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This is Fresh Air.
I'm Tanya Mosley.
And today my guest is George Clooney, Academy Award winner director, producer and one of Hollywood's most recognizable leading men.
His latest film, Jay Kelly, directed by Noah Baumbach, follows a world-famous actor who discovers that being a movie star is a lot easier than being an actual human being.
The character Jay Kelly has the fame part down.
The father-partner-friend part, not so much.
When a mentor dies, Jay's perfectly curated image unravels.
He decides to follow his daughter across Europe, a trip that forces him to face his regrets and some of his blind spots, including the frosty relationship with his children.
Clooney stars alongside Adam Sandler, who plays his manager, Laura Dern as his publicist and Billy Crudup as his old friend who never made it as an actor.
George Clooney's body of work spans decades, from his breakout role as Dr Doug Ross on the NBC medical drama ER, earning nominations for three Golden Globes and two Emmys, to two Academy Awards Best Supporting Actor for Siriana in 2005 and Best Picture as co-producer for Argo in 2012.
Earlier this year, Clooney made his Broadway debut, as he reprised the story of Good Night and Good Luck on stage, which was a theatrical adaptation of the film.
George Clooney, welcome back to the show.
Thank you, Tanya.
It's been a while.
I'm glad to be back.
I know.
And it's our first time talking.
You know this, this new film where you play this world famous actor who is coming to grips with the fact that he has missed out on the things that actually matter.
There is this pivotal scene that really plants that seed early in the film that I want to play.
It's you, your character Jay, in his palatial home by the pool with his 18-year-old daughter Daisy, who is played by Grace Edwards, shortly before she goes on a trip to Europe with her friends.
And Daisy speaks first.
Let's listen.
Hi, I'm going to go meet Moses in Rio.
I love you.
Wait, aren't we having dinner tonight?
Mario's doing the tamales.
Did we say that?
All right.
Go on.
Be with your friends.
There'll be other dinners.
I wrapped this last one.
I start the Lewis Brothers movie right here on the lots.
I'll be around for the summer.
I'm going to Europe with Rio and Moses and some friends.
I told you that.
I thought that was in July.
No, it was always June.
I'm leaving on Saturday for Paris and we're making our way over to Tuscany.
Saturday?
I mean, that's Saturday.
That's... It's too soon.
Wait...
I got two weeks off.
We won't have had time to hang out.
This is your last summer.
That's why I want to see my friends.
It would be so lonely here without you.
No, it won't.
You're never alone.
Really?
I think I'm always alone.
That was my guest, George Clooney, in the new movie, Jay Kelly, with actor Grace Edwards.
You know this particular part of the film to a certain extent.
I mean, almost every parent understands this moment.
Your children are going off to live their own lives.
They don't really want to hang out with you anymore.
It's really bittersweet.
But there's more to this dynamic because Jay has missed out on building that bond with his daughter.
And it's because of his career.
This movie is really asking us, when do you realize you've made the wrong trade-offs?
And I'm really curious about what piqued your interest in exploring that question.
You know it's a funny thing because I never really think.
I never thought of it when I read the script as a story about an actor or a movie star.
It always read to me as something that sort of most people deal with in life.
If you certainly have kids, which is that balance between between work and your family.
And, you know, I look back at things when I was growing up and.
There was always.
My father missed some ball games that I did and some big events in high school in my life.
My parents both did.
And you know you could be bitter about it or you could, as you get older, look back and realize well, he was working.
He was putting food on the table.
And so there's always this balance that we're always trying to get right.
Clearly you actually have to work and clearly you need to make a living and there are opportunities that you have to follow.
And always you look back and think, well, I think I maybe missed something there.
And so we're all doing it.
We're all balancing it.
We're never getting it perfect.
And this guy clearly didn't get any of it right, since he only focused on work and didn't focus at all on his family.
Yeah.
There is this line that is kind of heartbreaking, at least for me as a working mom.
It's where Billy Crudup's character says to you we are only good parents when we make ourselves irrelevant.
