The most interesting man of the 2000s, according to many. The most desired bachelor, in the opinion of the unmarried. “Sexiest Man Alive” by People magazine. Meeting with George Clooney, perhaps the most sincere star of the millennium.
A frivolous squint of brown eyes. Old world elegance. American contact. A string of glossy chosen ones. Estate with an XNUMXth century villa in Italy. Smacks on the cheeks of the smoldering fans, strong handshakes to the fans, a light flourish to every autograph hunter. Participation in a charity auction where he sold his kiss.
Artist-darling and director-intellectual. Openness and extraversion. Joy and courage. This is how I saw it during the Cannes Film Festival. When we meet later for an interview, I expect the gray-haired man with a serious, concentrated face sitting in front of me to turn on his charm that is striking on the spot. Like a light bulb, instantly. But nothing like that happens. Now it seems that his main characteristic is not masculine charm and temperament, but deep calmness. His slightly knotted hands lie calmly on the armrests. He calmly leans against the back of the chair. His speech is measured and detailed. George Clooney does not turn on irresistible lights, does not try to please, does not work for the public. He behaves naturally – in accordance with the situation.
He has a special tact and a special chic. He did not blame any of his acting failures on the director. Did not stigmatize critics and the public when they rejected his hard-won directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. None of his novels ended in public scandal. None of his former lovers said an unkind word about him. And he didn’t mention any…
He knows how to wear a business suit, he is not casual, he always keeps his distance, but he found a special manner for this: to be open, not to hide anything, not to focus too much on himself, not to groom his phobias, complexes and addictions. That is why he can be asked any question and not be afraid that he may consider him tactless.
In the role of ambassador
He had just starred in the Coen brothers’ comedy Burn at Read and completed his American football film Leatherheads in the 20s. However, George Clooney is clearly not in danger of rest: since January he has been appointed UN Goodwill Ambassador, and this role for the actor is perhaps the most honorable and responsible.
Psychologies: You are 46. Do you think you have begun to age?
George Clooney: Yes… question… When I dropped out of university and came to Los Angeles, the first time I lived with my father’s sister, Aunt Rosemary. And Rosemary Clooney was a very famous pop singer in her youth, but over time, of course, she began to grow old, could no longer take high notes and moved from pop music to jazz. And she began to sing better! Gained fame as a great jazz singer. I asked her then how she managed such a trick. She replied: “I found pleasure in hitting low notes. I no longer need to demonstrate myself, to assert myself. Now I can just serve the music.” I did not fully understand then what Rosemary meant, but I remembered. And only now did he appreciate her thought: low notes have their own charm. Limitation can become a gift, black and white in clothes, in the cinema – a special charm and chic. My time as a male lead star is coming to an end. And I hope that soon I will be allowed to make a film and not act in it! After all, it is more interesting to be an artist than paint. I connect my hopes for a new life with leaving the frame, when I become the first person behind him – a producer, director, screenwriter. Aunt Rosemary, if you like, to sing jazz, not some pop.
But physical, purely physical aging does not scare you?
D.K.: Two years ago an extremely unpleasant event happened to me. I got sick on the set of Siriana. For this role, I had to gain 16 kg in almost a month, which in itself is unhealthy. And there was a torture scene in the movie where they threw me on the floor. After filming, my head cracked for days, and, excuse me, my nose was constantly flowing. The doctors tried to understand what was happening to me. And they agreed that such an artistic nature as I really can crack my head, and being an artistic nature, I dramatize the usual headache a little. This went on for two weeks, until one neurologist made a diagnosis: a rupture of the hard shell of the spinal cord. I had cerebrospinal fluid flowing from my nose… They had an operation – now the cervical vertebrae are fastened with plastic bolts – and they said that with the right lifestyle, that is, extremely careful, it will take a year to finally recover … You know, after forty you learn one interesting thing: your body begins to like a boat leaking here and there. And the only question is, do you have enough tow to caulk leaks.
“I CONNECT HOPES FOR A NEW LIFE TO LEAVING THE FRAME: IT IS MORE INTERESTING TO BE AN ARTIST THAN PAINT.”
And what is your “tow”?
