WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1279 - George Clooney

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

George Clooney is 60. Which means, much like Marc, he's always reminding himself that he doesn't know how much time he has left. George tells Marc how this mindset affects all his decisions, whether it's the projects he takes on, the causes he fights for, or the time he frees up to spend with his children. They also discuss George's directorial work, including his latest film The Tender Bar, his introduction to show business by his father and his Aunt Rosemary, and his thoughts on avoiding further tragic accidents involving guns on movie sets. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated

category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die we control nothing beyond that

an epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel to show your true heart is to risk your life when I die here you'll never leave

Japan alive FX's Shogun a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney Plus 18 plus subscription required T's and C's apply.

Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies? What the fuck, Knicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF, obviously broadcasting from away.

I'm away, and I'm doing radio voice. Why am I doing radio voice? Get out of me. Get out of me. Get, go away, radio voice. Let Mark talk. Why can't we just talk about things in this voice? Not bad.

Get out, radio voice go go George Clooney is on the show today all right yes George Clooney is on the show today uh and it was it was great it was it was great he's George Clooney. Clooney, I guess, kind of knows me, which is nice. And we focused a lot of this conversation on his directing work. And he's got this new movie he directed, The Tender Bar, which is the screening I saw him at. That's coming out in December. And I also just wanted to mention before,

I don't know that I mentioned it enough. If you're new here, you can listen to every episode of WTF ad-free with a Stitcher Premium subscription. Go to WTFpod.com and click on the Premium tab. And while you're there, click on the Merch tab and get some holiday WTF gifts. There are new holiday sweatshirts. The Hawaiian cat shirt is very exciting. And there's a bunch of Christmas sweater-style sweatshirts there that are kind of funny. As I said, if you're new to this show, there's 1200 and some odd episodes of it.

And you can go get it at WTF pod dot com and click on the premium tab to have access to all of that. So I'm in New York City and I've been here for days. Came out a few days ago. And it's the first time I've been here since before the pandemic. I didn't really know what to expect, but because I've been outperforming so much and out in the world and at the comedy store, I'd gotten used to engaging with people, having mask on, mask off, whatever's necessary. But I've been out in the world among people for months now so i thought i was sort of uh it wasn't a big deal i'd acclimated to masked audiences and to

these sort of covid realities of the world we live in but i had nothing to prepare myself really just for the excitement and feeling of being back in this fucking city again. I mean, it's great. I mean, the city is alive. People are out. It's interesting to see how everything has been adjusted, all the in-street dining and whatnot. But I guess people on some level, given that the vaccine rate is very high here and people are moving through the world with relative safety, but they are still taking precautions.

But it's just that people are out and about. And I was sort of amazed by it for some reason i don't know why but i started sort of posting about it being amazed by it and of course new yorkers are like what do you what do you fucking think was happening of course we're fine we don't stop it's new york what the fuck's the matter with you what do you did you think everything stopped? I did. I did think everything stopped. What, are you fucking crazy? This is New York City. That kind of aggravated, thick pride of the toughness of New York

was just coming at me on the goddamn Instagram. Like, what do you think was going on? We've been good the whole time. All right, I get it. I get it. But it's just been kind of uh exciting i love this city and there's something about this city if you interface with this city if you know how to interface with this city that's always exciting about being here always exciting we had to get a car to go up to uh connecticut rent a car in the city drive up to ridgefield

connecticut this was uh last thursday and do the show up there at the Ridgefield Playhouse. And it's weird to rent a car in New York City. You got to go to a garage where the Hertz is kind of embedded in some garage under a building and grabbed the car, ripped it up to Connecticut. Beautiful little situation up there. 500 seat theater but they get all the people it was a weird night only because I don't know we got up there very early and then you know I I I've got a sort of I know I wouldn't say I'm cynical but I've got kind of a

just from all the stand-up I'm doing I've got sort of an edge to me a little bit and I just pulled up the calendar you know they have the calendar book of everyone who's going to be uh you know that they hand out who's coming to the ridgefield playhouse but i was just going through the roster of people that were coming to that venue small venue 500 seats you know people like paul anka the wallflowers, comedians like Tom Papa and Segura and Reagan's going to do a few days there. And then Joan Jett. It's just not a big place, man. 500 seats.

But it's close enough to the city. I guess it's in a routing sense. It's on the way to other things. Art Garfunkel was coming. And I just couldn't let up. I could not let up on Art Garfunkel. Not that Art Garfunkel was uh was coming and i just couldn't let up i could not let up on art garfunkel not that art garfunkel deserves it but i was just like does garfunkel need the bread the guy's 80 he's 80 and then i was told by somebody i don't need to mention any names that art garfunkel is not the most pleasant guy in the world to work with at 80 or at any time and i

just it was just this ongoing callback and i just don't know what the fuck to work with at 80 or at any time and i just it was just this ongoing callback and i just don't know what the fuck is wrong with me what do i got to rip on art garfunkel for right just like that audience of people who are 80 years old 75 years old just wondering sitting there going is he going to sing the bridge over troubled water do you think he can still sing that it'd be nice to see if a man that age still sing like a bridge over trouble that's all i can sing without being charged but uh i kind of was a little hard on art and i don't know if it's going to get back to him or whether i should feel bad for it but there must be something about

touring whether he needs to or not knowing that paul simon could if that theater was struggling just he could probably buy that theater and pay everyone who performed there for five years without even really feeling the hit but that would be i don't know it'd be a different theater then it'd be sort of like you know no more art art doesn't come no more art and edie burkell plays every two weeks maybe steve martin will come with the banjo i mean he's got to have a chip on his shoulder right am i projecting i got nothing against him made some beautiful songs all right in in all honesty i enjoyed the breakaway record a lot i loved it but it was a great show up there massive riffage hour and 45 minutes nice heading into the big show at town hall oh god driving back from connecticut in the nighttime late at Town Hall. Oh, God. Driving back from Connecticut in the nighttime, late at night,

11 at night, ripping down the FDR like the old days. I used to own a car in this town back in the late 80s. VW Golf. A VW Golf because I'd rip around the city doing sets. Then I have to go up to the New England area to do Thursday, Friday, Saturday runs. But God damn it. Like I said before, if you the New England area to do Thursday, Friday, Saturday runs. But God damn it. Like I said before, if you've got the interface for this city, if you've spent time here,

if you've lived here and there's no distance between you, it's like riding a bike. It's like hooking up with an old buddy. I haven't been here in a year and a half, two years. You get here, boom, you just plugged right the fuck back in. I know how to get around this town. I know where to eat in this town. I know where to eat in this town. I know how to walk down the street in this fucking city. Yeah, I do.

I know how to drive in this fucking city. Exciting. Exciting. Ripping down that FDR 1130 at night. You get out of that car, you feel like you've been through something. Feel like you should be taking a helmet off. Man. Exciting.

I have a lot of fans in this town because everybody's out on the street, walking around on the train, wearing the earbuds, whatever. I was walking down the street, and I noticed over to the right of me, there's some black dude giving me side eye, and I'm looking at him. He's looking at me. He says, anyone ever tell you you look like Marc Maron? I go, I am him. And he just cocked his head and go, motherfucker, and walked away.

That is a great moment. That is the best moment of recognition. Motherfucker. Yes. Yes, it's me. Yes. My mother came out with her sister for the town hall show. Now, the town hall show, it was beautiful. You know, it was a great show.

But the weird thing is, I feel like I've been working up to that show this new york show this town hall show but the truth of the matter is i've been working almost every night that i can work in one way or the other for months and months now putting together this hour and i've had some great shows over the over the past few months i mean that show in ridgefield i mean look art garfunkel took a hit but was a great show and town hall was a great show but it was one of many great shows one of many but it was great uhkel took a hit, but it was a great show. And Town Hall was a great show, but it was one of many great shows, one of many, but it was great. It was a good time, and it was the proper size for me. That's really where I like it, to top out at 1,500.