And there are so many lines like that.
But how do you think about that as a parent, as someone who's had such a successful career?
Well, it's a funny thing.
The last thing they're aware of is my success, you know, at all.
My son went to Halloween this year dressed as Batman, which is a character I played.
Famously the worst Batman in the history of the franchise.
And I literally said to him, you know, I was Batman.
And he was like, yeah, not really.
And he had no idea how right he really was.
You know, I think that if you're successful, you do make yourself irrelevant, and that's probably the way it's supposed to be right.
Yeah.
Around how old were you when you, as a working actor, understood that you were quote-unquote famous?
And I ask that because this film really also grapples with some of the perils of fame.
Well, I was working.
I moved to L.A. in 1981, I guess.
And I really didn't even get a job for the first three years.
So that's a few, it's a hundred auditions that you don't get, a lot of no's.
And then I started getting small parts, guest shots on a TV show or a really low budget film in Budapest that no one ever saw, and you know things like that where I was always bouncing around.
And for about 10 years, I kind of did that and some success.
You know, sometimes you get too much credit when they say you were struggling for 15 years, because the truth is, if you're working at all in my industry, you're beating the odds.
There's, I don't know, a hundred and some thousand members of my union and probably I think about 5% make about $5,000 a year or more.
It's not a very lucrative, you know, it's a lot of luck takes place.
And I'd done a few shows that I did a show called Roseanne when it first came out.
It was a huge hit, but I was like the 10th banana on that show.
And then I did the pilot and then ultimately the show, when I was 33 years old for ER And I'd been banging around long enough.
I'd done seven other television series and 13 television pilots.
And I'd knocked around.
And then this show hit.
And that had nothing to do with my brilliance as an actor.
It had to do with the fact that we had a great time slot, which was Thursday night at 10 o'clock on NBC, which for 16 years only had two shows LA.
Law and and hill street blues.
And so for us to get that time slot was a big deal.
And then the show was a transformative show and suddenly i had a career overnight.
And then, literally within a month, we were on the cover of magazines and people suddenly knew your name, which is a very different thing than recognizing you.
You know, you can recognize me from the facts of life.
I'm that guy.
But once they know your name, that was a difference.
It's sort of like a bug light.
You know you run as fast as you can towards fame because it means options and work and no longer having to audition and all those things that are really exciting.
And what you don't realize along the way is that there are also drawbacks to it.
And those things you have to, you know, come to terms with along the way.
Yeah, those drawbacks.
You've talked quite a bit about how you learned that a lot of them early on, by watching your aunt, who was a famous actress and singer.
And you have mentioned that she experienced fame pretty early.
So you were about 33.
She was a teenager, 19.
And you talk about how you knew that she had had a hard time with it.
What did you know or learn about that growing up?
How did you come to understand that she had had a hard time?
Well, I knew my aunt mostly by rumor.
I lived in Kentucky in a little small town.
She lived in L.A. in Beverly Hills.
She'd come to Kentucky three or four times in my growing up.
So I knew her like, here comes the star, Aunt Rosemary.
But I didn't really know her.
And so how I found out about sort of her life...
And the struggles that she had was, first of all, through, you know, family telling us.
But then also she wrote a book and talked about it, which was about her struggles.
Because, you know, she was really famous by the time she was 16 years old.
They were the Clooney sisters and they sang on television and then moved on to have her own solo career.
And you know pop music.
At that point I think eight of the top ten singers were women in the industry very early late 40s, early 50s.
And then rock and roll came in, Elvis came in and The top 20 were all men and she was out of the business, didn't you know?
She didn't suddenly lose her skill, She didn't stop being a good singer.
She, just the world stopped wanting what she did for a living, and so by the time she was 23 or 24 years old, you know she was going in the wrong direction.
And she didn't handle it well.
You know, drugs were a big deal.
It started out as sort of Dr. Feelgood giving you sleeping pills and waking up pills.
And then she became addicted to that.
And booze was a big deal.
And She never lost her talent, but she lost a career.
