Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly has been on Netflix for several weeks already, so I don’t know why George Clooney agreed to a Variety cover interview, which was published earlier this week. I guess some late promotion was in order because the movie perhaps wasn’t getting the response they wanted? Unfortunately, this piece came out after we learned that George, Amal and their twins have all become French citizens. Which makes George’s comments about the American media and Donald Trump comes across as out-of-touch. Perhaps George has always been a political dilettante, or maybe this is who has become in recent years – someone who selectively has an axe to grind with Democratic elders but never Republican fascists. Some highlights from Variety:
No more on-screen romances: “If you’re trying to hold on to being a romantic leading man at my age, it gets sad. I don’t want to be pathetic.”
Meeting Paul Newman in the 1990s: “I pulled up and I go, ‘Hey, Mr. Newman,’” Clooney recalls. “And he clearly had no clue who I was. But he was friendly and we started talking. People would drive by going, ‘George!’ ‘Hey, George!’ ‘Hey, man!’ Bit by bit, he figured out that I was well known in some way. And as I started to leave, he goes, ‘Don’t let them keep you inside.’… What he was talking about was fame, and the tendency to surround yourself with managers and PR people who build these walls of security so that you don’t get caught doing something stupid. But what happens is you can divorce yourself from what’s really going on out there. You need people in your life that tell you the truth.”
What’s happened with CBS: When Clooney played Murrow last spring, CBS News was settling a frivolous lawsuit with Trump so that he’d approve the sale of its parent company, Paramount, to Skydance. That enraged Clooney, as did ABC News’ similar settlement with the president over a defamation claim. “If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Go f–k yourself,’ we wouldn’t be where we are in the country. That’s simply the truth… Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak. I’m worried about how we inform ourselves and how we’re going to discern reality without a functioning press.”
Quitting isn’t an option: “It’s a very trying time. It can depress you or make you very angry. But you have to find the most positive way through it. You have to put your head down and keep moving forward because quitting isn’t an option.”
On Donald Trump: “I knew him very well. He used to call me a lot, and he tried to help me get into a hospital once to see a back surgeon. I’d see him out at clubs and at restaurants. He’s a big goofball. Well, he was. That all changed.”
“He’s a big goofball. Well, he was. That all changed” – such mild, soft-focus criticism for his former friend, the demented madman dismantling American institutions and kidnapping people off the street. I guess that answers the question of “where’s George Clooney’s NYT op-ed calling Trump old and sleepy?” Speaking of, Trump mocked Clooney’s French citizenship, and George responded:
George Clooney has lashed out at US president Donald Trump for criticising France’s decision to grant the Hollywood actor and his family French citizenship. Trump, whose administration has backed anti-immigration parties in Europe, wrote on Truth Social that France was welcome to the Ocean’s Eleven star, who is a long-term Democrat supporter, fundraiser and a vocal critic of the president.
“Good News! George and Amal Clooney, two of the worst political prognosticators of all time, have officially become citizens of France which is, sadly, in the midst of a major crime problem because of their absolutely horrendous handling of immigration,” Trump wrote.
“Clooney got more publicity for politics than he did for his very few, and totally mediocre, movies,” the president added. “He wasn’t a movie star at all, he was just an average guy who complained, constantly, about common sense in politics.”
Referring to the US midterm elections on 3 November, Clooney told the Hollywood Reporter in response: “I totally agree with the current president. We have to make America great again. We’ll start in November.”
How witty, how debonair, to simply mimic Trump’s slogan and hope that people somehow understand the irony as you lounge about on your French estate! C’est la vie!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
