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Donate at plannedparenthood.org slash defend. This is Jane Pauley. He's an actor who truly needs no introduction. Sunday morning Seth Doan catches up with George Clooney at the Venice Film Festival. Do you want to look at yourself in?
No, I don't care. It's too old to give a shit anymore. Oh, please. I might wear these anyway, just because I might keep them on. I'm also blonde.
When we sat down, I said, oh, do you want to see how you look in the camera? You said, no, no, I don't care about that. Too old. Too old. Really?
Well, I'm old now. I'm 64.
Well, you don't think about that? You have to let go of that. If you're hanging on to any kind of vanity. At 64 years old, you know you're going to be you know, getting a softer lens and your, you know, all that stuff. You're chasing your tail, man.
It's gonna bite you. I am who I am. I look like what I look like and we'll It'll be all right. There'll be some paparazzi picture where I look like an idiot, and everybody will call me up and go, Jesus, you look like an idiot. And I'm like, I don't care.
I don't care. But there are also the paparazzi photos of you arriving here in Venice where you and all the...
Well, I'm on the arm of the most incredible beauty in the world. But you know people are watching. You've acknowledged you know people. Sure, you know people are watching. But coming to Venice is one of the most joyful things in the world.
We were married here. We love it here. Nothing brings us more joy than just pulling up here in a boat into the Venice Film Festival itself. Just beautiful. There's this most optimistic city.
You know, they built it on water. It's crazy.
So I love being here. I know what people are thinking, but on the other hand, it's just. Yeah, this is us just trying to live our lives and not just I don't want to live my life. Hiding and ducking with a hat over my face. You know, I want to live my life.
You can just go, how you doing? How's it going? Get on with it. aging. Our society seems obsessed with aging.
Yeah, well, it's aging or death. These are two options, right? I'm okay with it. You know, I feel more grounded. Certainly, I'm less.
Angry. I'm also. What do you mean, less angry?
Well, when you're younger, you want to be right about everything. Don't paint that color with wall. You know, Mal and I, you know, famous, everybody gets taken. kicked off when I say, but we don't, we've never had a fight, we've never had an argument. And some of it is because I'm at this point in life where if she wants to paint the wall red.
I don't care. You get to a point in life where you just go, whoa. Why would that be? a discussion and an argument. We have a really Amazing relationship because we're also so supportive of each other that it's like, I don't care.
And so when you I was younger, I don't know that that would have been the case. I think I would have found things to you know, stick my chest out about that, I can go now, it doesn't matter. Don't care. How much does aging factor into the do you see parts changing? I see parts on my body changing.
I didn't mean that, but that fell off. Oh sure, parts have changed. Significantly, but I don't mind that. The guys you want to pattern yourself after. It's like Newman who did it right.
Yeah. decided he was a character actor by the time he did the verdict. was always kind of a character actor, even though he's a leading man. And finding that thing of going, okay, now I'm going to move into this. I'm interested in seeing what the next steps will be for me.
I'm going to keep working, you know, I like it. But I don't have to work all the time now. I want to work, but I don't want to... Fill my life with work. When I turned 60, I'm all and I talked about it and I said, look.
60 years old, I can still play basketball with the boys. I'm still athletic. I said, but in 25 years I'll be 85. And that's a real number. And things change and it doesn't matter how many granola bars you eat, it catches you.
So we have to focus on making sure we work. I work, she works. We also have to focus on spending time with our family. Spending time with the people we love. More time.
Because at the end of your life, you don't go, I wish I worked more. A lot was made of your bachelorhood when you were a bachelor. You said you didn't want to be married, you didn't want to have kids. Never say never.
Well, honestly, the truth is I met this incredible woman. You know, a mall is the most extraordinary human I've ever met. She's Brilliant and stands for things that matter, stands up for things that matter. She's gotten more journalists out of prison than Azerbaijan and Egypt and Myanmar. She is a force for good, and she's also.
beautiful and funny and has the greatest sense of humor. and is the most extraordinary mother.
So I cannot tell you how lucky I feel every day. Not being married to her would have been a Disaster. It must make for some pretty interesting conversations, just the two of you at home. The conversations are interesting and exciting too, you know, because She does a lot of her work from home, and there's a lot of it that I'm not privy to because it's Classified information. And so she'll come in and she'll tell me what she's allowed to tell me about.
And then I try to. probe it out of her and nothing. Listen to the zoom calls through the door kind of thing. I remember there was one day. during COVID, Mamal was doing an interview with English Supreme Court.
about this giant textbook she's written about the right to a free trial. And I'm doing a Zoom call with Howard Stern in the office next door. And I've got Howard like going, so tell me about this. You know, we have very different lives. What are the two of you like as parents?