And for I don't know, 25 or so years really, through the years when I was growing up, no one had heard of Rosemary Clooney.
When I was a kid in high school.
You know, she was long out of the business.
And then she had this resurgence because talent eventually caught back up.
And she had this beautiful jazz career. and had this incredible career as a singer late in life.
But it was a really good lesson for me in understanding how little success has to do with you on both sides of the spectrum.
You're not as brilliant as they say.
You are when things are going well, and they do say that.
And you're not as horrible as they say you are when things aren't going well, and they do say that.
So it's a very helpful thing to understand that.
So much of this, listen.
If we hadn't had a Thursday night time slot, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
That's sort of more than likely what would happen.
One of the other things that was really fascinating to me about this movie in particular in touching on fame and really giving us a lens, is that the people like every celebrity, every star kind of, has people.
And sometimes the people, there are a lot of people that are behind them.
Sometimes they just have an entourage that's kind of a small one.
But something that your character, Jay Kelly, has done in his life is is kind of design a world where everyone around him says yes to just about everything.
And you have said that you have designed your life to be the opposite.
The reality is I have an assistant and I have a publicist and I have an agent.
I don't have a manager.
I don't have a business manager.
But what I would say is, in fairness, some of those trappings were really.
They're products of getting famous young.
Because when you're young, everybody says, well, you have to have a lawyer that takes 5%.
Then you have to have a a manager that takes 15 or 20, and then you have to have an agent that takes 10.
And you have to have a publicist.
And they go through all these lists of things that you need to do, and you do it.
Oh, okay, yeah, of course, that's what I got to do.
If you're 33 and you're famous...
The arguments are, well, now I need a publicist because I have something to publicize, so okay.
I don't need a manager because I have an agent.
I don't need a business manager because I'm pretty good at understanding my own business.
So you're in a different position when you're older.
And so you don't have to surround yourself with this coterie of people that hold everything up for you.
And I actually pride myself in being able to be scrappy and fix things along the way and take care of most things on my own.
The people around you, though.
I say that as my assistant just brought me a cup of coffee while we're talking.
Like a scene right out of J. Kelly.
Yeah, absolutely.
But I wonder you know you've been so intentional about having people around you that can also tell you the truth.
Have there been moments in your life where someone close to you has had to point out something about yourself that you couldn't see?
Oh, sure.
Tons of times.
I remember I was working on a movie and the movie wrapped early and I stayed around with the crew and, you know, drank and I came home.
I was drunk driving home, you know, which is never a good thing to do.
I wasn't drunk, drunk, but I'd had too much to drink.
And my buddy came over – two of my friends came over and sat down and said that can't ever happen again, dude.
You can't ever get in a car when you've had too much to drink.
And, of course, they were right.
And that was probably 30 years ago.
But it was very helpful to have people that, instead of laughing about the fact that I'd had – four beers instead of two, and came home uh, and got home without getting you know, without getting in trouble for it, instead of thinking that was funny, they were like dude, that's not cool and and you shouldn't do that again.
And i and i appreciated that and i took that to heart.
You know.
But i have friends that you know.
My friends are always been very straightforward with me.
I'll do a project that you know that i'll think works, and they'll say yeah, i don't know about that one and So I don't mind that.
It's important to have that in your life.
Yeah.
How did you come to understand that that was what you needed, that that was actually important for you?
And I guess it also says a lot about the company that you keep.
Well, I will say this.
I didn't do it because there was some great plan.
I did it because I had no interest in being married and having kids and I had an interest in working.
I was very excited with having a career.
I couldn't believe I was having one.
And I had all of these friends who had been my friends.
When you know, when you're a young actor and probably young anything you know that's when you tend to make all your friends, either out of college or just after, and you make a lot of good friends.
And then, as time goes on and you get a job and you get married, you tend to lose a lot of them because life gets in the way.
Well, I didn't lose them.
I worked very hard at making sure we had them because, probably selfishly, since I wasn't getting married and wasn't having kids, I was wanting to have this family, this sort of created family.