It's a perfect-sized theater, perfect-sized space. Everybody at the venue was great. No opener, straight out. But I just wanted to thank everybody for coming out there it was it was uh i i just it's different now the last couple years things have changed inside of me certainly since the death of lynn certainly since the pandemic but i'm pretty grounded i don't give many fucks i've got really nothing to lose and it was great it was great it was great to work

it's great to be back in New York also before we begin the the Clooney experience here I wanted to thank everybody for the feedback on the cancel culture episode we did last week a lot of feedback and you know a little bit of pushback for whatever that's worth i mean

we really weren't presenting an argument we were presenting a context and an empathetic point of view but uh so when people take things out of context or are unable to wrap their head around the context or make the connections without cramming things together making accusations and then whining like fucking baby men that uh something i have said or something that was represented on the show infringed upon some element of their you know uh ability to whine uh effectively a little of that but not much mostly people were were grateful for the historical contextualizing of uh can't say anything anymore i can't do anything i can no more you can't say anything anymore without hurting someone's feelings the historical context of that what's interesting is that i realized this the other day

and i'm guilty of it myself like when i was younger starting out i really saw myself as part of the legacy of whatever you know uh boundary pushing comics were you know the angry sort the shock driven ones the ones who uh uh present the angry truth man yeah it was just the way i was just angry but i do remember that I was able to hang my own victimness on my anger uh that like you know I can't get club work man too edgy man too angry and the weird thing was it was I wasn't that funny it wasn't that funny uh yeah I was angry and sometimes I had something to say but mostly I was angry because I was afraid or whatever you know whatever anger comes from whatever is at the core of anger usually if it's personal it's sadness or fear but as I grew older and as I grew better and as I grew funnier

you know I moved through it I'm still kind of cynical and dark and uh certainly capable of saying shit that you know rides a line but uh but but when i was younger it was a way to blame or something to hang my laurels on and also to to just sort of claim that it was the reason that i wasn't getting work and i noticed a lot of these sort of second stringer uh free speech anti-woke comics they can say like yeah that's why i'm not getting work man it's these fucking woke club owners these fucking triggered audiences that's why i'm not getting work like now they don't even have to face up to the music that they might not be funny they know they can live in the delusion of victimhood because they're just too goddamn edgy man they're just telling too much truth man

they're just laying it out how it is they're just saying the words they want to say with the freedom they have and hey man if i'm not getting work that's why man i'm being fucking shut out because i'm too fucking truthful not afraid fuck the woke people might be because you're not funny so i told you clooney's here the tender bard the movie that i mentioned earlier his movie that he directed opens in theaters december 17th and it will be streaming on prime video in the new year also this was taped two and a half weeks ago all right so the fatal shooting accident on the set of the movie rust had just happened like uh like a week before we talked so it was fresh on on both of our minds we talked about it and i also wanted to mention that uh yes we do talk

about michael clayton because yes michael clayton is one of my favorite movies i watch it yes uh several times a year yep i do of course new york city wait wait think we just stopped because of the sickness it's fucking new york this is me talking to george clinton are you self-employed don't think you need business insurance think again business insurance from zensurance is a no-brainer for every business owner because it provides peace of mind. A lot can go wrong. A fire, cyber attack, stolen equipment, or an unhappy customer suing you. That's why you need insurance. Don't let the, I'm too small for this mindset, hold you back from protecting yourself. Zensurance provides customized business insurance policies starting at just $19 per month.

Visit Zensurance today to get a free quote. Zensurance. Mind your business. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive.

FX's Shogun. A new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. hey man how you doing what's up buddy well you know i'm in uh fabulous australia lucky you in quarantine really yeah you gotta have to you have to stay in one place for 14 days before you're allowed to go out and breathe but that's okay it's nice to see you i uh i was to see you i was very uh uh oddly moved uh when you said hi to me at the uh at the screening the other day

because i was just going to the bathroom it's good to see you yes you were going to the bathroom it's better to do it outside the bathroom than in the bathroom which seems a little odd at times yeah well you didn't follow me in and i appreciate that but no no but but there was a moment where you're just like hey mark how you doing and i'm like a couple things happened in that moment yeah i was like how does how's george clooney know who i am well i've been i've been a fan for a long time i remember i mean you must have done i don't know how many episodes of Conan. Yes. And I always loved your stand-up and thought it was really great.

And I've listened to your podcast for years. Oh. And I just think, you know, I actually, one of those people who really sort of lives and dies by podcasts. I have about five or six that I listen to all the time. Oh, really? So I've listened to your podcast. Okay. And also, you know, I sort of followed all of the difficulties you had last year.

Yeah. And I felt, you know, very keenly aware of how difficult that situation was for you and how hard that was. of how difficult that situation was for you and how hard that was. And so, you know, when I saw you, I just, you know, felt like I suppose I felt like I knew you better than I do. Well, you might, but it did resonate. There was a moment there where I knew exactly what you were talking about. And I was maybe seconds away of just, you know, tearing up and crying in front of you, you know, at the screening.

As you were walking in, I doubt that that would have been the greatest moment for you. How are you doing, Mark? Not that great, man. Can you hang out a second? Not so good. Yeah, you know those people, when you ask them how they're doing, and they actually go into long explanations of how they're actually doing that you really don't want to know. Yeah, yeah.

Just okay. Just say okay. Okay, and we'll move on. Yeah, just say, I'm good, man, and then walk. I'm dealing. I think that's what't want to know. Yeah, just okay. Just say okay. Okay, and we'll move on. Yeah, just say I'm good, man, and then walk. I'm dealing. I think that's what I said to you. How you doing? Dealing. And then I said, I'm looking forward to the movie. You said it's light.

And I said, I could use light. And you said, I bet you could. Yeah. Well, because you know what? How you doing? Well, I'm giving up drugs, and my parents are assholes. You're like, I just really need something simple. You have watched my act.

But it's like when I saw the movie, I have questions about, well, I have other questions, but let's just start with this. When you direct, I mean, you're making very specific choices about what you want to direct and they're all very different yeah so when you do this after the the the one where you have a beard and is you know the spoiler is right at the beginning there's no avoiding the end of the world exactly so now we're just like some kid in the 60s or the 70s whenever it was so how do you 70 what why do you choose like let's start at the beginning so confessions of a dangerous mind what you just got a kick out of that book you like sam you like

chuck what is it it was a script i've been kicking around for a long time it was at warner brothers yeah and warner brothers was using his bait to bring in big directors to do other projects because they were never going to make the movie. It was pretty dark. The script was even darker than sort of what we did. There was like dancing, aborted fetuses and all kinds of crazy stuff. Charlie Kaufman wrote the screenplay and, and I just finished doing oceans at Warner brothers and the first one. Yeah.

The first one. And I knew they were going to get that. They were trying to get that movie out. They got it over to Miramax. And so I just i called up soderbergh who was my partner and i just said you know if i was ever going to direct anything this is a really good script and i you know having grown up around live television and understanding it really well my father has had a variety show before he was a news anchor and you know we would

see the sets change from the nick clooney show which was a talk show like the michael douglas show and then suddenly you'd lift up the set and underneath it be a bowling alley it'd be the 330 bowling show wait wait wait so where what town was that in that was in the mid 70s early 70s but where where was that oh then cincinnati ohio nick clooney show in cincinnati ohio yeah yeah Before he did the news. I remember there was a, I saw when I was a kid, I saw Jay Leno on, I think, Mike Douglas. And, you know, and he was just doing his bit. And he made a comment that reminded me that, because after they were going to go to commercial and Jay said, does the chair fold up into the wall now or do I stay?

It's really true because, you know, you only have usually two sort of stages and they're not big like a soundstage. And this is in Cincinnati, so it's a fairly decent sized market. But they had the 330 Money movie, Bowling for Dollars, the news, and all of those things. Like the bowling alley would go through two sets and underneath on top of it, you put the newsroom. Right. The weird thing about local television, there's always some sort of weird stories about the personalities. I'm assuming it's not your father. I remember when something horrible happened to the dialing for dollars guy in Albuquerque.

I can't remember what it was. But he did something bad. Well, there's always a couple of them. We had a guy who did a morning show. It was just when the miniskirts came in in the 60s, late 60s. And he did a morning show where he took a pair of binoculars and he made all the girls in the miniskirts sit in the front row and would look sort of up their dresses. And that was his whole act in the morning. He had these things called knee ticklers that he would give with his name on them.

