clooney thinks she's a man!] I play my third idiot for the Coens after O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Intolerable Cruelty. They seem to find knucklehead funny with me."
Brad Pitt, Clooney's close friend since the Ocean's movies, also stars in the film. Together with Don Cheadle and Matt Damon they have raised about $US10 million ($11 million) at their Darfur Not On Our Watch fund-raisers. A family that plays together, raises funds together. Clooney likes the idea of an extended creative family. He came to showbusiness via his famous aunt, the singer Rosemary Clooney, but it was his TV anchorman dad Nick who instilled in him his resolve.
"There are just certain moments when you ask yourself, 'What you are doing to help the world?' I grew up around famous people. My father was a big star for a time. My aunt Rosemary was a big star. I saw it and I saw how little it has to do with you. The problem with famous people is that they actually start to think of themselves as geniuses. They think: 'Of course I am famous - I have earned it all.'
"You have to capitalise on it. You have to be available for it. It came to me later in life, at age 33, so I do not take it for granted."
So what of that matinee idol, that gorgeous guy with all the girls? Clooney remains a confirmed bachelor since his early failed marriage to actress Talia Balsam, but steps out with an array of younger beauties.
"Settle down? I settle down nicely with a good glass of wine," Clooney said in our previous Venice interview. "A good glass of wine and a painkiller."
The guy popping champagne with girls and living the sweet life as depicted in his Martini ads is for real, Gilroy confirms.
"Yes, he's definitely got that going on, too. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know if anyone's ever been better at the job of movie star than George is."
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