And I worked very hard at making sure that we all you know, had dinners together and spent time together and checked in with one another.
And we've all managed to stay close and be friends.
There's this story that came out a few years ago that you gave your friends, people in your inner circle, money like a million dollars and you made kind of a performance out of it.
Did that really happen?
It's funny.
It was a few months before I went out on a date with Amal.
And I didn't, you know, like I said, I didn't have kids.
I wasn't married.
I had really no prospects of that idea.
I wasn't really thinking about it.
And I'd met with my accountant to do my will, you know.
And while I was doing my will, I said, so what happens when I get hit by a bus?
And he said, well, you have to list who you're going to leave it to.
And I had these 12 guys, 12 friends, who have been my friends since 19, all but two of them since 1982 and two of them since like 1989.
And we've all been very close.
And I was just going to leave the money to them.
And then I was sitting there with him and you know again, I don't have any money to leave to anyone else.
And I said, well, why are we waiting until I'm like, you know, old or they're old?
And why don't we just get on with it now?
And so I got $12 million in cash, which was, you know, a big chunk of the money I had.
I had it in cash.
I paid all the taxes on it.
So nobody had to pay any taxes.
And I put them in these Tumi suitcases, and I told everybody that they had to come over to dinner.
It was a very special night and then I had a big map that I put up and those Tumi bags were sitting in front of them at this dinner table and I just said so I don't get a job if I don't get to sleep on Tom's couch in Hollywood.
And I don't get this unless I was in Westwood and I
Giovanni, we met in Venice and I put pens in all these maps, all these spots in the maps of where we were and what we did.
And I said and how do you thank the people that gave you a career and allowed you to have a career and have stood by you for so long?
And I said, you know, so and then I said, open the bags.
I said and I said, screw it.
I said, just give him a million bucks.
So it was a fun thing to do.
And I was very happy to do it.
And then, of course, I met them all.
We got married.
And you think, well, I just gave away a big.
Right.
To start our lives.
What a dream, though, George.
Well, I mean, if you're going to spend that much money, you might as well make it a nice production.
You know, Noah Baumbach said that he thought about you immediately when he was co-writing this.
But one of the things that kind of seems clear is while he thought about you you're kind of the opposite of this character, J Kelly.
Well, yeah.
I mean when he said he thought about me and I read it and I said, well, this guy is kind of a jerk.
I was like, wait.
Hang on a minute.
No, I'm sure he thought about who could play it as much as he thought about who the character is.
And you look at it and I understand his – thought when you're going to write and direct this story he wrote it with Emily Mortimer is that the lead character should be someone that the audience has some familiarity with or thinks they know.
I think that's an advantage.
And also it's an age thing, right?
You got to be in your 60s.
And so I think there were only a few of us that sort of fit into that category.
And I'm sure he probably thought about some of the others.
But I certainly felt lucky that he came to me.
I can't tell you what, what an honor it was to be sent the script and to read it and think well, this is a part that I would love to play.
You know, it's very rare.
I know it sounds unusual, because I think everybody thinks when you're at a certain position in your career that it's just everything kind of always falls into place.
It's really hard to find good scripts, you know.
And scripts are everything.
You know, really good directors can't make a good film out of a bad script.
You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can't do it the other way around.
So when you get a good script, it's rare, you know.
My guest today is George Clooney.
We'll be right back after a short break.
I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.
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Jay Kelly comes on the heels of your record-breaking Broadway run just this past spring in Good Night and Good Luck.
It's a production about Edward R Murrow's showdown with Senator McCarthy that was eventually broadcast live on CNN.
You made this film in 2005.
It was a cautionary tale about McCarthyism and attacks on the press.
But when you brought it to Broadway all these years later, I remember watching it in 2005 and looking at it as a cautionary tale.
But now it It doesn't feel like history.
It feels urgent, like we were watching it happen in real time.
And I'm wondering what was the moment when you realized this story about Murrow needed to be told on stage at this moment?