Paul Dixon. He's doing it right in front of everybody. He's not like, that was the gimmick. That was the bit. And he's getting away with it. And there were all those characters that you always were suspicious of who were like, ran the kid show. You know? Yeah.

Who you knew hated kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was there a clown? No, we had Uncle Al, who was a nice guy. Uncle Al, the kid, he's pal. And we had Skipper Ryle, who was also, you know, he was like the budget version of Captain Kangaroo. Right.

Those guys. And I knew Skipper Ryle. Glenn Ryle, he was a funny guy, and he was, you know, an old Marine. And he kind of hated kids, but he got a gig being you know the kid show guy which always makes me it's a little like a thousand clowns sure and this is your dad's world oh yeah sure and he did he did variety shows he did talk shows he was yeah he did all of that he had a he would sing on the show and uh uh it's funny because he started out in news and pretty quickly after the show uh was canceled after about five or six years um and he had a band jerry conrad's rhythm and brass and

so you grew up around all these guys sure i mean i grew up around you know i got to see some really you know rosemary was a big singer i didn't get to see her all that often, but my Aunt Rosemary was a big singer. Yeah, huge, yeah. I mean, by the time I was, you know, 21, I was on the road with them, driving her. I was driving Helen O'Connell and Margaret Whiting and Kay Ballard and Kay Starr. I mean, some crazy, you know, Martha Ray. Oh, my God. Martha Ray. Literally, I'm driving her from a show. Rosemary was doing this show called Four Girls Four,

which was usually four big famous female singers from the 50s usually. You're doing what? You're doing subscription theaters or what? Well, no. It was big, huge venues. It was like it'd be Harrah's in Reno. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so she would be playing. It'd be like Billy Mays Orchestra, huge orchestra. Yeah, yeah. And big bands. And, you know, I'd stand backstage with Helen O'Connell with a tall glass of vodka. And Helen is maybe five foot. Yeah, I mean, no, she's not five, but like four foot nine. Yeah.

Probably weighs 80 pounds. There's a tall glass of warm Smirnoff. And they'd be playing the overture. Ladies and gentlemen, you know, from Tahoe in, you know, Harrah's in Tahoe.

Miss Hello Collins, just before they play, and she'd point at me. Yeah. And I'd hand her this tall glass and she'd down it. And then she'd walk on stage going, Tangerine does the lady proud.

And it was fantastic. The best. And then I would have to drive them home to the hotel. And Martha wouldn't change out of her dress. She'd be wearing that sequins dress you wear on stage, you know. And she's in the back with my Aunt Rosemary. They're drinking pretty good. And Martha's like, pull over.

I got to take a piss. I'm like, I'm 21. And she literally hikes up her dress and puts one leg out of the backseat of the car. There's peeing on the side of the freeway. And my Aunt Rosemary goes, Georgie, don't turn around. You learned too much about the aging process. But they were fun, man. I had a really interesting introduction into a very different world than I'd grown up.

I'd grown up living across the river in Kentucky, cutting tobacco for a living and shit. So suddenly I got to see, you know, a very interesting, fun, exciting world. That's the, but that part of show business is really the greatest. Like the, cause like what you're saying in relation to the movie and in relation to the way you grew up is like, I noticed that all the time when I'm about to go on stage, when you got to walk through the kitchen to get to the state, like that moment where it's all about backstage. I mean, that is, that's like show business. You get out there, you'd get out there and do your bit. That's your bit. But like,

it's really, it's kind of fascinating that moment between offstage and onstage. It's amazing. Well, I remember, I remember seeing, um, God, this is a long time ago. There was a director, directed South Pacific and films like that, named Josh Logan. Yeah. Really talented guy.

And he's best friends with Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart. They were absolutely best friends from school. Yeah. And they took pictures together every year and in straw hats really funny guys and josh my cousin miguel was married to his daughter harrigan at the time and i was at a thing at the beverly hills hotel and jimmy stewart's going to introduce josh logan and josh is backstage and i'm backstage yeah and josh is and i'm you know like, I don't know, 25 years old and trying to get a job. And, but I was there with my family because Miguel had just married into this family. And Josh is back there and he's very old and in a wheelchair and he's completely checked out.

He's sitting slumped in a wheelchair back behind the curtain, waiting for the curtain to open. And it's just like, you're watching a dead man in a chair. Yeah, sure. You know, and Jimmy comes out and goes, oh, here's my buddy, the greatest director, one of the greatest writers, one of the most talented guys, this is Josh Logan. And boom, he pops up out of the chair. He comes out on stage.

He does like a five-minute great funny routine. Thank you and good night. He goes back and sits down, boom, back to just dead. That's it. I actually have a theory that with the exception of like dick shawn you know that you can't really die if you're on stage right right because you're so jacked you can live forever yeah yeah well it is an eternal moment but you didn't do well like so go back going back to that script so you got this charlie kaufman script of a very odd movie

yeah now did you yeah i mean what do you make of that man did you talk to chuck sure yeah i spent a lot of time now was this a lot a lot of time with chuck barris now was that i know i know i know what chuck thought which is you know he woke up one morning you know he was like just this entertainer guy yeah who was doing like the dating game and shit like that and he was getting along fine make a lot of money having a good time getting laid you know everything for him was like about that yeah and then he did the gong show and he starred in it which he hadn't done in the other ones and suddenly people recognized him and they they put him alongside the words you know the downfall of civilization all right you know right the gong show and he woke up one day and realized he was suddenly a joke.

He was the joke. Yeah. So he would go around to parties and everything saying, well, if you knew what I really did, which is all bullshit, of course. And you can never verify anybody who's actually in the CIA. So he just goes, check it out. Yeah. So he wrote a book about it called The Unauthorized Autobiography, which cracks me up.

And that was it. It was great. And, you know, we wanted to deal with it as if it were true because I think that's funnier. And, you know, he was a really wonderfully sweet man, and I really enjoyed my time with him. He was fun. So the intent was sort of a dip back into your past and this curious story and and charlie kaufman's a genius well i mean think about it this way and i could ask this of you yeah as well you know your career has been many things you know right you've done a lot of different things um yeah and i have not been george

clooney i have not not it might not be as fun as you think but here's the interesting thing about it is um you know you get to a point in your career where you're looking down and you think, well, I don't know what the long game is here. I don't know. Do I want to worry about when I'm 60 years old what some casting director thinks about me as an actor? I wanted other options. And so I knew I'd been writing for a long time. So I wanted to continue writing. And so I knew I'd been writing for a long time, so I wanted to continue writing.

I produced a few things, but I wanted to do it on a more realistic scale, which meant getting in and actually being involved in producing. And I wanted to direct because I just wanted to have some control over my life besides just, oh, he looks a lot older now up close. Oh, so that was a concern. Like, it's not like in 2002 you were like, yeah, I'm really for the roles no no no it wasn't that yeah it was like this is the moment like in 2002 shit's going pretty good for me you know oceans had just come out life was going pretty well yeah and we were able to force the studio uh warner brothers to do films they didn't want to do like Three Kings and um Sirian and films that don't fit into a a studio you know kind of thing so we were really I was in a really good spot Stoderberg and I were and I knew that that this was a time for for me to try to make a move right

he was your production partner at the time yeah he and I were after we did out of sight together in 98 we uh decided that we'd try a partnership for five years and it worked good and we stuck to it yeah it was fun i mean you know we did oceans and we did we did some really interesting films well three kings like i believe for me you you're involved in like a few masterpieces for me yeah i've gotten lucky yeah well i mean i like three kings to me is like one of the one of the best movies of all time it's a really good smart movie it's really smart holds up oh yeah you had a part in pushing that through sure i mean that was a hard film because the studio didn't want to make it really you know yeah they they you know if you look at what the

studio was making at the time what warner brothers was making at the time, and, you know, it wasn't a hit, by the way. But what they were making, they weren't making films. Nobody was taking movies about the, you know, the rise of the Republican Guard taking on, you know, the Shia. But it was a satire. I mean, really, in some ways. It was a comedy. Right. And they probably misunderstood that.