You'll have to ask our kids in about 10 years when they're. when they're in therapy. Saying that our parents weren't great. We're present, which is fun. I get to drive them to school.
Most of the time, which is fun. Amal is so present and so there, and such a great mom. We have very happy kids. We'll see. Everybody screws it up somewhere along the way, and so we're just trying to do the least of it as we can.
What made you want to do Jay Kelly? Noah came to me with the script. And I wanted to work with NOAA for a lot, since I saw a squid and a whale, I think was the first thing I was aware of. with him. I love him personally, I love his work, and so I was already inclined to do it.
before I read the script. And then I read the script and I thought, well, this is a really fun, very kind of meta-weird film. I mean, we're going to be. tomorrow night sitting in a an Italian festival. Watching a movie about myself sitting in an Italian festival watching a movie about myself.
Do you feel it's a movie about you? No, I don't. No. I don't have the regrets. that he has.
Many of those reasons are because Fame came to me much later in life. I was 33. I'd failed a lot. I'd gone through all those mistakes you make when you first get fame. Like, you know, just.
Dumb things you do. People do dumb things and say dumb things. And fame is a tricky thing for young people because you start to think everything you say is brilliant and you're always right, and everybody around you tells you you're brilliant. And then when things start to go south, as they always do, and you Her careers don't go like that, they go like this, you know.
So, as your career wanes, as it always will, if you believe the first part where you're really brilliant, then you're going to believe the second part, which is you're no good anymore. You were 33 with Dr. Doug Ross, that ER hit. That's what changed things for you. It was a lightning bolt, yeah.
Now, most of your adult life, you have been famous. Yes, since I pointed out that I'm 61, yes, 64. Yes. It's been a long time now.
So doesn't that outweigh getting fame at thirty-three? I think all it did was I was much more prepared for it. As a viewer, there's this kind of mind-bending experience where you're watching the film and you're wondering how much is the character and how much is George Cloudie. Yeah. Did you feel that making it?
I really didn't. You know, uh what I know in life is You can live. And you can get old. with failure. Because failure is an easy thing to accept.
I went out to this, I tried this, it didn't work out. What you can't live with is regret. Jake Kelly is filled with regret. That's his whole thing. He wants to do it again.
He wants to try again. He wants another crack at it. I mean if I get hit by a bus tomorrow I have no regrets. I've certainly made mistakes. I've certainly done some dumb things.
But I took a big bite. at the Apple and I really took big swings along the way. And I feel like I can accept the the results of those things. What are those regrets or those mistakes? I don't know.
I certainly am not going to tell you them. come out everywhere. Nice try. They're just the normal ones that people make about friends or relationships or saying something done when you're young or hurting someone's feelings when you, you know, it wasn't your intent, all those things that people do and regret. How about the fame aspect that is explored in this film?
That must be something that's relevant. Is it exhausting to be a movie story? When he gets on the train, and there's a little bit of that, you know. A rabbit trying to cross the 405. There is a little bit like you're going to set this guy free and the general public.
Do you feel that with you?
Well, it's easier if you can find a controlled. Space. But if you get into a bigger space, it can get to be overwhelming. And so I tend to not. do that so much, like ball games and stuff like that.
Noah Baumbeck and his co-writer Emily Mortimer said they wrote this part with you in mind.
Well, that's a funny thought. They certainly changed some stuff around. You know, they made him from Kentucky, which really. I am from and uh they have some things about it that are Are very real, you know. I have a great relationship with my dad as opposed to this, and And I have a great relationship with my eight-year-old kids, and this guy's got a grown-up.
Kids. He looks back at Uh roads that he didn't take, that he wished he did. And I don't have much of that in my life.
So I feel it's easy to be removed from it. Were there things that felt autobiographical?
Well, I mean, the montage at the end is pretty autobiographical since it's all films that I've done. But I mean there's things that we would laugh about. playing a guy who no one says no to. And that's the case for you?
Well, I designed it so that that's not the case. How do you design that? I pay people. No, I designed it by surrounding myself with the same friends that I met when I was 20 years old. who are still, I talk to him every day.
ten guys. You really talk to them every day?
Well, we're on a thread. We you know, every single day, everybody's on it, we have a conversation. When someone will tell you, well, you're really doing this and you're really great or any of the kind of things that can happen when you're famous, your friends or you know remember you sleeping on their couch and, you know, And you weren't so great. tried to keep on purpose. Yeah, Richard Kind, who's one of my closest friends.
said that I decided you know, early on before I when I said I would never get married and have kids. He said, you know George didn't have a family, so he made one. He built one with his friends. And that's very true. I built this group of.
men that I greatly admire who have all become Really wonderful men in their lives, and have been a great support system for me forever. Richard Kind also was quoted as saying that he didn't. Like to bring new people to dinner at your house because you'll spend all of your time focusing on making sure they're comfortable. Oh, he said that. No, he's a nut.