Well, you know, there was an idea I had about the Fourth Estate because...
We were in the middle of the war in Iraq and I'd been called a traitor to my country because I was against the war in Iraq.
But I wrote it because I felt like when the other three estates of government, when the executive branch and the legislative branch and the judicial branch, dropped the ball, which had happened in the lead up to the war, the fourth estate has to, has to pick it up and has over the years did in Vietnam, certainly helped in the civil rights movement during the McCarthy era with Edward R Murrow.
And so I felt like it was a good time to reinvest and talk again about the importance of news.
And then, as we were leading up to this new election, about May of not this last May, but the May before it, we'd gotten a conversation.
Grant and I had decided to try to adapt it into a play.
It's harder than you think because, you know, you can't just cut from one scene to another.
You actually have to walk on stage from one place to another.
It's a very different kind of tale.
But I thought that the themes were still really urgent.
And I thought it was important to remind ourselves of how important telling the truth and holding truth to power was.
And so we started working on doing the play.
With the intent that we would try to have it out by the first of the year, having no idea what the election would be because, either way, it seems like truth has become something that's negotiable suddenly.
That's the one thing that wasn't part of the... the narrative as much in 2005.
What's become the narrative now is don't believe what you see.
You can tell a lie and say it's fact now.
And also you can see factual things and say, well, those are fake.
And those are dangerous.
You see that happening in Darfur right now.
Even though the people who are committing the crimes are actually posting video of the crimes, the government still says well no, that's not what's happening.
We've seen it, obviously, in Ukraine.
We saw it in Russia.
We now see it in the United States constantly.
And I feel like it was an important time to talk about the necessity to dig down and constantly bear down on holding people with power responsible, no matter who's in power, by the way.
In the film version, you played Fred Friendly, so he was Murrow's producer.
And on Broadway, you actually got to play Murrow himself.
Did you come to understand anything new or more about Murrow being in the role and playing him night after night?
Not always.
You know I wrote it, so I had to understand as much as I could about those same spheres of influence that we're talking about.
You know, there are very few times that someone had the power to actually affect policy.
Someone in news, for instance.
When Walter Cronkite stepped out from behind the desk and said this war in Vietnam is unwinnable, it's a tie at best.
That's when President Johnson said if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the country, and decided not to run for reelection.
When Murrow took on McCarthy, that was a moment when he was the most trusted man in America.
And he said the emperor has no clothes.
That actually changed public opinion.
And you know playing Murrow.
The thing that was exciting to me was in the play which it was very different.
The play
It was much more urgent and much more about what we're dealing with today.
And at the very end of the play.
As Murrow, I got to stand in front of an audience of 1600 people every night and look them all, each one, in the eye at the end And say what are you prepared to do?
And we would have violent reactions from the audience.
People would be crying and people would be yelling, resist!
And people would be standing up and cheering and screaming.
And it really felt like everybody in that room needed a place to wash their hands and face and remind themselves, not by my words but by murrow's words, of who we are at our best um, who we aspire to be, who we often fall short of, but who we also have accomplished.
We have been uh, we have been the people that defeated fascism and Nazism.
You know, we did do that.
And it wouldn't have happened without us.
At the exact same time, we were putting Asian Americans, Japanese Americans into camps.
We're a very complicated country which has huge goals and aspires to many of them and falls way short of many of them.
Those pronouncements that Murrow would make, I mean, they're very poetic, prophetic.
For instance, there's the one.
I simply cannot accept that there are on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.
That's one that I often think about.
Are there lines that you can recite from memory that are meaningful to you, that you often think about?
Well, sure.
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.
We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
We will not walk in fear one of another.
We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who fear to write, to speak, to associate or to defend the causes that are, for the moment, unpopular.
We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom wherever it continues to exist in the world.
But we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
I think that's an important phrase.
When did you first learn that?
Was it for the writing of this, or had that been something that you had known for a while?
My father used to stand on a chair when he was...
I don't know how old, when I was seven, he would stand on a chair and he would recite that speech from Murrow.