Well, I think I remember at the premiere, there was a lot of hemming and hawing by the studio of how violent it was if it was supposed to be a satire and how, I mean, now you look at the Squid Game and you think, oh, well, none of that matters anymore. But it was a big deal at the time. I got to watch that Squid Game, huh? You know, I just finished it last night watching all of it.

It's interesting. It's actually very disturbing in a lot of ways, really disturbing. It's truly the most violent thing I've ever seen. They're really selling this. I get it. I really get it. I mean, it's really good filmmaking, and it's really good storytelling. I'm not sure it's for everyone.

There's a lot of headshots. There must be 200 headshots, and that's hard to watch, especially after all this shit we've been seeing with the Alec Baldwin stuff. Oh, my God. What a terrible situation did you talk to him no i don't know alec that well i have to say you know i'm watching the news this morning and they're you know they're they've got the bad guy which is going to be the first ad which i'm you know look he may be a dick i don't know the guy at all but um but you know i've been on sets

for 40 years and the person that hands you the gun, the person that is responsible for the gun is either the prop person or the armor period. Yeah. And, uh, you know, and this is one of those things. I was friends with an actor named John Eric Hexum who accidentally pulled a gun up with blank and it put it to his head and died from the concussion. And then I was good friends, really good friends with Brandon Lee. a concussion. And then I was good friends, really good friends with Brandon Lee. And that was a series of stupid things that happened. When I say stupid, I mean, you know, low budget film. I think they were in North Carolina. You know, my cousin Miguel was going to be his best man the next week at their wedding, you know? Miguel Farrar? Is that who that is?

Yeah. Yeah. And Brandon and I played ball and hung out at the Hollywood Y three days a week. We were buddies. And, you know, this was his big break. And the first unit, low budget, probably, I don't remember if the guy was even a union prop guy, sent it down to a second unit, a different group of shooting. And they wanted to use the same gun. So they sent the gun down there. It was the guy's girlfriend that was the prop assistant.

They didn't have dummy bullets. So they made them by taking the gunpowder out and putting the bullet back in. They did a closeup of the cylinder turning with the bullets going around. She takes out the bullets out of the cylinder and one of the shells, one of the bullets had lodged in the barrel of the gun. And then they send it back up the first unit. No one checks the barrel. No one notices that of the six shells, one of them is missing the bullet and hands it to the first unit. They put a full load in it. The actor, which you never do with a full load, points it directly at Brandon and pulls the trigger. And it's like getting shot with a, you know, with a normal bullet and killed him, you know, and, and this one you look at, you say, now we're seeing, so it was dummy bullets. This is the problem, right? Now, every single time I'm handed a gun

on a set, every time they hand me a gun, I look at, I open it. I show it to the person I'm pointing it to. We show it to the crew. Every single take, you hand it back to the armor when you're done. You do it again. And part of it is because of what happened to Brandon. Everyone does it. Everybody knows. And maybe Alec did that. Hopefully, he did do that.

But the problem is dummies are tricky because they look like real bullets. They've got a little tiny hole in the back that somebody's taken all the gunpowder out. back that somebody's taken all the gunpowder out and why for the life of me this low budget film with producers who haven't produced anything wouldn't have hired for the armor someone with experience with that many guns with that many guns and maybe they weren't even using that gun to do target practice but they had live ammo with dummies in her pack and that is insane. It's insane. It's infuriating. And so it comes down to, you know, we need to be better at making sure that the heads of our department are still, like we've just gone through with IATSE, we have to make sure that they're experienced and know what they're doing. Because this is, I've just never, you know, it's just infuriating. I mean,

every time I get handed a six gun, you point it at the ground and you fire six, you squeeze it six times, you know. Oh, you do? It's just insane. Yeah. Always. No, it was just devastating and horrendous. I've been on sets like, you know, obviously not as much, but every time a gun comes, it's

sort of like, everybody stop. Everybody gather round. This is the gun. And the first AD says, okay, they're going to be a half load and you never need a full load in a revolver. Like, everybody stop. Everybody gather round. This is the gun. And the first AD says, okay, they're going to be a half load. And you never need a full load in a revolver. The only reason you need a full load is in a gun that has to recoil. But, again, you know, why are you even – I mean, all of this – first of all, I've never heard the term cold gun. They said, oh, the first AD said cold gun. I've never heard the term cold gun. They said, oh, the first AD said cold gun.

I've never heard that term. Literally, they're just talking about stuff I've never heard of. And you would know. It's just infuriating. It's infuriating that you get to this place where the places that you're skimping on. Now, listen, again, I want to say I don't believe there's any intent by anybody to do anything wrong. It's a terrible accident. But a 24-year-old person shouldn't probably, with that little experience, shouldn't be heading up a department with the guns and bullets on it.

And also, they had the issue where there was a walkout, the conditions were bad, they had scabs or non-union people there. I mean, at the very least, it's going to change some union rules in New Mexico. Well, it should change a lot. But it should also, you know, after Brandon died, it really became a very clear thing of open the gun, look down the barrel, look in the cylinder, make sure. It's harder with dummy bullets, I have to because you can if i if you stuck six dummy bullets in your hand you would think they're real bullets sure you know and guns are you know their guns are creepy i mean you know you got a gun around it's going to be a gun yeah and you don't

need that anymore with a revolver you really don't need it you know it's hard because when you when you're shooting a gun that has to recoil, you need it to not get locked open. But it just really is, you know, it's a series of tragedies, but also a lot of mistakes. A lot of, you know, a lot of stupid mistakes. Yeah. Are you a gun person? I'm not, actually. I'm not a gun person. Did you have to do it at some point to learn how to be a gun person?

Sure. When we did Three Kings, we had to go out and learn how to shoot AK-47s. And we did all of that stuff. And listen, as a kid, I mean, we would go to the Westerns and sit in the – we'd wear the six guns with caps in it. And during the day, my mom would drop us off at the theater. We'd sit there and we'd watch cowboy and Indian movies and pull out the guns and shoot them at the screen. But then Bobby Kennedy was shot, I think 24 days after Martin Luther King

was shot, not long after, you know, all the other tragedies that had happened in that moment. And my dad was doing this variety show. And I went in and got all my toy guns. I was eight. Gave them to my dad and said, I don't want to play with them anymore. And he went on the show and he showed them. I sort of meant I didn't want to play with them right now. He said, my son will never play with toy guns again. And I was like, what? But the truth was that became sort of the go you know, the go-to for me. It seems like a pretty dangerous world, a handgun, you know? Oh, yeah.

Well, that's funny that he decided to make a message out of it. That was his moment. Well, you know, it was a good time to do it. With good night and good luck. Did you have your father in mind with that as well? Yeah, I was, you know, I'd Yeah. I'd been getting beaten up pretty good because I was against the war. Now, of course, it's the popular thing to say, oh yeah, we were against the war. But at the time, they protested a movie premiere that I had and Bill O'Reilly did a half an hour show on why my career was over because I was against America because it was framed as you're either with us or with the enemy.

It wasn't even with us or against us. And so there were only a few of us at that moment that were very vocal. I remember going to a premiere and this acolyte of Bill O'Reilly was on the red carpet. And they said, we saw a picture of your house that has a, a, a peace flag hanging over it. What are you trying to say?

And I said, peace. It's so controversial, you know? So I, I was mad about the, the job that the press was doing. They had all been embedded,

which is a really bad idea, embedded with the, you're supposed to be a neutral observer. I was concerned with the lead up to the war that no one asked any tough questions in journalism. And they all talk about it now and they look back at it as their issues as well. There was very few tough questions asked.

It was, you know, they didn't want to be on the wrong side of history. And so I wrote Good Night and Good Luck because I was looking for another reason, another time in history where we needed the fourth estate when the other three estates, when the executive branch and, you know, when everyone else fails, the judicial branch and legislative branch, when they all fail, you need, when when everyone else fails, the judicial branch and legislative branch, when they all fail, you need the fourth estate to pick it up. So you were always sort of like on this beat. You were always sort of an activist and outspoken about I mean, there's many things now. How old are you, Mark?

