Big shot George Clooney directs
Daniel Ranieri in The Tender Barabout the US journalist JR Moehringer’s
teenage years at his uncle’s bar. It is a
sweet film that tackles the importance
of family at a time we have either seen
far too much or too little of them. Ben
Affleck plays the uncle and Clooney is a
terrific gossip about his friend: he was
worried about filming in a bar, because
Affleck is a recovering alcoholic. He
comments on “handsome” Affleck’s
pigeonholed career. Booze is important
to Clooney. He’s as much an entrepre-
neur as he is an actor — in 2017 he sold
his tequila company for $1 billion.
They’re all great stories, fit for a
memoir like The Tender Bar. If Clooney
wrote one, what would he call it? “I
don’t know,” he says. “But my sister
has a great one. She wants to write ‘My
Brother the Only Child’.”
Clooney was born in Lexington,
Kentucky, in 1961 — brother to Ada and
son of Nina and Nick, the latter a politi-
cal anchorman on American television.
For years Clooney struggled, acting in
junk like Return of the Killer Tomatoes!
before his life changed in 1994, when
he was cast as Dr Doug Ross in ER, ahospital drama that at its peak attracted
48 million US viewers and sold across
the globe — most to see that smoothest
of operators, Clooney.
What does extreme fame give you
and what does it take away? “It’s a
bug light,” he answers. “Those lights
where mosquitoes fly into the zapper?
When you’re a young actor you run to
success, which also includes fame. And
the minute you get there you can getburnt good. Everything gets elevated in
terms of what you can do or say — you
have to learn how to be responsible.
I’m lucky I got famous when I was 33,
not 23. I’d have been shooting crack
into my forehead if I had been 23 and
given money and success.”
“You’re not prepared for it,” he
expands. “You need to have failed a
shitload. If you have you never trust
success. Every day I think, ‘If all hell
broke loose, I have a couple of houses
I paid cash for, I could sell one.’ My
mentality is still that. Failures teach
you everything — you learn nothing
from success.”
Last month Kristen Stewart said she
had made only “five really good films”
out of 45. Has he made five great films
or more in his career? “Well, I’m a lot
older, so I have more I can be proud
of,” he says, grinning, a little put out.
“I worked with Soderbergh for years
and did films with the Coens. But, early
on, I just took any job, so I’m not going
to be held responsible for that shit.
Later, for the most part, I didn’t take
jobs I didn’t think could be good. Bat-
man & Robin was a monumental disas-
ter and I was bad in it, but that was a
lesson. From then on I said it has to be
all about scripts.” Three films shortly
followed — Three Kings, O Brother,
Where Art Thou? and Out of Sight — that
had the critics swooning.
The Tender Bar is largely about the
relationship between sons and fathers.
Clooney remains very close to his dad
— a “great guy” who instilled in his off-
spring the necessity of activism.
Clooney works very closely with the
Democrats and in the push for human
rights in Sudan. His politics tend to end
up in his films. He sees the era in which
The Tender Bar is set — 1973, theClooney’s best film as
director — although last
year’s The Midnight Sky
is also worth a look —
in which the actor pays
homage to his father’s
career as a news man.
Clooney also stars and the
McCarthy era has never
looked so stylish.Yet another Oscar nod for
the one-time Dr Ross
came in this sweet if
sombre film by
Alexander Payne, the
director of Sideways.
Clooney’s Matt is
trying to reconnect
with his daughters
after his wife’s
accident.THE DESCENDANTS (2011) GOOD NIGHT, AND
GOOD LUCK (2005)
ALAMY/WARNER BROS/FOXSEARCHLIGHTThe ER star’s big-screen
breakout came in Steven
Soderbergh’s smart and
sexy thriller as a bank
robber opposite Jennifer
Lopez’s cop. Based on
Elmore Leonard’s novel,
it was the making of
a movie star.OUT OF SIGHT (1998)
6 5
I’m lucky I got famous
when I was 33, not 23.
I’d have been shooting
crack into my forehead
if I had been given
money and success at 23
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28 November 2021 5