My dad was a big Murrow.
He was a big fan of Murrow's and he would do that and he would do Shakespeare when he'd stand on a chair for us when we were little kids to entertain us.
That had to be then, I mean, such a full circle moment.
What has your father said about your adaptations?
Well, it was funny.
He wasn't well enough to come to the play, which was heartbreaking, quite honestly, because really it was written for him.
You know it was written for his standard and what he taught me and what he asked of me as a child and as an adult.
But we got to do it.
We did it live so he could see it.
And it was an interesting thing because he was there with a bunch of family members and and watching it live.
And at the end he stood up and he saluted the television, which was a pretty beautiful thing for me and for us and for our relationship.
He set the standard pretty high for me.
Let's take a short break.
If you're just joining us, we're talking with George Clooney about his new film, Jay Kelly.
We'll be right back after a break.
This is Fresh Air.
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You know you talked about this a little bit earlier, but I was thinking about how, being a local TV personality, which your dad was it really does come with its own level of fame.
Not exactly what you encounter as a movie star, but there is a quality to it that everyone in the town knows who you are.
You're kind of held to a certain standard, both in your home and outside the home.
What was that like being a legendary news anchor's son?
Well, it was a funny thing.
My dad was very well known in Cincinnati, Ohio.
And before he was an anchorman, he'd done a variety show called the Nick Clooney Show.
And my sister and I would do commercials.
Obviously we never got paid, but we would do commercials for Hussman's potato chips and stuff like that live.
It was all live.
And if it was St.
Patrick's Day, he'd dress me up like a leprechaun and he'd interview me.
It must be a very big day for you.
And I'd do my Lucky Charms accent.
So my father was – not my sister and I, but my father and mother.
Both were well-known personalities in Cincinnati Ohio, which is a relatively small market about the 17th largest city in this thing.
But he was making $12,000 a year.
So we weren't like – it wasn't like we had money.
We just sort of had – my dad was just recognized everywhere we went.
And so it was very much about – like my mom made all of our clothes for us.
But we had to dress up and wear nice clothes.
So she made leisure suits for me that I wouldn't have to wear.
So it was a very – some of it was about – putting on a really good show for an audience that really loved, particularly my father, who they knew very well.
When he was doing the news.
He was trusted because he was honest and because he did hold truth to power.
He went after the, a nuclear power plant that was in town.
That was a big industry and going after that was a big problem at Channel 12, which was ABC Network at the time.
And, you know, it was just that he was trusted and well-liked.
Everywhere he went, it was like, hey, Nick.
So, you know, you couldn't get caught with your finger in your nose or anything.
You learned about being watched.
And it was listen.
It was a great way to grow up, because I learned how to fix things and live a normal life.
And then if we went into Cincinnati, my dad was well known.
And we, you know, we didn't get to go out to dinners very often because we couldn't afford it.
But we got a big thing.
It's funny.
All my friends will tell you this.
If we got to go out to dinner, which is like once a month or so.
We knew how we were doing financially if my dad let us order a shrimp cocktail as a starter.
Yeah.
And so he's like, and I'd say to my dad, can we have a shrimp cocktail?
And he'd be like, yeah, not right now.
And we go, okay.
And we knew how things were going.
And now, every time I go out to dinner with my friends and they'll tell you every two a man they would all say you know, the first thing I order is a shrimp cocktail.
And my friends go, having a good week?
And I go, yeah, good week.
I'm addicted to it simply because it, to me, somehow in the back of my head represents doing okay.
Yeah.
Is it right that you considered following in your father's footsteps just for a hot hot minute.
But that changed pretty quickly.
Yeah, I lacked skill.
I studied journalism in college.
I was at Northern Kentucky University at the time studying journalism.
And because I was Nick Clooney's son in Cincinnati, I got to cover a couple of.
I got to do a couple of like reports.
You know, one on the Cincinnati Bengals were playing in the Super Bowl.
It was, like, 1980.
And I was allowed at...