Fifty eight. I just turned fifty eight. I just turned 60. So we're about the same age. Same. Yeah. So, you know, here's the thing. If you grew up as a child of the 60s and early 70s and aren't part of some movement, I mean, that was all. It was everything. It was, you know, there was a women's rights. It was the civil rights. It was the anti-Vietnam. civil rights, it was the anti-Vietnam. There was so many versions of things to actually actively be involved in as my parents were that, you know, I was raised on that. It would be, I'd be so embarrassed if I had, if my kids in 20 years or four now, you know, look back at this moment in

time and said, you know, you were okay with this and you didn't stand up and say something. I'd be humiliated by that. Yeah, right, right. Where were you when that happened? Did you just take a paycheck? What did you do? Well, no, I mean, but you've never done that. So there's plenty of evidence that you annoyed all the right people.

Well, honestly, if you can't, again know, again, my father's one mantra, you know, everybody has their thing. Be, you know, treat people like you treat yourself, all that stuff. My dad only had one thing when we were growing up, which was to always challenge anyone in power and always defend anyone without power. And if you do that in life, you win. And, you know, it was unfortunate at times, you know, cause there were plenty of times where you're doing it, but it's, it's no fun and, and you never win those, you know, you just get dumped. But, but it must be great that you're at, you know, in a, in a position now where, you know, you, you are who you are, you have what you have, no one's going to take it

away from you and you have your beliefs and you have the ability to support and actively speak out about things. And it's not going to be a tremendous threat to you other than annoyance. No, but here's the other part of it, because, you know, somewhere along the way, even though I'm an actor, you do have to take yourself out of it and realize that the things that you're working towards on this long arc of history bending towards justice, you know, all the things you're working towards, like the violence in Sudan, which I was very much, you know, have and continue to be deeply involved in. For the most part, we fail. You know, we're failing and we fail and we fail and we fail until we don't. We're failing and we fail and we fail and we fail until we don't. And so the truth of the matter is I've had to look at the idea of failure very differently as not an end, but as a part of the process to getting to success.

Was that a hard thing? Yeah. I mean, it is because you fail in everything you do. And if you don't fail, you're not doing it right. And also with the things that you're active in, failure could mean lives are lost. It can mean that entire histories are changed. But the option is to do nothing and not be involved and not try to fight for those things. And every once in a while, like for instance, been fighting for a long time for all the stuff that went on in Darfur and still fighting in South Sudan.

And now Sudan is again, you know, caught fire in the last few days. But there is some hope. You know, my wife has actually got one of the one of the perpetrators of the genocide, you know, in the docket. And she's going to be, you know, doing her best to, you know, to bring him to justice. Nail him. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, so where I've been pushing and failing, you know, I can see at the other end, there's that tiny bend towards justice.

Well, her perspective must be amazing that, you know be amazing. I mean, you've been with her for a bit now, but I mean, now you can really see the possibility of prosecution and how actual justice can be meted out without it being some sort of vague idea. That's right. Because, you know, I can't freeze people's assets. You know, I have to lobby the Treasury Department to do that against these sort of war criminals who are hiding their money in American and British banks. There's a lot of stuff I can't do, but there's a lot of stuff my wife in the legal department can actually get done. So the advocacy can only go so far and then suddenly it has to be picked up by the people who do the real work.

And my wife is one of them. So you went a long time without kids. I'm still doing it. I got no kids. You got no kids? No, I got no kids. Come on, man. Jump in the water.

It's far. You're going to say that? You're going to say that? Listen, I didn't want to get married. I didn't want to no kids. Come on, man. Jump in the water. It's far. You're going to say that? You're going to say that? Listen, I didn't want to get married. I didn't want to have kids. And then this extraordinary human being walked into my life. And I just, I fell madly in love. And I knew from the minute I met her that everything was going to be different. I didn't know I'd have twins. There's that moment when you go to the doctor and, you know, they pull out this piece of paper, which is a, you know, sonar or something or the kid, it's not sonar, whatever the hell it is.

Right, right, right. Sonogram. Sonogram. And they like, oh, here. And you go, it's a baby boy. And I'm like, baby boy, fantastic. And then they said, and the other one is a girl. And I was like, oh, shit.

Wow, yeah. Her sister has twins twins and i was gobsmacked because i wasn't i was kind of up for one you know oh come on you love it you love it oh i love it now i love and and thank god they have each other during the pandemic they were together yeah yeah it's like kittens you want to have two well you got a lot of cats right two i got two i got two i did a couple of them went so wait so you so you know you had a pretty good run in life yeah uh you know in terms of uh relationships and yes and fun yeah so this was so this was some undeniable feeling it was nothing you'd ever experienced before nothing i've ever experienced before by far i mean you know um yes there was literally the first moment I met her, I thought, well, this is the most extraordinary, you know, smart, brilliant, beautiful woman I'd ever met. And, you know, and then I thought, why can't I find somebody like that?

And then we just met as friends. And then a few months later, I was in London doing the score for a movie. And I brought her over to Abbey Road. She came from a meeting at the Muslim Brotherhood. She was trying to solve a problem there. And I brought her to Abbey Road, where there's a huge 150-piece orchestra. I thought, if you can't impress anybody i thought if you can't impress anybody here then you can't impress anybody the idea of george clooney going why can't i made a nice listen i i went out with a lot of really nice uh sure smart talented people it's just you know

every once in a while there's somebody that's specifically for you and you know and i feel like i'm all and I feel that way. And the kid thing, was it a discussion or did you just like come in? Oh no, it was a discussion because we never discussed it. We didn't discuss getting married. I just dropped it on her and it was like a surprise.

So we'd been married for about a year and we were at a friend's house and they had a kid there, which was loud and obnoxious and i was like oh shit and we went outside for a walk yeah and them all said so and she'd never thought about it really and then she said so we we're awfully lucky in life and i said yeah we are we're lucky we found each other yes and she said it seems like that luck should be shared with some other you know folks yeah and i thought about it for a

i don't know maybe a minute we just up silence the two of us sat there i don't think either of us had made a decision and then i just said well i mean if you're in and she said i i think we should try and so it was a you know it was i have to say it was very emotional because I really was convinced that that wasn't my lot in life and was comfortable with that. Yeah, I'm comfortable with it. Yeah, you should be. And by the way, that's how the world works, right? You got to be. But I have to say, you know, Alexander every morning, 8 in the morning, bangs on my bedroom door, our bedroom door.

Yeah. And I go, who is it? And he goes, it is I, Alexander Clooney. And then I open up the door and he jumps running in. And I laugh out loud, you know. Every time. Yeah. I laugh every day.

That's sweet. And they really are funny kids. And actually, you know, despite whatever anyone thinks or maybe what you even think, is a good time in your life to do it. Well, yeah. I mean, look, I'm again, the hard part is being 60 and just the, the, the sheer like running around of it. But, you know, my mom, you know, my mom had two kids by the time she was 19 and they had no money, you know, my folks were poor. So, um, you know, it was her alone with two kids and my dad going to work every day. And I didn't have any of that. I had a much easier run.

Yeah. And also, it seems like you're making different decisions career-wise. It doesn't seem like you're acting as much. I don't know what you're doing down there. Yeah, yeah. Not as much. You know, it's interesting too, is I'm really aware of a couple of things, which is I'm aware of the danger of celebrity with kids. And I'm aware of the danger of having means with kids, you know, because we didn't, my mom made my clothes for me, you know, and we were, you know, we moved, like my dad said, we moved when the rent was due and we moved a lot. And, uh, and so I was, but I learned to be scrappy because of that. I mean, you can put me in any situation I can survive, you know, and, uh, I could, you know, change a fan belt on the car

or fix a motorcycle. I can, I can survive anything, you know? Yeah. And I have to make sure that that's something that our kids get. You know? That's important to me. Well, yeah. When they get old enough, you leave them out in the desert and you say, good luck. Yeah, just drop them off. Yeah. Give them like two sticks.

