INT: George Clooney

Every
now and again, my willpower will be tested at one of these press
junkets. This was one of those
times! I think many women
would agree that having a hunky piece of manmeat like George Clooney
so close in proximity is as cruel as waving a piece of candy in
front of a child. Aside from
the fact that he has regained the title of “Sexiest Man Alive”,
he is a multiple award winning, multi-talented actor partnering
again with Soderbergh in his upcoming film, THE
GOOD GERMAN.

Having
made a transition from television to an A-list Hollywood actor,
producer, executive producer and director, some of Clooney’s
previous credits include OCEAN’S ELEVEN and TWELVE, SYRIANA, GOOD
NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK and OUT OF SIGHT.
In THE GOOD GERMAN, he plays a
U.S.
war correspondent sent to

Berlin

just after WWII to cover the Potsdam Peace Conference, but
sidetracked by his disillusioned former love and a mysterious
murder. Shot in black and
white, it emulates a classical
Hollywood
film with old world romance and mystery.

I had
the great pleasure of meeting the super hot Clooney last week when
he sat down to talk about making a different kind of film, the
Ocean’s franchise, the evolution of his career and on working with
Soderbergh. Check out what the
charismatic star of THE GOOD GERMAN had to say.

George
Clooney

Your
back is hurt, is it the same thing that happened before?

Yeah,
same thing as before. It gets better and it gets worse.
It’s not so bad. With a brace it’s fine. Drink a little, a
little Limoncello. (Laughs.) Unbelievable.

Do
you feel pain every day?

It’s
been bad for a couple of days, but it gets better.

Any
more surgery?

No,
no, no with surgery. Done with surgery. No more of that. Stop
that.

Are
you always this excited about with Steven?

We
love working together. This is one we developed. We optioned
the book and developed the script and there is that awful moment
where we have to sit Alan Horn and Jeff Robinov down at Warner Bros.
and tell them its black and white. They are really thrilled about
that as you can imagine. But, no, every time I get a chance to
work with him I’m happy. I’ve never had a bad experience with
him.

Have
you have gotten to live out the golden age of

Hollywood

with all these roles recently?

Yeah,
in a way you do. Here’s the good news or the fun news for me
was that for the past few years, we’ve been able to push and do
what we wanted to do. And you know as well as I do that that
doesn’t last forever, so you try and do things that no one is
encouraging you to do. There is nobody at the studio going,
‘Please make a black and white film about the

Potsdam

conference.’ (Laughs.) ‘Give us another black and
white about Edward R. Murrow in 1954.’ Or ‘Give us ‘Syriana.’’
There is nothing that they are like, ‘Yeah, that’s what we were
hoping for.’ So, we get to push it for a while and you know
they won’t let us do it for much longer, but we’re going to keep
doing it for as long as we can. So, for us, it’s an exciting
time because we feel like we’ve gotten away with something.

How
would you say your relationship has changed over the past few
movies?

I
wouldn’t say that it really has. I was a fan and stole ideas
from him on Out of Sight. And I’m a fan and I steal ideas
from him now. Over the years we’ve become very good friends as
well and that’s an important part of it, that we’ve been able to
spend a lot of time together and that we like each other a lot. But,
I don’t get that it’s really changed. I just get the sense
that I think the most of him as a director. I’ve been lucky
between he and the Coen brothers. I’ve got a couple of
people that I really enjoy working with who I also think play at the
top of the game.

Do
you have a particular affinity for the era of the 40’s and 50’s?

Maybe.
I mean, my favorite time, in American cinema especially, is the mid
‘60’s to the mid ‘70’s. I just think that’s… if
you look at the films that came out of that generation or that
period of time. All those nuts. It’s just some amazing
films. But, there is an awfully good era…I mean, we were
looking at…you know Steven sent us films to look at for this film.
Just to talk about things. Some of them I had seen before.
Mildred Pierce I had seen. I liked John Garfield and the idea
of John Garfield. I thought that was sort of an interesting guy to
think about. And there was a Mitchum film called Out Of The Past,
which I had never seen which was phenomenal. I’m really a
fan of that kind of stuff.

Starting
off in TV and then to the big
Hollywood
screen how have you developed as an actor?

Well,
you hope you’re pushing things and growing. Usually,
‘cause you know I write and direct and produce. And as a
writer or director or producer I can look at things a little more
objectively then you can as an actor. So I can look at things that I
wouldn’t cast myself in and go, ‘Ah, there are guys who could do
that better than me.’ So, I think one of the secrets as an
actor is understanding your limitations and then trying to push
things every time and do things differently. And trying to
grow, but not trying to think there is something wrong with it.

