George Clooney: “Thank you, Italy”

This article is published in number 51 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until December 22, 2020.

He is tanned and, as often happens, tends to play down. Even in the midst of a pandemic that affects the presentation of his new film as director, three years after Suburbicon. “There is nothing more exciting than being in a room where everyone is wearing a tuxedo and understands what you are saying. I miss being able to present a film in the audience very much. But if there is an attitude you develop as a director, it is to understand immediately what alternatives you have ». The last time he found himself changing plans, and quickly, he was in the heart of Iceland while filming The Midnight Sky, the sumptuous Netflix production that we will see from December 23rd. Based on Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2016 science fiction novel, The distance between the stars, is the first science fiction film of the seven shot by the American star. A survival journey in which Clooney is also the protagonist, Augustine, a brilliant astronomer who gets stuck in the Arctic Circle after an environmental catastrophe on Earth. From there he will try to communicate with a spacecraft that has been wandering in space for some time, unaware of what has happened on our planet. Among the Internet users there is also Felicity Jones in the role of Iris. “He called me in the middle of the shoot and said: ‘There’s something new: I’m pregnant.’ I was happy for her, but the situation got very complicated », he says with his usual irony. He found the solution together with Grant Eslov, his companion in film adventures for 20 years. «We said to ourselves, ‘people go into space for two years, have sex with someone and get pregnant, that’s the solution at the end of the film’». A model student and avid basketball and baseball player, Clooney owes his entry into the world of cinema to his uncle. But it was Dr. Ross’s who made his fortune ER – Doctors on the front line, with which the world fell in love with him. “I was a pediatrician, an alcoholic and a womanizer. I could also have killed, but since in every episode I always did a child good, for everyone I was “the one who loved children” ».

Let’s start with Caoilinn Springall, the gorgeous little girl who plays with her in The Midnight Sky.

“It is truly extraordinary. I think it happened in at most three cases that a scene involving her was shot more than once. If I asked her to make a terrified face, it would take her a moment. She is 7 years old, we were in the middle of the ice, she was covered with layers of clothing, she is a real warrior. If an actress is reading me, know that she can put aside all the nonsense about having to kill her parents in her head to be able to shoot a scene of violence.

In space he already had assets Gravity say Cuarón and Solaris by Soderbergh: why did you accept a third story on the subject?

«Because this is different and tells of a redemption. Indeed, I find it the best story of redemption, because it is intimate and shows what mankind can do to its own species. “

On the one hand there is the story of Augustine, and on the other hand that of the astronauts engaged in their business in space.

«I worked as if they were two films that then intersect. I shot my part first, on an island and with 40 degrees below zero. I had a David Letterman beard, my wife was delighted when filming was over and I finally got shaved. The other part, shot in London, was less hard ».

With the experience accumulated over the years, have you become an expert decision maker?

“I’ve never thought about it, but I think so. And as an actor I’ve never been the great comedian or an action movie hero, the fact that he didn’t become number one in something allowed me to experiment in different directions, and this trains me to be flexible ».

Remember the moment he realized he wanted to take the lead on a set?

“I used to work on TV, and as an actor you are an object in the hands of many other people. You can do the performance of your life, but they are there watching anything else. I’ve always liked the idea of ​​having more control, so I watched how the TV directors I respected worked. At the time of Confessions of a dangerous mind, the first film I directed, I knew what I wanted and how I wanted to make it. And I remember that I had very clear in mind the fact that I would not have played easy ».

Who was Clooney before he became a Hollywood star?

“Someone who cut his tobacco at $ 3.33 an hour for a living. When I left Kentucky my only certainty was that I didn’t want to lead that life, everything would be a little better. For this reason today I tend to find idiots who do my job and complain, for whatever reason. Of course there are hard times when you go crazy. But the general spirit, in the background, can only remain of enthusiasm. Because we are very, very lucky ».

Today when they choose you as an actor what do they want from you?

“The Coens make fun of me, they always want me to be an idiot and I enjoy it. Steven Soderbergh makes me challenge stereotypes, and Alexander Payne wants me to play with people’s perception of who I am. It means always being on the razor’s edge, because when someone tells you that you are acting yourself you know that it is not like that. “

The Coens even made her dance …

«In Brother, where are you? there is a final sequence where we are all on stage singing I am a Man of constant Sorrow. They called a choreographer to study the dance moves, I kept repeating that I was from Kentucky, I was quite capable of moving, but the Coens told me “we don’t believe it.” I danced like a chicken would dance, in some rehearsal takes you could hear the voices of Joel and Ethan laughing like crazy. I knew I was ending my career, but the dance worked. “

Then there are the serious things, like Good Night, and Good Luck.

“I grew up as the son of a journalist, I wanted to write a kind of tribute to my father and also attack people who don’t understand that the other three powers don’t count if the fourth, that of the press, doesn’t do its part. It is the most important, because it controls the work of politicians, magistrates and democratic institutions. And I wanted to take a look at those times when he failed in his function of keeping everyone else at bay ».

Are those who struggle to discover the truth more important today than before?

“A little because of the internet, a little because of how we have moved in the last 15 years. In the US we had three news channels, Abc, Nbc and CBS. They all started from the same set of facts, and you, from home, received these facts and digested them, based on your view as a conservative or liberal, and where you placed yourself in the world. In a way people were never so far from each other, on events like Vietnam there could be disagreement, and if you were a veteran you hated hippies. “

Ma?

“In general it was based on the same range of events. Today it is completely different, just think of phenomena like the QAnon conspiracy theorists, a madness that makes someone dramatically sure of what they are saying ».

Who are the men you admired the most?

“A few days ago I received a message from Robert Redford, I immediately went to show it to Amal. He made some of the most interesting films I’ve ever seen in my life, certainly between the sixties and seventies. And then there’s Paul Newman, the one who influenced me the most. He did so many things right. He was a McCarthy delegate in the 1968 election, a busy and light man at the same time ».

The gentleman par excellence?

“Gregory Peck, I was very good friends with him and his wife Veronique. He was a man of integrity, he fought for the causes he cared about, the same thing I like to do. If someone asked me what’s the best thing out of Hollywood, I’d pick him and Paul. ‘

Something that has radically changed in your life?

“I stopped running, and long before the lockdown. I have a place where in normal times I usually spend the summer with my family, in Italy. There they live life differently than I did, I’m not ashamed to say that for 25 years I had lunch standing up. On Lake Como I saw these guys coming home from work with a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread, they sang and took three hours to sit at the table. Something happened to me inside, I told myself I wasn’t living the way you have to live. If I have started to enjoy life, dinners and free time, I owe it to Italy ».

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