A broken car. Leave them a broken car. There was some wood shavings and a flint. But that's it. I mean, I get it. You know? but that's it i mean i i get i i under i get it you know i i mean i but are you one of those people now that that honestly believes like oh dude i i had no idea what an amazing thing that changed my yeah i am i'm i'm every bit i literally i'm so ashamed to admit that i'm the guy that

you're just about to make fun of um I literally am this guy who's like, they come in the room and they have opinions and they're funny and they pull pranks on me. And I just look at him thinking, you know, I couldn't be happier and I couldn't be, you know, more surprised at how happy I am. So yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a very odd thing, I will say. Well, let's talk about, uh, about like like I talk about you more than I should probably. Oh, yeah. Yeah. On the show, because I'm a big I'm a big supporter of of the Clooney thing in the sense that like I believe and I'm sure you're aware of it to a degree that you know you are an old school movie star

in a world where that doesn't really exist anymore that you know you you you kind of have a sort of global presence and a and a sort of celebrity presence that is you know it's almost you've been compared to other people before but I don't, I try to figure it out as an actor because like lately, just whatever your celebrity is, like I watch the movies and I'm like, there's, you're, you're a great actor, but you're essentially Clooney. Like you don't lose the Clooney-ism. Right. Right. I mean, maybe you do a little bit, but, but you know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying too. Some element of being a movie star is that, you know, you are consistently yourself. So, you know you are consistently yourself so you know there's part of you that's always out there and you know obviously you have a tremendous amount

of range serious killing people making people laugh all that and you're a great actor but i mean was this is it a design do you do you manage your your movie stardess no no i don't i you know um it's an interesting thing you know there were when i was a kid and you watched movies there were kind of two ways of going as an actor there was a spencer tracy part where it's spencer tracy's always spencer tracy right and you know and he's loved you know i love spencer tracy and everything he does and then there was this sort of Lawrence Olivier who sort of fell into became these roles and you never really attached to him. You know, yeah, yeah. I think probably where I am in my career is by from my lack of ability in some things, you know, my inability to to to fully meld into other things. to fully meld into other things.

You know, there's... Are you hard on yourself about that? No. I mean, do you think... I mean, as an actor, do you have moments where you're like, why can't I just learn the accent? Well, no, but I do, you know, I try to tend to go where I feel I'm...

Listen, I'm always trying to push. I'm always trying to do stuff that I'm uncomfortable with. Like what? Well... Give me an example of something you were uncomfortable with. Like what? Well, give me an example of something you were uncomfortable with. Well, everything I direct is a complete departure from the last thing I did specifically. Yeah. Then we were just, that's what we were talking

about. Cause you wanted to take the chances. And, and, you know, I'm very lucky because there aren't many actors that are allowed to do drama and comedy. And I've been lucky enough to be allowed to do that. Um, possibly good. Well, possibly because of my lack of massive success at either one of them, it's always been kind of in a, in a good sort of,

uh, singles and doubles, you know? No, that's not, that's not true though. That, I mean,

you're, you're, no, you're being, you're being humble. Yeah. I mean, you're very good at comedy.

And you're good at comedy in a way where you play it straight. I mean, all the Coen brothers. I mean, Hail Caesar is a fucking masterpiece. And you're hilarious. That movie cracked me up. You know, the funny one was O Brother, the first day of shooting O Brother, which is my first film with the Coens. I was nervous because those guys are maestros, you know.

Right, right. And I'd never done anything like that, you know. And so the first day of shooting is a scene with John Goodman and Tim Blake Nelson where I get hit in the head with a branch, you know. And I'm playing, you know, I'm the dumbest guy on earth, you know. And I'm just Everett McGill and I'm playing him like, you know. And I do one take and I don't know how big it should be. I don't know where I'm fitting the Coen world, you know and i'm just everett mcgill and i'm playing him like you know and i do one take and i don't know how big it should be i don't know where i'm fitting the cohen world you know

yeah and then joel comes over he goes oh yeah that's great let's do one more take uh just remember that you're the smartest guy in every room you walk into and that was it that's the only direction basically he gave me and i was like oh fuck of course of course yeah and then everything you do is like well apparently you folks don't understand what you're in you know i'm a damn pattern for me everything becomes simple it's that's called a really good director helping you but yeah so they're you know they have very simple clean clean ways of explaining characters so that it makes it more fun to do, you know, easy to do. So when you look back at the

decisions you've made, well, I mean, as a director, I mean, you know, Leatherheads, I mean, where'd that come from? Well, that was interesting. I really liked the project. It was a project that Soderbergh wanted to do a long time earlier and we sort of tried to figure out a way to make it

work. That was a big swing on my part. I wanted it to be, you know, old fashioned slapstick kind of way out there comedy. Some of it worked, some of it didn't. That's my fault. You know, when we go back to the idea of failing or not, that's the one, you know, there are other ones that people, uh, that haven't been critically as well received as other ones I've done, but I don't care about that. I did what I wanted and I'm happy. I missed, uh, on the few things in Leatherheads and I'm not, I couldn't, I can explain some of the camera work that I did wrong, but I think I also, uh, I was aiming for something that I think i wasn't uh i i think i didn't do a very good job of achieving on that oh there's a lot of stuff i like about john

krasinski's fantastic and renee's great it's just that you know i i think i sort of you know dropped the ball on someone well do but so like now do you like figure do you do you troubleshoot that in your brain and go like this is what happened and this is why? I mean, you can't go backwards that way. No, of course, but I mean moving forward. You do have to look at things realistically. I mean, you have to look at things that are successful and things that aren't and go, okay, why isn't that successful? Sometimes it isn't you, right?

There is some – you are able to pass some blame off going, now this is a time or, because, you know, Out of Sight wasn't a hit. Three Kings wasn't a hit. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou wasn't a hit at first. So there is something about, you know, I remember I saw a review for Oh Brother in Entertainment Weekly where they gave it an F and said it's the worst film of the century. Wow. And you just go, okay, well, then that's just what it's going to be. I saw a review for Midnight Sky where it said tequila salesman still wants to direct. And you go, well, it's got nothing to do with the work.

Wow. So sometimes you just take it and you just go, all right. But you do have to learn from things you're not doing well. So as you move through these, like I thought The Ides of March was a good movie. I enjoyed it. I was really proud of that. Yeah. I was really proud of that. Listen, that's where you got like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti just swinging for the fences. Yeah. And it was a screenplay I was really proud of because I worked really hard on it and put together one scene in particular with Ryan Gosling and myself in a kitchen that I will forever be very proud of because it's a really dark, dark, dark scene.

And I also like the idea that I was going to be able to write speeches that politically I believed in. And the only way I was going to get away with it was by making myself the bad guy you know right you know but it's but it's like great because it's one of those grown-up movies you don't see like smart political dramas anymore no you don't see grown-up movies in general anymore no and uh you know i think that well like okay well i guess we'll have to talk about it so you know michael Clayton is a movie I watch obsessively. It's a good movie. I don't shut up about it.

And I watch it probably five, six times a year. It's a good film. It's a great movie. Yeah. Now, let's talk about going back to this idea of the type of, you know, Spencer Tracy versus Lawrence Olivier. Going back to this idea of the type of Spencer Tracy versus Lawrence Olivier. Now, as a guy who knows who you are and what you do, do you ever get on a set and are intimidated by other actors? Sure.

I'm always intimidated by other actors. But I find that to be exciting. You know, I in australia right now i'm about to work with julia roberts who i've done you know countless things with yeah and i'm always excited to see what she's going to do and how she's going to do it and what her thoughts are on it and a lot of young actors billy lord is in it and she's really exciting and fun to watch and i'm excited by that but you know i've worked with man i've worked with the actors where i've gone on the scene and i think i'm doing a good job and watch them wipe the floor with me and i'm like you know like when like what oh working in michael clayton working with tilda

who's one of my favorite actors in the world and one of my you know she always plays these ice queens right she's the warmest funniest greatest woman you'll ever meet but she's so good in that movie and we have that really fun scene at the end where i'm like you know where should we be in my car and just watching her react and because i'm driving that scene as an actor so i'm doing all the pedaling on this one right i'm riding the bike i'm doing it you know i have the long speech and then when i see the film i'm like it doesn't matter what i do tilda's taking care of everything for us she makes because i'm only as dangerous in that situation as she makes me right because if she was like oh fuck you then everything i say doesn't matter so tilda makes that scene work.