Are
there days when you don’t take acting as seriously anymore?

No,
not yet. But, you’re right, it’ll happen. If I get a
chance to act with Steven or Joel or Ethan…I did this film with
Tony Gilroy coming out who did a wonderful job. If you’re given a
good script, there is nothing more about it, to be an actor in that.
That’s exciting. Working with Cate. There isn’t a moment
that’s boring. On this film, this is as hard as anything
I’ve ever done as an actor because it’s a completely different
style and you have to commit to it. You just can’t stand
outside and wink. You have to sort of lay in and be overly
dramatic and painfully direct and not penalize things.
That’s really hard to do. To try and find a level that makes
it believable. So, no, not yet, but I’m also working with
directors I really love. If I get to that point, I’ll much
rather direct. I like directing better.

How
was winning an Oscar affected your career?

It’s
changed everything. I’m much taller. (Laughs.) You know
it’s a funny thing. It’s one of those interesting things,
because it’s a nice thing and it always makes you feel you
know…but it makes absolutely no difference.
It’s nice. You sit down with the studio and you tell them
you want to make a film. Even if you carried it and set it
down on the table. It just doesn’t matter. They really
don’t care. They’re happy for you, ‘That’s great.
Great George.’ But it doesn’t really make a difference in
my day-to-day life of getting things done. My friends will
come over and pick it up and go, ‘Man, that’s heavy.’
It’s a nice thing.

How
often do you need to mix the commercial movies in with the
independent projects to make it all work?

We
have to do them. You know Clint’s the god. He sort of
understood exactly how to do it. We have an office exactly
right next-door, literally right next-door and I’ve seen him for
ten years. Seen him every day. He gave a great pattern on how
to do it and a smart way of doing it, which is you make one that
does well commercially and it buys you two smaller ones along the
way. And that seems to be what we’ve been able to
continually do it with Warner Brothers.

So,
you wouldn’t do another “Ocean’s” movie to get smaller
movies made?

No,
well, this one happened because we felt like we could do it better
than Twelve. We didn’t want to go out getting socked in the
chin on that one. We were both like, ‘We know how to do
this.’ And we found a really good reason to do it, which is
revenge. Which is always better than just money. That
made sense to us and we went, ‘That’s a good reason’ and
that’s the only reason to come back. I think, listen, ‘Rocky
17’? Who knows? Maybe ten years from now I’ll need a
job and I’ll think about it. But right now, we don’t plan
on it.

Do
DVD’s help you make money on those small ones now?

I
think most of the time you lose money because it costs so much in
the prints and ads. You know Good Night And Good Luck is the best
example. We paid less than any other film that was in our category
in terms of prints and ads out there. It cost $7 million to make the
film and it was probably $25 million in ads. Which is a lot of
money. So, suddenly, you have a $32 million for a $7 million film
and we were the low point of those guys.
Ultimately they did make their money back. We made $35
million or something here and probably about that overseas, so
basically you’re breaking even and then they make money on DVD,
but that doesn’t happen very often. It’s a very
interesting business. The DVD is where the money is.

Are
you more forgiving when working with a first time director like
Tony?

I
didn’t have to be forgiving with Tony. He really, really, really
knew what he was doing. Sometimes you get with a director who
is basically a first time director and they need a lot of
handholding. I had one last year where there was a lot of work to be
done. Tony is a grown-up. He knew what he wanted to
shoot, he had plans. The biggest thing with a first time director is
do they shoot with a point of view? Steven shoots with a point
of view. Joel and Ethan shoot with a point of view. That’s the
secret. You don’t want to just collect footage and get in an
editing room and make a film, that’s the difference.

How
difficult was it shooting Michael Clayton in

New York

? 


It’s
always trickier shooting in

New York

, because you’re not going to get isolated anywhere. It’s very
hard to get a moment, because there’s a lot of people around, but
that’s also why you shoot in

New York

, because it gives you that energy.

You
came out with a great plan to fake-out the tabloids by dating a
different star every night.

Well,
I was just kidding on the Vanity Fair article. I saw Leonardo
DiCaprio yesterday, and I said, “Sorry, I made a joke.”

I
was wondering why we didn’t see you with a different person every
day?

Look,
because I was actually joking, and I actually do have to work, you
know? I have a job and I’m busy, so I didn’t really mean it. I
just thought it would be a funny thing, ‘cause eventually,
they’d keep running the story until they believed nothing. But I
don’t really have the time to do that.

What
led to the decision to shut down Section 8?

