Is George Clooney Double Dealing ?

David Michael

George Clooney is no stranger to a crisis of conscience. Two years ago he was sitting alongside Bono and Bob Geldof at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, throwing his weight behind the cause of lobbying the then leader of the Word Bank, Paul Wolfowitz, to wipe out Third World debt.

Only a matter of hours before the meeting it had been announced that a consortium fronted by Clooney (including Brad Pitt) was planning to open a behemoth Las Vegas casino complex called Las Ramblas.

"The casino had been something we'd been working on for years and that announcement was unfortunate," admits Clooney, with hindsight. "I told my partners, we can't do it this way, we have to evolve and participate, let's give 25 per cent of anything that we make to the Make Poverty History campaign. Then at least you can justify the idea."

Crisis over, Clooney was spared further accusations of double standards when the rapid increase in the cost of construction and the spiralling fortunes of Vegas casinos caused a U-turn in the billion-dollar project, although Clooney, Pitt and Co made good on the sale of their land.

At the Venice Film Festival last month to promote his latest film Michael Clayton Clooney was again wobbling on a tightrope of apparent hypocrisy when it was suggested at the film's press conference that his appearance in advertisements for Nestle coffee brand Nespresso was perhaps at odds with a film that directly questioned multinational corruption.

Nestle was much maligned in the late 1970s for its unethical marketing of formula baby milk in developing countries.

Not amused, Clooney abruptly dismissed the question but the next day, speaking to a smaller gathering of press, decided on a little damage limitation.

"It's irritating because I'm doing the best I can to bring attention to things," he sighed.

"Every major corporation in the world has been picketed and I'm not sure what the specific agenda was on that one. Those are the moments where you want to go: 'What are you doing to help the world'?" With the veneer of his customary charm scratched, it was soon business as usual in Venice as his Cary Grant smile and warm familiarity went into overdrive.

Within minutes the assembled press were again laughing at his jokes, not caring if they'd heard his self-deprecating remarks about playing Batman before.

There's no doubt Clooney is the most charismatic and likeable of the Hollywood A-list and, as is par for the course with his attendance at these events, people fall over themselves to get a piece of him.

To get some time alone with him I literally have to tear him away from a gaggle of feverish Italian girls swarming round him in a hotel hallway, wanting pictures taken with him on their mobile phones.

With an Italian residence in Lake Como, Clooney has always been a favourite in this part of the world.

Having been twice voted sexiest man alive by People magazine, his demand is justified. However, he has long risen above such frivolity of being a Hollywood star. As his casino dalliance demonstrates, he's now a high roller.

This year Clooney was ranked 27 in Variety magazine's top 100 Most Powerful and Influential People list. The scale of the accolade is not immediately apparent, but when you consider he ranks higher than Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger, with only the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates above him, it's a clear indication Gorgeous George is more than just a pretty face.

Sporting a salt-and-pepper beard and wearing his regulation dark jacket and shirt combo, Clooney admits to me he often wrestles with his "Irish-Catholic guilt" since his success.

"I have some money and a nice house in Italy, but when you're out there saying we should raise some money for the poor or making these films that ask questions, you kind of look like a schmuck.

"So it's a weird situation: you don't want to give up all those things you've worked hard for and enjoy, but I think you have to participate in one way or another."

Despite his recent spate of politically charged films such as Syriana, Good Night, And Good Luck and now Michael Clayton, Clooney has done more than just let his films do the talking.

He has been an advocate in campaigning for the Sudanese Government to stop the genocide in Darfur, lobbying both the UN and US Senate in the process. Plus, as part of his contract with Omega watches, he's working with them on the development of a fuel cell, not to mention presenting himself as the pin-up boy for eco-friendly electric cars.

"I can't do a film about oil corruption and consumption and drive a big Bronco," he says. "I can point to my life 10 years ago when I excitedly bought a Bronco. I'm evolving too."

