Despite his status as an Oscar-winning actor, director, and producer, George Clooney admits his Hollywood credentials don’t carry much weight with his children. He recounts his son choosing to dress as Batman for Halloween, a role Clooney famously played. “I literally said to him, ‘You know, I was Batman,’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, not really.'”
This blend of celebrity and domestic life is a theme in his new Netflix film, Jay Kelly, which debuts December 5. In it, Clooney portrays a self-absorbed, emotionally stunted movie star navigating a midlife crisis, unable to connect with those closest to him. Director Noah Baumbach wrote the script specifically for Clooney, prompting a candid reaction from the actor upon first reading it: “I read it and I said ‘This guy [Jay Kelly] is kind of a jerk!'” Still, Clooney found the character’s struggles to balance work and family relatable, acknowledging, “We’re all balancing it. We’re never getting it perfect.”
Clooney’s perspective on fame was shaped early on by watching the career of his aunt, singer Rosemary Clooney. He witnessed her professional highs and lows, which provided a crucial lesson. “It was a really good lesson for me in understanding how little success has to do with you,” he explains. “You’re not as brilliant as they say you are when things are going well… and you’re not as horrible as they say you are when things aren’t going well.”
For much of his life, Clooney prioritized friendships over marriage and children, focusing instead on his burgeoning career and a close-knit “created family.” He recalls, “I was wanting to have this sort of created family. And I worked very hard at making sure that we all had dinners together and spent time together.” This circle includes his business partner Grant Heslov, whom he has known for 40 years. “He loaned me $98 bucks to get headshots in 1982, and we both stood on the stage together and won the Oscar together as producers of Argo.”
This loyalty is exemplified by his decision to give $1 million in cash to each of his 12 closest friends, an act he views not as a gift but as a repayment. “My career and my life have been on the shoulders of many of my friends helping me,” he says, citing times they offered him a place to stay or co-signed a loan. “Being able to participate and help your friends out… it actually is a good thing.”
Beyond his acting, Clooney continues to engage with pressing social issues, recently adapting his 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck for a Broadway run. The play, in which he reprised his role as broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, was revived to re-examine the importance of journalism. “I thought it was important to remind ourselves of how important telling the truth and holding truth to power was,” he states, noting the timeliness of the themes regardless of the political landscape.
He believes the subject is more urgent now than it was 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,” Clooney remarks. “You see that happening in Darfur right now… we saw it in Russia. We now see it in the United States constantly.”
The project held deep personal significance, written as a tribute to his father, Nick Clooney, a longtime news anchor. Though his father was unable to attend the play in person due to his health, he watched a live broadcast. “At the end he stood up and he saluted the television, which was a pretty beautiful thing,” Clooney shares. “He set the standard pretty high for me.”
Clooney is also unafraid to use his public platform, as seen when he called for President Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. He says he decides to speak out “when I feel like no one else is gonna do it,” choosing his battles carefully to maintain his impact.
He firmly rejects the idea that his profession disqualifies him from having a voice. “I don’t give up my right to my freedom of speech because I have a Screen Actors Guild card,” he insists. “You get to say what you believe, you get to stand by what you believe, and… [if] there are gonna be people now that won’t go see this movie, OK, fair enough. That’s the trade-off I make.”
