Still Mr. Nice Guy

source: SKY magazine, April 2003

He's a risk-taking producer, critically praised director, devoted father to a pet pig, and not entirely bad-looking. Oh, and he acts too. Is George Clooney, star of this month's Ocean's Eleven, just too perfect?

There were many reasons for remaking Ocean's Eleven, the Las Vegas- set heist movie that established Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack as the height of cool in the early 1960s. But for George Clooney, whose Danny Ocean leads a new group (including Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt) on high-tech knockover of a mega-casino, there was only one motivation. "George called six months before the movie and said, `We've really got to start on our research,'" recalls a laughing Matt about the preparations that George and director Steven Soderbergh had planned.

"You should know me well enough by now to know that I'm a method actor, so I spent literally years training for the drinking and carousing that I had to do in this film," retorts George, who never fails to jump on a joke, especially if it's at his own expense. "I was perfectly prepared when I go in there."

True, George may be one of Hollywood's irrepressible good-time guys. And the former TV actor has managed to achieve both commercial success and artistic credibility without becoming egomaniacal, pretentious or jaded. He's still the most approachable movie star you'd ever want to meet, eager to share the fruits of his success and, yes, a devoted father to his pet pig, Max. But spend even a small amount of time with George, and it becomes clear that deep feelings and serious thoughts are never far beneath the surface. Sometimes, Hollywood's most eligible 41-year-old will describe swinging bachelorhood in terms that sound like a lament.

"I'm gettin' old, fallin' apart," he'll say glibly, but quickly turns wishful about his single status. "I don't know why I ever said I'd never get married again on national TV," he sighs - his first brief marriage, to actress Talia Balsam, collapsed a decade ago. He's also quite obviously saddened by the loss last year of his beloved aunt and role model, singer-actress Rosemary Clooney, whom he mentions in every interview. And don't get George started on the subject of classic films unless you're ready for a dissertation. Nobody loves serious cinema more than he does, and he can tell you why and which films, endlessly. Which seems odd coming from a guy who remade a movie that had all the depth of a martini glass.

But with Ocean's Eleven, George saw a chance to combine two passion - good movies and that good-time "research" - and pay homage to another influential set of role models by doing them one better. "I love those guys, those guys are heroes of mine," he says of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin et al. "But once we started shooting the movie with such a great script, we never looked back at that. We never once said, Oh, this is sort of like Frank and Sammy and Dean. That never really existed; this was a whole movie unto itself. "Look, we're never going to be as cool as those guys. That's their thing, man, and the (original) movie was successful because of that.

Their movie kinda works and kinda doesn't. This movie, we have a better director and better writing and we just went in and had a blast and great parts." It was so much fun, in fact, George convinced many of his usually press-shy co-stars to get back together for a European publicity tour to coincide with the release of the movie. Of course, he paid a price for the effort - in dignity. "I'm, like, very famous in Italy, I thought," he recalls. "But we get to the airport there, and all the Italians came to rush me, but then literally ran over the top of me to get to Brad!" Lately, George has become accustomed to embarrassments of all kinds- from unfounded rumours that his friendship with Julia Roberts was putting strains on her marriage to a publicised ratings flap in the US over his most recent film with Steve, Solaris.

It's a dark sci-fi drama, in which the Clooneyus Maximus is bared in two tastefully intimate scenes with his wife, played by Natascha McElhone. George downplays the impact of his controversial posterior in this PG-13 rated film. "I was a little disturbed. I mean, there was a PG- 13 rated Steven Segal movie that was wall-to-wall violence that came out when Solaris did. And the Jackass movie. which, I admit, I laughed my ass off watching." Besides his and Soderbergh's work together (they also made Out Of Sight, with Jennifer Lopez), their Section Eight company produced one of the US's most acclaimed movies of last year. Todd Haynes's Far From Heaven, as well as the superb Al Pacino / Robin Williams thriller Insomnia.

"As producers, we want to help filmmakers we love get films made," he says. "Get out of their way creatively, back them when they need us. We can't guarantee is the attempt to allow the filmmaker to fail or succeed based on what they want to do, as opposed to getting all of the edges knocked off after a studio tests the film 10 times." Of course, this means risking money. One of the main reasons George went into business with Steven was their mutual aversion to excessive greed. "We have the same sensibilities," says George. "We like the same films, we stick up for the things we like and we're both willing to lose money to get something done right. I love the idea that we're in the position that we can afford to. We can say, okay, lets put our money where our mouth is, just to get some of these films made. That's fun."

George recently went even further with the mouth-pushing thing. He directed his first movie, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, based on the "unauthorised autobiography" of US TV game-show host Chuck Barris, and George called in favours from his Ocean's Eleven cast- mates Brad, Matt and Julia to take cameos. "I was attached to this screenplay as an actor six years ago; the reason I directed it was not because I wanted to direct, but because the project was falling apart," says George, whose movie was met with critical praise for its cinematic ingenuity, wit and strong performances from Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, Julia and the director himself. "I just thought it was one of the best screenplays around.

" Now he's starting to sound like St George of Hollywood. And he will even more if his formidable powers of persuasion convince his otherwise high-paid co-stars to cut their salaries again for the forthcoming Ocean's Twelve, which partner Steve wants to be the first big studio sequel to pay its key players less than the original. That would be a serious blow to Hollywood's usual avaricious business practices. But it's really just another way that closet serious guy George has a good time.

"Life gets boring if we're not going to have some fun with it," he says. "Especially when I'm in a business where you can take yourself pretty seriously - and that, to me is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. That the work seriously, but if you take yourself seriously, I think you're in trouble."

© Photos by Mark Seliger