Oh, when she drops to her knees, dude? Oh, yeah. She's great. I mean, she's just great. That movie was tricky to get made again, and we made it on a really low budget. And again, it wasn't massively successful. I think it made about $50 million over a few months.

But it lasts. It holds up. Pollock, man. Pollock. Yeah, yeah, boy. I love it. You know, it's funny. about 50 million dollars over a few months but it but it lasts it holds up you know pollock man pollock yeah yeah boy i love it you know it's funny he finished shooting and then we opened we went to venice with it uh you know so we finished it let's say december or something i don't remember and by venice film festival in september we were headed there and pollock was sick suddenly and i called him and he's, you know, he's a pilot too. And he started describing, he was very sick.

None of us knew how sick he was. And he says, I'm flying over the Lido looking down on, you know, on, you know, St. Mark's. And he's going through all of the ideas of soaring through Venice, you know. And he was dead a few days later. Wow, really? Yeah, he was very sick and surprisingly so, you know. And it was so, I mean, he was really an interesting guy.

And by the way, funnily enough, he was originally the director on Out of Sight. And when they hired me to do the part, he quit because he said, you're not a movie star. That's true. Really? No, listen, we were great friends and we got along great later. And it was very funny. But yeah, he quit.

He goes, no, that guy's a TV star. I'm not doing a movie with him. Oh, my God. That's right. You had to do that whole transition. Oh, yeah. How long did it take for that to land? Well, it took the five years of ER because, you know, people don't really fully remember or understand the size of ER. You know, an hour show at 10 o'clock at night doing 40 million people.

I mean, when there was 150 channels. Yeah. There'll never be anything like that. I mean, Friends was a huge hit. They were on an hour earlier at nine. And we were, for the first couple of years, we were doing five, 10 million more people than them. And at 10 o'clock, it was just a massive. So people weren't going to pay to see me in a film if they could turn on Thursday nights.

So it took, and there was a lot of articles written about how, you know, this wasn't going to ever happen for me and stuff. And but, you know, I just kept working. So every, you know, summer I do a film and I was doing films during while I was shooting the show. And and then the last year of ER, Oh Brother and Perfect Storm came out. And Oh Brother for critical and Perfect Storm because it was a big commercial hit. Sort of planted the flag that he's going to make it. And he's going to be allowed to play in this sandbox. Which was luck again. What kind of – like I recently watched Burn After Reading again.

I have to make myself watch it because I, I like the Coen brothers generally and I, but I found that movie annoying. Every, and I, you know, you, you know, I can see the choices

you make in a good way. Like, like, you know, these are comic characters. Yes. You know, and Pitt loves to eat and drink. I don't know what it is. It is.

He loves to eat. But, for a guy that's built like something Michelangelo carved out of marble, he eats a lot. He's always drinking on that straw. But where do you learn what you do in terms of how you build these guys? I don't know. It's just good scripts. I mean, when I read that script, I actually wanted to play Brad's part because I thought Brad's part was just the funniest part I'd ever read.

And I think Brad just, I think it's one of the funniest things he's ever done. You know. Absolutely. Absolutely one of the funniest. And I get to shoot him in the face, so it's worth it, you know, all along the way. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, honestly, a good script saves you from so many flaws as an actor, as a director.

Good script saves you. And then they kind of, you know, Joel and Ethan were the kind of guys who just cut you loose. You know, they don't rehearse. They just start shooting. It's one or two takes, you know, and then you're in. But they have high expectations, right? They do. But they cast well.

You know, they cast the right people in roles. And then they, you know they they cast well you know they cast the right people in roles and then they you know they leave you alone i mean if you watch uh hail caesar that's some really good casting in there you know oh god it's the greatest movie ever that when people started like i go to the mat for hail caesar yeah i know i like i i yeah i that movie's like the double feature of barton fink and hell caesar would be the shit oh this is like that i agree the history of hollywood man i know josh josh is how great is josh he's a he's always good he's a really good friend of mine and like we send stuff that to each other over text messages that no human being should see like the dirtiest filthiest stuff yeah and he just absolutely makes me he's you know he and like sasha baron cone are the two funniest individuals in like

real life that i know sure he just kills me and it was so much fun to do a scene where he's slapping me in my face he just kills me the sort of act the indulgence of that guy the actor you know of him trying to figure out communism was it's hilarious man well have you i mean you've been around some of the old old some of the old movie stars have never had to face anything never had to face any of the the real world so the ability the narcissism that just sort of emanates from it's just like sure oh yeah you know oh so the communists are i get it yeah i just i i loved every every bit of that so i guess we should talk about the the the new movie a little bit the tender bar now like this is not like any of the other movies you directed. No. But this is like really a coming of age, right in passage.

You know, it's about a kid, you know, kind of. It's a sweet movie. You know, I tell you, first of all, it was a good script. Bill Moynihan wrote the screenplay. And I read it and I liked it. And they'd send it to me to direct. And I liked it. And I had just come out and finished doing Midnight Sky, which is the end end of the earth and i kind of felt that way at that period of time and you know i started when i

read the script i was like i need something i need to do something that's there's some joy in it that there's some gentleness and some you know um it's not so dark and uh and there there was a really good feeling to this and then i sent it to ben he's got a good ear you know ben we've talked about films over the years how's he doing he's doing great i mean you know he's such a he's in such a great place in his life and was on the set he was the first guy on the set he knew everybody's lines and but you know when i sent it to him he really got it and said i know what this is and i know who this guy is and he really was excited about it and i thought well you know who better to play this part and uh and he really showed up

in a way that um i was very i was very happy for him too because you know it's you get to a place in your career and sometimes you um you know you you can out you can overthink your your roles you know and you can go unless i'm the lead lead of the movie then i'm not going to do it as opposed to being the best part in the movie you know right and he got it there was a line in the movie that like that that sparked something you know in my brain but i can't remember what it. There was a line in the movie that like that, that sparked something, you know, in my brain, but I can't remember what it was. It was about the,

it was about the girlfriend when he realized, like he didn't, I can't remember what it was, why he didn't understood why she, why she liked him. There's also a line in the movie that I love, which is Ben says at the end, when Ty says to him,

you know, Ben says, you got to get a job. And he goes, yeah, I don't know what that, that is yet. And he goes, it's America, pick something.

And I always liked that because that's a real American, you know, point of view. I liked the whole kind of philosophy, cool uncle guy. It was, he said, she gives me hope. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that really sparked me into this whole, it kind of like it reconfigured, like dealing with grief. Yeah.

You know, you're constantly, it doesn't really go away, but it shifts and you start, you know, you kind of deconstruct it. You do. It happens. You don't even realize it's happening. Right. And that was one of those interesting kind of sad moments where that line had nothing to do with grief, but it was like oh my god

so let me ask you this then so um because you had to deal with it is does it eased does it get is there a is it lighten up or is it just there's moments yeah you know it it sure it does you know and the saddest part about it was you know we we had just really sort of begun whatever it was we were going to be. And she made some big changes in her life. And then the pandemic hit. And what I don't think I've dealt with is the anger because there's nothing you can do with it. When you're going through it, all you can really be is like, I'm not the victim. She was. And this happens and it's horrible. And hopefully it'll get easier and her memory will be a blessing. But last night I was like,

sort of like, you know what? I'm furious. Yeah. You know, and, and, and there's, what do you do with that? Right. There's nowhere to aim that. No, you really can't. There's no, there's no lesson to be learned, right? There's no like, Oh, I shouldn't love. I shouldn't, you know, sacrifice. I do go to that one. I do go to that one. You can't. Because. We'll see.

Don't challenge me, George. Well, but that's not the lesson to learn. Because the real lesson to learn is that, you know, all of these journeys that we're on are really short. They're really short. And it's whether it's super short and cut short or not, you know, my dad is 87 and my mom's 83 and they're still, you know, getting around and sparking, but they're, he's pissed off at being 87. He's like, he's mad because it's like, because as William Holden said in network, the, the end is closer than the beginning with definable features.

