George Clooney recalled the time he came to the set of his 1996 romantic comedy One Fine Day while smelling like a ‘distillery’ in a new conversation with his costar Michelle Pfeiffer.
The 59-year-old Oscar winner opened up about his boozy day of work and an unfortunate eye injury while chatting with Pfeiffer, 62, for Variety‘s Actors on Actors series on Wednesday.
As Clooney told it, he never intended to get wasted but was the victim of a scheduling mixup.
Uncorked: George Clooney, 59, admitted that he showed up drunk to the set of his 1996 romantic comedy One Fine Day during a chat with Michelle Pfeiffer for Variety on Wednesday; seen January 14
In the middle of shooting, he went out drinking with a friend and returned home late at night and extremely intoxicated, only to find an message on his answering machine informing him that he had to be on set early the next morning.
I woke up at 5 in the morning,” Clooney said. ‘I was like, “I feel OK.” Then I looked in the mirror, and I was like, “Oh, I’m still drunk.”
‘I got to the set, and we walked to the trailer and I sat down and you looked at me,’ he continued. ‘You go, “What?” And I was like, “I didn’t know we were going to work today.” And you go, “You’re still drunk.”‘
“It’s a scene we did in a oner where you and I are talking back and forth to each other,” Clooney said, referring to a lengthy shot that’s filmed in a single take, requiring the actors to have all their lines memorized perfectly.
Bad timing: He said he went out drinking with a friend, only to get home and find a message on his answering machine that he had to be on set early in the morning
Not hiding it: ‘I kept trying to spray whatever mouth spray I could because I smelled like a —’ ‘Like a brewery,’ Pfeiffer jumped in. ‘— like a distillery,’ he finished; still from One Fine Day
‘I kept trying to spray whatever mouth spray I could because I smelled like a —’
‘Like a brewery,’ Pfeiffer jumped in.
‘— like a distillery,’ he finished.
The two actors seem to have gotten through the scene without too much trouble, but Clooney later suffered a serious injury on set that threatened to stop him from filming.
The Ocean’s Eleven star said he ‘took an elbow in the face’ during a game of pickup basketball at lunch with the crew.
Ouch! Clooney later broke his eye socket after taking ‘an elbow in the face,’ which required delaying his scenes and changing the schedule; still from One Fine Day
The blow broke his eye socket and left him with half of his face rapidly swelling.
‘It kept swelling and I was like, “I can still shoot,”‘ he said. ‘I remember we actually shot scenes where we blocked half of my face with a kid.’
The shooting schedule was switched around to push back his scenes because ‘my eye had to grow back,’ he explained.
After Pfeiffer asked if he healed completely ‘Because you shattered your eye socket,’ he laughed it off with a wink and a playful twitch.
‘Pretty much, yeah! It works out fine now. Only when I sneeze!’
Cult classic: The film was a box office bomb even though it’s remembered fondly today, which Pfeiffer attributed to the studio’s poor timing
The half hour–long conversation also touched on how One Fine Day is now considered a fairly well-regarded romantic comedy, even though it bombed at the box office.
Pfeiffer attributed the failure to the studio pushing up the release date from February to Christmas because it scored well in test screenings.
The move left her and Clooney little time to do press for the movie and to build up public consciousness about it.
Time crunch: After One Fine Day scored well in test screenings, the studio moved it from February to Christmas, but there wasn’t enough time for Clooney and Pfeiffer to promote it; still from One Find Day
Source link