We just don't let him bring people. That's the that's the rules. In fact, he's not often invited either. Is that true though? Do you go out of your way to Understand that there is this perceived gap between you and others.
I do believe that, well, I was a young guy, I didn't grow up around fame. I mean, my father was a newscaster in Cincinnati, Ohio, but. You know, my aunt was a famous singer, but I'd met her three times. She'd come to visit, I didn't really know her.
So I wasn't really enmeshed in fame.
So when I met someone famous, I was always like, oh my God.
So I know what it's like to. Encounter someone that you've seen on your TV or on your phone or in the movie theater, and how You know, that can take you back. And so I always try to remind people that, honestly, God, this is. by the job that I do and that I'm, you know, that we're all fairly normal. Why is that so important to you?
That's a good question. I don't know. I think because I was raised To try to make sure that not only that you treat everyone equally, but that everyone treats you equally as well. You know, there's a funny thing about that kind of fame. I got famous from television, not from movies.
And television is a very different thing to get famous from. Because the show was so massively successful, you know, literally like 40 million people, in television. They can make you talk or not talk. They can watch you in their underwear. You know, you're in their house, you belong to them.
Movie stars, at least back in the day, I was walking with Gregory Pack, who was a movie star. They're like, Gregory back. Gregory back. And they're like, Gregory back. And I get it.
And then they see me and they're like, y'all! And they come up, they grab you because they know you personally and you've been in their home.
So I've had an unusual run with fame and I'm fine with it. Fame is not the goal. The goal was to be able to do the work and be able to pick and choose the work. And fame is part of it that comes with it.
Now sometimes that's funny. And I think when you're young, you chase some of that. But it's a bug-like, right? You get there and you're like, holy. Crap, this is way too hot.
Is that the way it felt for you? Sure, early. When ER hit, it was overnight and it was fast and it was a lot. We all had to adjust to that. really quickly.
We'll have more from our Sunday morning extended interview. after this break. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin?
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I don't know, you know, I find that actors will talk about process sometimes in these interviews and stuff. And and I always find myself going, I sold insurance door to door and I cut tobacco and I, you know, sold lady shoes. I read that you did caricatures in a mall. I did caricatures in them all. Through all of that stuff, I was like, those are some tougher jobs.
When I hear anybody saying, I went to some place different and deep and it really you know, scared me and stuff like that. I'm kinda like, well, I I think people just want to see you do your job and tell the movie. And that's it's it's my opinion on how Do you not like to talk about the process for those reasons or do you not really have a specific process? That's a good question. Well maybe both.
I don't enjoy talking about the process. I don't enjoy the behind the scenes of movies. Because I think it ruins the magic. I remember they were doing it, I think, with gravity, and gravity is such a beautiful film to see. And then, if you go back and you see, oh, look, they were hanging off a green screen, and it kind of takes the magic away.
I don't enjoy that. But maybe it's also I don't, because I don't have much of a process.
Sometimes your job is to just deliver pizza, right? Not to go, I think the reason I'm delivering pizza is because my parents were alcoholics. It'll make you crazy.
So I find the. Simplest. Uh straight as line and There are a few things that were planted about your character that Made it seem like it was you from Kentucky. Yeah, that for sure. Asked to run for president.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What a fun job that would be. Yeah, there's the one about how I only play myself. What about that one?
Well. I don't know, I've never actually been a a CIA agent or a thief. There's a part of my career that's been a fascinating part of it, which is I have had a tremendous amount of success. But not over the top success, not the you know, multi-billion dollar franchises. You know, the Oceans films were big.
But A lot of his successes were doubles. You know, Michael Clayton. It cost $12 million and we brought in like $90. But it's a great film. But a critically acclaimed film.
If you do those a few times, up in the air, the same thing, the descendant is the same thing, because it hasn't been massively successful, you don't get pigeonholed into Well, you can only do comedy or you can only do drama. And because of it, I've been allowed to do O Brother and Siriana. That's a great sense of fun for me that I'm not stuck in that.
So in some ways, my lack of success. People are going to have a hard time hearing that line.
Well, yeah, but you'll understand it if you compare it to other actors' careers. I don't feel like my career hasn't worked out. I feel like I'm doing fine. But A big part of it as an actor is that I get to do stuff That a lot of actors don't get to do because they got famous doing an action film, so they're an action star. They got famous doing comedy, so they can't do drama.
And I didn't have that kind of those kind of massive successes.
So I'm the beneficiary of hitting doubles instead of, you know. Hitting them out of the park. You're not on social media. Seem to have this desire to keep some things for yourself, but then you can also be very political and. Really stick yourself out there.