19 years old to do something that other people would have worked for years to have gotten the skill to do.
I jumped ahead in the line because I was Nick's son.
And I was really, really bad at it.
I didn't understand how to follow up and ask questions.
I didn't understand how to close.
And I realized that I was never going to be as good as my father was.
And I was going to be held and I was going to be compared to him because rightfully so.
I was the only reason I got there was because of my father.
And so I had to quit that job immediately and try to find something else to do, which I didn't know what to do.
I sold ladies shoes at McAlpin's department store and I sold insurance door to door, which is not a fun job.
No.
Although, I will tell you, ladies' shoes was a little dangerous too, because there was a lot of lying about foot size at that point.
Your dad actually tried.
I mean, once you decided you understood this is not for me.
And, you know, your path then led you to acting.
Your dad tried to talk you out of acting.
He said 50,000 broadcasters were making a living and only 3,000 actors.
And what I love about that is that that just shows that he is a journalist through and through, because he got some facts behind his conviction.
But well, he did.
Yeah.
What?
By the way, he also made up facts like that.
I don't even know if any of that is true.
I doubt there were 3,000 actors working, and I certainly doubt there were 50,000 broadcasters.
But my argument to him, and it's a funny thing, is I'm 64 now.
I said to him I don't want to wake up at 65 years old and say I think I could have, which is a fascinating thing at 64 now.
To be reflecting on, yeah.
Yeah, it's true.
Well, I guess the thing that I find fascinating, or I just want to know, is that I mean, what really made you think back then that you'd be one of those 3000 who could make it, especially you had already tried your hand in journalism and you felt like you weren't good at that.
Uh, I, uh, I got the job as an extra on a movie in, uh, in down at, uh, Keeneland racetrack.
My cousin Miguel had gotten a part in it and I didn't really know him.
I'd met him a couple of times, but I loved him because he was and lived in Hollywood and He was doing a horse racing movie.
So I went down and they gave me a part as an extra.
I think I made 25 bucks a day, which was, you know, I was thrilled.
And then, when it was over and he was going back to Hollywood, he said you know, you ought to go to LA and be an actor.
And I was like, OK.
And a couple of months later, I, you know, I took my 1976 Monte Carlo with rust all over it.
And so I drove for like 40 hours, got to L.A.
And then I moved in with my buddy, a guy that I met, a guy named Tom Matthews, and he let me sleep on the floor of his closet of his one-bedroom apartment.
And I stayed there for almost three years, two and a half years, sleeping in that closet.
And that was my home going to acting classes and doing local plays and just banging around for a while.
So it was all...
You know it was an exciting.
I mean, I can't explain to you what an exciting thing it is to chase something that you think you could succeed at, even though there was no reason to actually think you could succeed.
You know, again, it's so many moments.
All my friends in acting class were getting jobs and I wasn't, and I was very jealous of all of them.
And there's some similarities to the character that Billy Crudup plays in the film, you know.
Right, because Billy's character is this person who didn't make it.
He went on to become, he has like a normal job.
I think he said he's a psychologist.
But he's like the most talented.
He was the most talented in those days when they were younger in an acting class.
Did you have folks that you really admired that you were like, that person is the one?
It's never not been that way, right?
It's a really funny thing.
There were two or three actors in class who were by far the best actors.
And if there was justice in the world, they would have been the biggest stars because they were the best actors.
That's why this is such a random thing.
If you study medicine and you spend six years studying medicine, when you're finished studying medicine, you're going to be a doctor.
You can study for six years acting, be the best actor in acting class and never get a single job ever.
In fact, that happens much more often than not.
Let's take a short break.
If you're just joining us.
We're talking to Oscar-winning actor George Clooney about his new film, Jay Kelly.
We'll continue our conversation after a short break.
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You know, you really laid out for us some of the moral complexities of life that your dad taught you and kind of to be sort of this stand-up man who stands for something.
And I was just curious when do you make the choice to speak out about the social and political causes that you support?
In general, when I've been able to be personally involved, when I've been able to know or have some personal insight.