D.K.: I did not have time to think about it then. Six days later, a tsunami hit Asia, and I decided to initiate a telethon to raise funds for the benefit of the victims. I wore a fixator of the cervical vertebrae – such a big collar – and yelled at the TV group. Then the moment came when, according to the production schedule, it was necessary to begin filming “Good Night and Good Luck.” And I started them. Moreover, I also played there, and because of the operation, short-term memory lapses were discovered in me, so I wrote down my role, which was very small, on long cribs … In a word, in hindsight, I came to the conclusion that all this was “tow”, – if it’s not in my nature to be careful, then you have to live in the way that is natural, organically.
Do you learn from mistakes? What do you actually study?
D.K.: It seems that I do not draw conclusions from practice. I’m watching. For example, I have my own way of evaluating a person, I call it the “service personnel test”. Let’s say a director or producer invites me for negotiations. Naturally, ritual dances begin – when they tell me how significant they are and how unique I am. And at this time I watch how they treat the secretary, the guy who brought the coffee, the girl at the photocopier. And very soon it becomes clear who I’m dealing with – by how a person behaves with people who are not in a situation to stand up for themselves. I simply hate petty “tyrants of servants”, “despots of waiters”. And sometimes I turn off the conversation in mid-sentence.
Therefore, you are a rather sharp person.
D.K.: I just have a heightened sense of justice. It’s in the genes – from an Irish father. And from education – in a family of political idealists. My parents are old school Americans. This affected both their personal lives and life in general. They met when their father was a young journalist writing about a beauty pageant in a county in Kentucky, and their mother was the winner of this pageant. Love at first sight, father proposed on the first date. And since then they have been together … Through all my childhood, their amazing, in today’s view, educational measure went through: once a year, Ada and I (Cluny’s older sister Adelaide. – Ed.) Parents read the US Constitution – so that we grow up with the thought that we live in a country whose main law gives a person the right to stand in the way of injustice. In addition, the father was examining us: who is Martin Luther King? who is Malcolm X? what did they do? I remember these tests from the age of five. When, during the Vietnam War, a priest in his sermon – and we Catholics went to church rigorously – said: “There is no excuse for civil disobedience,” my father and mother simply got up and left the church. Well, we are behind them.
“I HAVE COME TO A SIMPLE CONCLUSION: IF IT IS NOT IN MY NATURE TO BE CAREFUL, THEN WE SHOULD LIVE AS I HAVE, ORGANICALLY.”
Was your father ideal for you?
D.K.: On the example of his whole life, my father demonstrated: the world tests a person for integrity. And the integrity of the individual is the main thing. I watched it every day, all my childhood, all my youth. My father worked as a writer and newscaster for local television stations in Kentucky, Ohio. Mom also worked on TV. They earned a little. There was nothing to hire a nanny for us as a sister. So from the age of six I hung around with my mom and dad at work. TV was our nanny with Ada. From the age of eight I began to help my parents in the studio. At 11 he played a teleprompter for dad – when he was on the air. Designated a place for cameras, received “studio guests”. The most beautiful thing was to sit on the floor under the camera and look at my father in the circle of his fellow reporters, listen to what they are talking about, how the main, important things stand out from the darkness of the news … TV was my life, but I saw that my father always fought – the main likewise with the managers of his television companies: he was afraid that entertainment would supplant the news, and he considered it his duty to prevent this. He was fired more than once, had to change channels. His professional life was an endless battle – for the truth in the end. And for your integrity.
What can be a test of personal integrity for you?
D.K.: I have never sweated so much in my life as I did in my own speech to the UN Security Council at the hearings on the humanitarian disaster in Darfur – my father and I were there not long before. We saw wells filled not with water, but with bodies. A woman holding her child’s head to her chest. Head, just head! There was no body … Yes, and at the Security Council I had to speak as an independent witness and activist. I prepared a speech that John Bolton, then US Ambassador to the United Nations, wanted to look at first. I knew that what I had written was not at all what he wanted to hear. And I was invited by him! I pushed for recognition of what happened in Darfur as a genocide, and Bolton did not qualify the ethnic cleansing in Sudan as a genocide. It turned out that I used it as a lever …
Isn’t it worse that you were most likely invited as Mr. Hollywood due to your acting fame? “Show business in the service of politics”?
D.K.: And this is what doesn’t bother me. Glory and millions of royalties of stars should serve not only to entertain, but also to change the world. I don’t even think it sounds arrogant.
Are there limits for you here? During the last Cannes Film Festival, public opinion was buzzing for two days after you sold your kiss to some unknown person for $350 at a charity evening for the American Foundation for the Study of AIDS …
“IF MY ACTION HELP TO SAVE SOMEONE’S LIFE, I DO NOT MATTER HOW OTHERS APPRECIATE IT. EVEN AS PROSTITUTION.”