We
decided that when we started it. Steven and I had a conversation
about it two years before we shut it down.
We decided it. We had seen all the other companies do this,
which is about five years in, you stop being filmmakers and you
start being administrators and businessmen, and we didn’t want to
do that. Exactly what we thought would happen was happening. We’d
start to have more meetings on ad campaigns and posters and trailers
then actually making the film, and that was no fun for us. We were
very clear about it. We tried not to screw with anyone along the
way, so we said, “two years from today we’re done” and we did
it and we’re very pleased with how that worked.

And
now you have a new production company?

Mm-hm.
We started over, reset and start over and try again.

What’s
going to be the difference?

Well,
Grant [Heslov] and I have the same theories, which is you try to
protect filmmakers; you try to get screenplays made that people
didn’t want to make. All the same things. We’re having some
luck. We just got the Grisham book and we’re having a really
interesting time with some really interesting projects.

Talk
about the shifting point of view of the film.
Do you think your character is elemental?

I
really love the idea of changing the point of view, literally
changing the lens, ‘cause I thought the minute you started seeing
the narrative change, you were like “Oh, this is really quite a
way of telling a story.” I was really excited by the idea of it.
Also because in general, a 40’s film like this is told by the male
in it, and I really liked watching… and it really throws you
because you think it’s about Tobey Maguire and then, it ain’t. I
remember the first time I saw “Alien”, when I went to the movie
theatre in 1979, and you thought Tom Skerritt was going to be the
star, because there’s always been the guy sort of surviving, and
he was the handsome guy. And he bites it first and all of a sudden,
you realize it’s Sigourney Weaver, and you’re really taken by
the idea that point of view gets shifted a little bit, and I think
that that’s really interesting storytelling.

Is
there something different that you are interested in exploring on
film that you haven’t yet?

There
are a few things. There’s a screenplay I’m working on now that I
want to explore. The movie I’m directing right now is a football
film from 1925 that’s been about 10-12 years of us trying to get
this thing made. I finally figured the key to it out this summer and
finished writing it. We’re going to start shooting it in about a
month, so that was one that I just wanted to get done, it was making
me crazy. Also because I didn’t want to do a political film next
‘cause after Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck, I got offered
thirty different political… all of a sudden, everybody wants to do
a political film and I didn’t really want to do that. I didn’t
want to become that guy. But then I have an interesting idea about
elections that I might want to do after that.

Do
you think you are taking some risks making the third Ocean’s?

Yeah,
it’s a very different version of that. It’s back to 11 in terms
of spending more time with the guys, but it’s about revenge, which
I think is just such a good motivator after you’ve had these guys
make a lot of money. What are you going to do? “Let’s make some
more money”? So this one is about just getting someone who
wasn’t one of our guys, and I just love films like that.

I
got psyched to hear that you’re doing White Jazz with Joe
Carnahan.

It’s
such a good screenplay.

What
was it that drew you to the screenplay?

I
hadn’t read the book. Joe’s brother Matt wrote a version of the
screenplay that was just… and it’s dirty, nasty, mean. There’s
nothing nice about it, and Joe’s a great director and should be
doing it more, because I worry about really good directors not
directing enough. It’s like I want Quentin [Tarantino] to direct
more. I know he has to take time off to do his thing. I want to see
him, you know? I feel that way about Joe. I want to see him do more
films and this is a really good screenplay.

Don’t
you see Good German as a political film?

How
to screw up an occupation? (laughs) But I don’t know if
there’s a comparison between now and the idea of sort of forgiving
war crimes because that’s not really what we’re doing
particularly right now in

Iraq

. That’s the one thing we’re clearly not doing.
We certainly didn’t forget any war crimes of any kind. I
don’t know it’s overtly political. It’s certainly set inside
an absolutely real event. There’s a great documentaries about how
the German soldiers were desperately trying to surrender to the
Americans for the two-car garage rather than the Russians where it
wasn’t going to be nearly as nice. So I love that world but you
know, it’s still at it’s heart and soul, it’s a romance
murder-mystery,
Chinatown
, nobody wins, nobody’s good, movie set inside a real world. So
there are real political underpinnings, but I don’t think
they’re necessarily relevant to what’s going on politically here
right now.

So
which is better, the Oscars or Sexiest Man Alive?

I
have to say “Sexiest” is big. I got to say, it’s a big one, I
use it. Brad is upset, but there’s still a time for him, he’s a
couple years younger, so he still has a shot. I think Matt was the
most hurt. It hurt Matt. We did campaign for him but he just
didn’t…