Sometimes, yeah. How much of a balanced struggle is that. It's a struggle. I I try to do it when I think. I have Oh.
a responsibility to. Quite asking. My father always told me to you know, challenge people with more power than you. And protect people with less power, and that's your job, and that's the most important thing you can do. I believe in that.
I teach our kids that. One of the things you understand is You can't take on every fight. or it just loses all of its You have to pick things. I worked on trying to solve some help solve some of the problems in Darfur in the early 2000s. failed.
Eight or nine times, but overall fail. You fail more often than you succeed. Why was Darfur that thing? Because no one could get in. I just finished doing like An Oscar campaign for Good Night and Good Luck.
So we were everywhere kissing babies. It's really like running for politics, you know. How you doing? How's it going? How you doing?
and I couldn't get cameras off of me. And I was reading Nicholas Christoph's articles in the New York Times. And they couldn't get a camera in there and there's Hundreds of thousands of people are being killed. I stupidly thought making it louder would make the difference. I thought This idea of never again, this idea that if we knew about it, We do something.
And the truth is that's not necessarily the case. And that was a surprise. For me, but it doesn't mean you don't keep trying, it doesn't mean you keep, you know, we still work there, you know, we're still involved. During the election, you threw yourself into politics with that guest essay, The New York Times. Looking back.
Would you do that again? Yes. We had a chance. I wanted there to be as I wrote in the op-ed. A primary.
Let's battle test this quickly and get it up and going. The mistake with it being Kamala is that she had to run against her own record and It's very hard to do. If the point of running is to say I'm not that person. You know, it's hard to do. And so she was given a very Tough task.
I think it was a mistake, quite honestly. We are where we are. We're going to lose more House seats, they say.
So, you know, I don't know. To not do it would be to say, I'm not going to tell the truth. Did you see Hunter Biden's? Reaction. What did you make of it?
Wow. I could spend A lot of time. debunking. Many of the things he said, because many things he said were just outright lies, you know, if we Obama didn't put me up to it. It wasn't my fundraiser, it was my fundraiser.
All the things. But the reality is I don't think looking backwards like that is helpful to anyone. particularly to him, I don't think it's helpful for the Democratic Party. And so I'm just gonna Wish him well on his ongoing recovery, and I hope he does well, and just leave it at that. I have many personal opinions about it.
But I don't find it to be helpful to have a Public spat with him. On Good Night and Good Luck, you were nominated for a Tony. Yes. Didn't win. How hard was that?
There's a young man named Cola Scola who won. It was very clear he was going to win from the beginning of that season, and I applaud that. I was surprised that I was nominated because there were a lot of big actors that year, you know.
So I was surprised that I got nominated. And I'm proud of the play. The thing that's fun is we broke all the box office records. That's a fun thing to do. Honestly, there's this moment when you say, okay, well, let's do a play, where you think, Well, what happens if nobody comes?
You know people will come to see something that you're doing. No, you don't know that at all. I hadn't done a play in 39 years or something like that. No, you really don't know. And if it gets bad reviews, everybody walks away.
There's a lot of reasons why. It was to me a risk, and so to be nominated was a really lovely thing. It doesn't hurt at all. What pushes you then to take a risk like that at this point in your career? You don't need to.
No, you don't need to, but that's the point. Yeah, I was really good friends with Norman Lear, who died at 101. He was producing two shows for Netflix at 101. You've got to keep challenging yourself and you have to kind of take risks and reinvent and and be willing to fail, which is not a fun thing to do, but an important thing to do. Failure is a A very helpful tool.
I don't enjoy it. At all, but it is a, you don't learn anything from winning. What is it about good night and good luck that is so important to you?
Well, I think it's a fairly interesting thing that all the things that Edward Murrow wrote about in 1954. All right. Probably more relevant today. Why do you care so deeply about this issue of freedom of the press? I can't remember.
I think it was Jefferson, I think, who said, I'd happily take a free press over a free government. How we inform ourselves is. how we move forward as a country. I want our Government to reflect us at our best and to step in when needed, you know, and I. I'm watching a real attack on all the basic institutions.
And I'm saddened by that and I've seen this pendulum swing so many times, you know. People will talk about this being the worst time. in the country for a lot of people, though. And it's bad. There's some things going on.
1968 was pretty rough, too. Every city in the United States was on fire. killed Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy in the Ted Offensive. Vietnam War is still raging. The capital was surrounded by armed guards to protect them.
We've been in tricky situation isn't we've had a civil war. We'll get through it, but I... I am saddened by it and I think that We must protect the institutions. that hold truth to power. I'm Jane Pauley.
Thank you for listening. And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday morning on the free Odyssey app. or wherever you get your podcasts. Starting your own business can be intimidating. Suddenly, you're wearing all the hats.
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