D.K.: Yes, I am aware: public opinion was concerned about the question of whether this was prostitution.
Is there a question for you?
D.K.: If this act helps save someone’s life, it doesn’t matter to me how someone evaluates it.
In general, third-party evaluation is important to you?
D.K.: Yes, if I’m not sure about my own. When Bush started the war in Iraq, I was among the undisputed minority who strongly opposed it. From the TV screen I was called a traitor, the media doubted the continuation of my career – due to anti-patriotic behavior that cannot be close to the American audience. But in general, conflict with public opinion is not easy for an actor: after all, this is an important, very significant part of our profession – to please the public, try to please it, captivate it. And when you realize that you have turned half of this same audience against yourself, it becomes somehow uncomfortable.
From what, besides contradictions with the public, do you feel uneasy? Do you have fears at all?
D.K.: Yes, I’m afraid. I’m afraid to outlive my friends, all of my friends … From time to time, not often, but I have one nightmare: I, a 90-year-old, sit in a chair on wheels, around 30-year-old people, they laugh out loud. I survived mine. They don’t exist, but I still do. And I don’t understand why 30-year-olds are laughing: what can be fun now? .. I mean that, of course, you don’t want to die, but you also don’t want to outlive your friends.
“START TO UNDERSTAND AND DEVOTE YOURSELF TO WHAT IS REALLY VALUABLE FOR YOU – THIS IS THE ADVANTAGE OF AGE, MATURITY.”
And in your personal life, it seems that you are in no hurry to become attached to anyone: the world, with bated breath, is watching the change of ladies of your heart …
D.K.: It seems to me that this does not indicate either my increased sexuality or dishonesty. But only that people are interesting to me. I am not afraid of contacts, including those closest to me.
But without obligation?
D.K.: You should take on the obligations that you can meet. And to follow the expectations of a partner in order to flatter him at the moment means to ultimately let him down. I have experience of marriage, short, four years. And now I understand that in fact I don’t know anything about relationships … The end of a novel is always a disaster, albeit of a different destructive force. I always want to do something like that for the woman I’m breaking up with. Maybe I feel guilty – after all, I was not there when she needed me, perhaps. Work always comes first for me. There’s nothing you can do about it. Yes, I don’t want to do anything. And this is another advantage of age, maturity: you finally begin to understand what is really important to you, and you can devote yourself to your true goals. I’ve had them more and more internal lately – focusing on my scripts, friendship … Just life.
Private bussiness
- 1961: On May 6, in Lexington, Kentucky, George Timothy (his sister Adelaide is a year older) was born to television journalist Nick Clooney and Nina Clooney.
- 1975: Plays baseball and dreams of turning pro.
- 1976: Suffers from a paresis of the facial nerve, from which the left side of his face becomes immobile, but soon recovers.
- 1979: Joins the journalism department of Northern Kentucky University. Three years later he leaves for Los Angeles.
- 1984: First role in the television series Whirlpool, followed by roles in well-known series (Murder, She Wrote, The Facts of Life, Hotel).
- 1988: Return of the Killer Tomatoes, first major film role.
- 1989-1993: Marriage to actress Talia Balsam among the future partners of Clooney are actresses Kelly Preston, Renee Zellweger, Lucy Liu, Teri Hatcher, Charlize Theron, TV presenter Mariella Frostrup, star of the erotic TV show Krista Allen and others.
- 1994-2000: TV series “ER”.
- 1996: “From Dusk Till Dawn” by Robert Rodriguez.
- 1997: First voted “Sexiest Man Alive” by People magazine.
- 1997: “Batman and Robin” by Joel Schumacher.
- 1998: “Out of Sight” by Steven Soderbergh.
- 2000: “Oh where are you, brother?” the Coen brothers; Forms production company Section Eight with Steven Soderbergh to produce independent auteur films
- 2001: “Ocean’s Eleven” by Steven Soderbergh.
- 2002: Directorial debut “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”.
- 2006: Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay for Good Night and Good Luck; “Oscar” for his role in “Syrian” (pictured) Stephen Gaghan; travels on a humanitarian mission to the province of Darfur, Sudan, as well as to China and Egypt in order to convince officials there to call on the government of Sudan to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur.
- 2007: Michael Clayton.
- 2008: Filming in “Burn on Reading” by the Coen brothers, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” by Wes Anderson, working on the film Leatherheads.