It's frustrating for him and he's mad about it. Not in the way that it harms you, but he's funny. But this journey is short, man. And so it's all about making sure that we... I had this conversation with Amal the other day because I turned 60. And I said, look, we have to rethink how we're doing our lives because we're working a lot both of us she's working a tremendous amount as well and i just said uh it doesn't mean we don't do our job because you gotta do a job if you don't have a job sure you're dead yeah right we also have to make

sure that we're spending less time behind a computer or going on locations so that we can know that, I said, 60 is a number, but I said, I've done all the physicals, knock on wood, I'm in good shape, I feel healthy, but 60, you can kind of beat the devil a little bit. 80, you can't. And that's 20 years from now. And 20 years happens in a flash and faster as you get older. So you have like that conversation.

And I imagine that informs all the choices you're making in your life. It does. It does. And so what you do is you look at it going, okay, well, I've sort of committed to a certain amount of work that I'm going to do, making sure that I'm going to do that because it's a commitment and it's the right thing to do. And she in the exact same place. And then it's going to take about a year, we figure. And then it doesn't mean she's going to stop taking the cases that she wants. year and then it doesn't mean she's going to stop taking the cases that she wants it just means she's not going to take six you know and i'm not going to do four jobs a year i'm going to do one and we're going to spend time with our kids and we're going to travel again and we're going to do

you know because i really do believe we're you know uh you know we have a house with a lake with a rope swing you know i could still do the rope swing at 60 i'm not sure about 80 you know we have a house with a lake with a rope swing you know i could still do the rope swing at 60 i'm not sure about 80 you know i might shit myself when i grab the rope you never know so i do feel like we have to we have to really attack this and i think this is where some of your anger might be placed is in a good way which is to go well then i'm going to make sure that if you've been given the gift of a longer version of this, that you're going to attack it, you know? Yeah. I think that's good advice, you know, and I appreciate it. I think that's correct. And I have been doing

more, George. I've been doing things that I always wanted to do that I never did before. And I'm trying to spend time with people that I like and not mentally ill people that drain me. Yeah. Well, that's helpful. It's also been a very draining time because of the pandemic. We're sort of... I mean, I can't imagine to go through all that grief and also to be isolated. It's just... I mean... Well, I mean, the benefit of it was you know i'm doing material on it actually and maybe you'll see it eventually if i do a special but or you come out but uh but it was it was interesting because i didn't have to function right right oh yeah so you know and i you know my brother was around and people i was talking to people every day and I made decisions to live a certain life among certain people, even if it was dangerous, so I wouldn't lose my mind. But the fact that I didn't have to show up for anything really did help me process it.

I have a question for you, too, because I used to play basketball at the Hollywood Y and we played in this league that was all comedians. It was the darkest group of people I've ever seen in my life. I mean, literally, it was just hate all day, sleep all night. It was just hate. I loved them. They were funny. They made me laugh. But is that that darkness? Is that still for you? Is that something that you still deal with is that a well you know what's interesting is like you know the darkness i i mean those guys i remember i used to go to the hollywood wise you do those pickup games at noon or whatever well you know like you know there is an element to us that that that has that darkness but i don't know man i'm telling you one thing that's happening with me is that when you deal with when you deal with what i dealt with your sense of life becomes different and also the darkness

you start to realize like this is life yeah right yeah yeah so like i'm not saying that life is dark but there's a way to approach the things that people think are dark and horrible in a way that you know is is relatable and and so there there's something about that darkness is if you handle it correctly it's dark because no one talks about well that's right and also for instance every great movie every great love story ends in tragedy right somebody dies yes i was great friends with uh with gregory peck and his wife veron them. I loved going to their house. They had these beautiful parties. They were a loving, incredible couple. And then Greg died. And I went to Veronique's house and she was a shell of herself. She wasn't the same person. And she died not long after that, but I out from a lonely heart more than anything yeah and you go this love story that was so amazing ends in track you know they all do so sure i think what you're saying is so rather than shy away from it admit it and then say well let's live our lives to make

sure we get everything out of it that's right because she was like that and you know and and you know it's it's it's the most important thing, and I think maybe you can relate to it, but I don't think, it doesn't strike me that there's anyone out in the world saying, you know, fuck Clooney, he's an asshole. Oh, there is a lot, sure. There's a lot.

You wouldn't be succeeding if you didn't get death threats and shit. You know, I mean, come on. But I'm not talking about like right-wing weirdos. I'm talking about your peers. You know, I mean, come on. Well, yeah, but I'm not talking about like right wing weirdos. I'm talking about your peers. You know, you're a respected nice guy or whatever. But my my point is, like, I just don't want to whatever I was given with with her, whatever. Right.

Well, whatever she gave me in the time I spent with her, I want to hold on to that because that was growth. Right. Right. It wasn't it wasn't about like her being here or there, like something opened up in me and that was growth. Right. So I don't want to slip back into pre-Lynne Mark and not acknowledge whatever she gave me, you know, in terms of moving through the rest of my life. I think it's, I mean, honestly, that's the gift, right?

That's the part of life. The only way it doesn't work is if you sort of deny it and force it out. The only way. Right, right. Or feel sorry for yourself or whatever. You know, I'm pushing, man. I'm out doing comedy every night. I'm now the angry, brokenhearted guy who actually needs love

and is doing comedy that way. Well, that works. Which is not a bad place to be. No, angry is always funny. Yeah, if you're not taking it out on people. Exactly. You know, my anger is like, I don't know, it's a little different. You know, you're better off with a – sad anger is better.

It is better. Anger, anger. Yeah. But you have a lot of great friends. It seems like, you know, that you've kept up with for years. Sure. Yeah, the same guys. Friends you have a lot of great friends. It seems like you've kept up with you for years. Yeah, the same guys. Friends are important. Same guys for 40 years.

I met them all almost at the same time. Grant, we're quarantining together. We were co-producers on I don't know how many things. You loaned me $100 to get headshots in 1982. done you loan me 100 bucks to get headshots in 1982 you know um we you know and his brother and all my other buddies we've been friends since the day we met and it's helpful i'll tell you yeah it's helpful to have these people that you love and also know you know like you know when things are going good everybody tells you how great you are you know right and and your friends will say will tell you how not great you are which is always good yeah and then when things are going bad and everybody tells you how bad you are your friends are also there to tell you you're not that

bad and that's and that's what you need you do you need people that if you have to call them every day you call them every day and that they don't rely on you for their um their substance you know yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah well it's great talking to you man and it's really good to talk to you and uh and uh good luck with this this journey thank you sir um and i hope you i hope you do this comedy special soon because i'd like to see it well i'm working on it on it. I'm going to premiere it. I'm going to be at Town Hall in New York City for the festival in November and then we'll find, you'll figure out if there's somebody who wants to do it.

I'll probably land it somewhere. Great. Good luck with the movie. Thanks, brother. Alright, talk to you soon. George Clooney. What a charming nice fella. Am I right? Doesn't take much to charm me, does it? Yes, what a charming, nice fella. Am I right? Doesn't take much to charm me, does it? Yes, it does, actually.

But I think he was genuine and authentic and a nice guy. Maybe we'll have dinner someday. Maybe. Come on, he knows me. He knew me from the thing. He listens to my thing. Why can't I have dinner with George Clooney? Are you going to stop me from having dinner with George Clooney? Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lose your mind. Boomer lives!

Monkey! Lafonda! Cat angels everywhere. It's winter, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those.

Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region.

See app for details. Discover the timeless elegance of Cozy, where furniture meets innovation. Designed in Canada, the Sofa Collections are not just elegant, they're modular, designed to adapt and evolve with your life. Reconfigure them anytime for a fresh look or a new space.

Experience the cozy difference with furniture that grows with you, delivered to your door quickly and for free. Assembly is a breeze, setting you up for years of comfort and style. Don't break the bank. Cozy's Direct2 model ensures that quality and value go hand in hand. Transform your living space today with Cozy. Visit cozy.ca, that's C-O-Z-E-Y, and start customizing your furniture.