The young Clooney grew up in Kentucky on the television sets of his father, news anchorman Nick Clooney. The spark to begin acting came when his California-based uncle, actor Jose Ferrer, visited town on a film and suggested his nephew should move to Los Angeles to take a shot at acting.

From the age of 21 Clooney spent a decade making a mediocre living off low-profile TV parts. While the quantity was there, quality was another matter.

"I did a series called Sunset Beat where I played an undercover cop on a Harley during the day and a rock star at night," he laughs. "I've done some really bad television."

In hindsight it may have been his now pal and co-star on the Ocean's films, Brad Pitt, who initially stunted his film career. Clooney had auditioned several times for Ridley Scott for the part of J.D. in Thelma & Louise (1991), a role that ultimately went to Pitt and catapulted him to heart-throb stardom.

"It was pretty embarrassing," joked Clooney in front of Pitt, while doing press for Ocean's Thirteen. "They brought Brad and me in and they just made us take our shirts off and stand there for a while, and then they picked Brad."

Clooney had to be patient, waiting until he was 33 years old to land his big break as Dr Doug Ross in ER, with a transition into film swiftly following. Coming to success later in life has provided Clooney with a sobering outlook on his lot in life.

"I saw how little it has to do with you," he says of his journey. "It's all about luck. The problem with famous people in general is that they actually think they're geniuses. You get famous and you think, 'Yes, of course I should be famous and I've earned it all'. You haven't, you got lucky. I got lucky, I was in a TV show that got a Thursday night-time slot at 10pm and it was a massive hit, and as a result I get to do movies I want to do." Such a grounded perspective fuels an all-round-good-guy persona, which according to his Michael Clayton writer-director Tony Gilroy is the genuine Clooney. "I would say, of all the actors and movie stars I've dealt with over the years, George has the least amount of filter between the way he presents public and private. He doesn't act. The guy: that's him."

But does Clooney find it difficult to flick on that movie star switch? "I'm at that point, in my life and my career, where very few things rattle me. I'm not sick of being 'on'. It doesn't bother me. There are times, but not often."

Perhaps the biggest test of his temperament came during last year's Oscar race, when Clooney's smile may as well have been fixed as he did the rounds to support not only his directorial effort for Good Night, And Good Luck, but also Syriana. In the latter he eventually took best supporting actor for his role as a conflicted CIA agent.

"It was an interesting time," he reflects. "I was going through the whole Oscar campaign . . . where you kiss babies and stuff. You go to all these different events and you can convince yourself you're doing it for the film, but in a way you start to feel unclean about yourself."

He admits to feeling "really beat up" during the experience. He was filming Michael Clayton, in which he plays the eponymous "fixer" for a New York law firm who is coming to terms with the morality of his work while trying to hold together his fraying personal life.

Adding to his dishevelled appearance in Syriana, his Michael Clayton role shows he has no interest in playing the pristine Hollywood leading man, that he could still easily pull off even at 46 years old (he is, after all, currently dating a 28-year-old, ex-Vegas waitress Sarah Larson). The best of examples of his lack of vanity on screen come with his work with the Coen Brothers - O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Intolerable Cruelty and Burn After Reading.

"The end part in my trilogy of idiots with them", Clooney labels it. "They seem to find I make a good knucklehead."

Of course the reality is far from that. If the private jets, advertising endorsements and multimillion-dollar pay cheques of his day job have unavoidably made the ground less then firm when he campaigns and acts on burning issues, it's also compromised any political ambitions.

"I've always been involved in social and political things my whole life," says the instinctively political animal.

"I campaigned for a guy for governor when I was 13 years old. The truth is that, at this time in history, being an actor, unless you're a Republican helping out a Republican, you can't show up as you do damage.

"When my father ran for Congress in the last election I couldn't campaign for him because it was Hollywood verses the heartland. Likewise with John Kerry, whose request I had to turn down."

Ultimately, he concludes, running for office himself is the only thing about which he does have a clear conscience. "In politics you have to make a tremendous amount of compromises in everything and I'm not built like that. I'm more stubborn than that. I'd be a horrible politician. No, I would run from office."

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