But in general, it's when I feel like... when I feel like no one else is going to do it.
That's kind of the thing.
If someone else has got a certain subject covered, then I don't really need to do it.
I don't need to be involved in everything.
You can't pick up every fight.
You lose all of your clout if you fight every fight.
You have to pick the ones that you know well, that you're well informed on, and that you have...
You know, that you have some say and you hope that that has at least some effect.
If it doesn't, at least you've participated.
Knowing that you knew something that you could share with the world.
Is that what made you decide to write the op-ed for The New York Times calling on President Biden to step aside in the presidential race back in 2024?
Because you wrote, Joe Biden is a hero.
He saved democracy in 2020.
We need him to do it again in 2024.
And it was an extraordinary public statement asking someone who you actually called a friend to withdraw and reflecting on your decision to write that op-ed and to speak so publicly about it at such an inflection point for our country.
Do you stand behind your decision to write it?
Because, you know, there's also just the narrative where a lot of people feel like well celebrities, what right do they have to speak about such things, to step into this arena?
And in this particular case, there were a lot of celebrities that stepped in to speak out about the presidential election.
Like, what are your thoughts on that?
Well, that's never not been the case, right?
I don't give up my freedom of speech because I have a Screen Actors Guild card.
I spoke up when no one was listening, when it was just somebody at the end of a bar.
And I spoke up.
I was out protesting against apartheid in 1982 when no one gave a damn who I was.
I was I grew up in 1960s, man.
And so suddenly, you know, you get well known and it's like, okay, now don't speak.
I love watching some knucklehead, usually famous person, saying you know shut up and dribble or you know any of those things.
And you go, you realize that what you're saying is a political statement, right?
And by the way, here's the point.
You get to say what you believe.
You get to stand by what you believe.
And everything people do with you is voluntary, right?
Meaning there are going to be people now that won't go see this movie.
Okay, fair enough.
That's the tradeoff I make.
And I can handle that.
I believe in standing up for what you believe in and saying, telling the truth.
The minute that I'm asked to just straight up lie, then I've lost.
Without giving it away.
There is a moment near the end of J Kelly where your character watches a tribute reel that uses moments from your actual films.
Is it true that you didn't know that that was going to happen?
No, I had no idea it was going to happen, and I was shocked.
I thought he was going to do some sort of CGI and it would be – I didn't know what he was going to do.
But it didn't dawn on me he was going to use actual footage because that felt a little too meta for me.
And also I'm not really thrilled about looking at myself with a mullet in 1984.
It was a moving moment though.
Yeah.
It worked.
Yeah, it really worked.
Well, look, he's really one of the great directors in the business.
And he just directed the hell out of the film.
And you just trust what he wants to do.
And he made it work beautifully.
What is it?
I mean learning that this was also literally the first time you were watching that retrospective of yourself and your real career.
What's your takeaway when you watch this body of work that you've produced over so many years?
Well, I don't – it's a funny thing.
I don't watch – when I was looking at clips, I don't see them as movies.
I see them as memories of, oh, I met my friend Richard Kind on this shoot.
I see it as –
And moments in time, I remember the experience of making the film.
I don't really see the film itself.
And so it only just reminded me of how long I've known some of these people and how lucky I am to still have them as friends and those kind of things.
I mean most people don't get a career most in my industry and to have one that's lasted as long as mine has is, you know, unique.
And so I was very happy to be able to to look back and see such.
You know, when you see some of the stuff I did early and the idea that I still have a career is astonishing.
George Clooney, this has been such a pleasure.
Thank you so much for your time.
Well, thank you so much and good luck.
I think your show is just amazing.
I'm so glad it's still running.
I cannot appreciate what you do more.
So thank you.
George Clooney stars in the new film, Jay Kelly.
It's out now in select theaters and will be streaming on Netflix starting tomorrow.
Pressure's executive producer is Danny Miller.
Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.
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Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shurock, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Whistler.
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Thea Chaloner directed today's show.
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