George Clooney on his turn to directing: ‘As you get older you need other things’
George Clooney says he has more fun directing than he does acting because he gets to “boss people around”.
The Hollywood star steps behind the camera for his latest project, The Boys In The Boat, a sports movie about an underdog rowing team, thrust into the spotlight of Hitler’s Olympics as they compete for gold.
Pic: Laurie Sparham/2023 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc
Explaining his drive to direct, Clooney told Sky News: “It’s more fun, you have a lot more control. I get to boss [the actors] around and I don’t have to learn how to row. I still like acting. I have fun.”
He then namedrops, as only an A-lister like Clooney can, “I’ve just done a film with Brad [Pitt]. He’s an up and coming actor…”
Starting out as a TV extra in 1978, before going on to semi-regular appearances in sitcom Roseanne and a lead part in the humorously titled Return Of The Killer Tomatoes, his breakout role came in medical drama ER.
For many he will always be Doctor Doug Ross, a role he played from 1994 to 1999.
He’s since gone on to win a plethora of awards – including two Oscars – starring in numerous films as well as successfully segueing into producing and directing.
That’s aside from his political and economic activism, and home life as a father of two alongside his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney.
So, what is it about directing that floats his boat?
Clooney explains: “Directing is a fun thing to do. It’s fun to come in in the morning and it’s fun to write a screenplay and then have somebody build a set that you wrote, it really is.
Pic: Laurie Sparham/2023 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc
‘You can’t just do one thing’
“As you get older, you need to have other things to do. You can’t just do one thing. I’m lucky because I’m 62 and I get to do the stuff I love, and a lot of people don’t get that.
“I’m well aware of it, and I celebrate it because, you know, if I’m not having fun, I think people would be really p*****d off.
“You know, if they look at my life, you go, ‘If you’re not enjoying that, then, you know, then who knows…”
For this latest film, Clooney was tasked with wrangling eight young actors who’d never held an oar before and transforming them into convincing Olympic rowers.
Training consisted of rowing four hours per day, before working out for an extra hour several months before filming began, plus training during the shoot, after wrapping each day.
And Clooney had a rule about who would make it into his cast and crew.
“I only want to work with people that want to be there and like what they do because these are long hours, they are hard. It’s hard to do.
“You know, no one’s here to complain. We’re not complaining. But they are long hours and it’s a lot of work. And so, people have to enjoy what they do, because I really don’t want to be around people that don’t want to come out of their trailer.
“I’m from Kentucky. We try to stay out of doors.”
Pic: Laurie Sparham/2023 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc
‘Short shorts’ nostalgia
British actor Callum Turner, who plays real-life rower Joe Rantz in the movie, tells Sky News working with the superstar director was “a wonderful experience”.
He is sitting next to Clooney at the time, but you get the feeling he really means it.
The 33-year-old credits Clooney with “providing a space for everyone else to have fun”.
And he’s not joking. It turns out Clooney – who Turner describes as “an amazing basketball player” – installed a hoop on set to wind down while not filming, or rowing.
And while Clooney didn’t partake in the rowing itself (he says he didn’t want to give the cast “ammunition” to make fun of him) he did give the shorts a go.
He jokes nostalgically: “I always wear the shorts. I like them. By the way, when I was growing up, we wore shorts like that. It wasn’t even short shorts, they were just called shorts.”
Pic: Laurie Sparham/2023 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc
‘Gorgeous George’
Joel Edgerton, who plays Coach Ulbrickson in the film, dubs Clooney “gorgeous George,” adding, “he’s a beautiful man”.
The Australian star says he looks up to Clooney as both an actor and director.
“It was interesting because he’s directed movies that he’s not front and centre of or not in at all. And this is obviously one of those.
“I always wondered, with the big career that he has, why does he do that? Because he could always just take the money, the bags of gold, and walk away as an actor.”
Edgerton puts it down to Clooney really caring about stories, sports stories in particular.
He goes on: “He really had done his research. And he’s very efficient, he knows what he wants on a kind of craft level.
“And he’s got volumes of stories… And then you realise, ‘Oh, I might be in one of these stories one day – I’d better be a good guy’.
“He’s fun to listen to all day long.”
The Boys In The Boat is in cinemas now.
Taylor Swift has announced she is getting married to her NFL star boyfriend Travis Kelce.
The pop star and Kansas City Chiefs tight end shared the news in a joint post on Instagram, with the caption: “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.”
The announcement was liked more than 1.7 million times just over 30 minutes after it was posted.
Pic: Instagram / @taylorswift
Swift and Kelce started their relationship in July 2023, after the three-time Super Bowl winner said on his podcast New Heights that he tried and failed to meet the singer at her Eras Tour concert in Kansas City.
Rumours grew that the couple were dating after Swift was spotted at a number of Chiefs games. On her seventh time in the stands, she brought her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, along.
Kelce told the Wall Street Journal in November 2023: “There were definitely people she knew that knew who I was, in her corner [who said]: ‘Yo! Did you know he was coming [to the Eras Tour]?’
“I had somebody playing Cupid… She told me exactly what was going on and how I got lucky enough to get her to reach out.”
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From January: Taylor cheers on Travis after Chiefs win
Earlier this month, Swift appeared on Kelce’s podcast, New Heights, and announced her 12th album, titled The Life Of A Showgirl.
Speaking to her now-fiance and his brother Jason Kelce, Swift said it was inspired by the Eras Tour – and also talked about Travis’s attempt at meeting her two years ago.
While she said his plan to give her his number on a friendship bracelet was a “wild, romantic gesture,” she joked he “didn’t do any proper logistical planning” and thought he would be allowed backstage.
“Because he knows the elevator lady, he thought he could talk to her about just getting down to my dressing room,” she added. “That’s how it works in 1973.”
Read more about Taylor Swift:
Swift’s final London show was the ‘best’
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The new album, which will be released on 3 October, marks her first release since she took back control over her entire back catalogue from private equity firm Shamrock Capital.
Sky News culture and entertainment reporter Gemma Peplow said after her globe-trotting tour and a swathe of re-releases over recent years, the new album cemented Swift’s reputation “as the hardest-working star in pop”.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Despite rumours he would retire after losing this year’s Super Bowl, Kelce will play for the Kansas City Chiefs again this season.
He told GQ magazine his on-field performances “slipped a little bit” as he started acting, and added: “I’m just saying that my work ethic is such that I have so much pride in how I do things that I never want the product to tail off, and I feel like these past two years haven’t been to my standard.”
Entertainment
Boy, 16, convicted in Germany over supporting failed terror plot at Taylor Swift concert
A 16-year-old has been convicted in Germany for supporting a foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Austria last year.
The teenager, named Mohammad A, who cannot be fully identified under Germany’s privacy laws, was convicted of preparing a serious act of violence and supporting a terrorist act of violence abroad.
He was handed a suspended 18-month sentence on Tuesday. According to the court, he made a “comprehensive confession” at his trial, which was held behind closed doors because of his age.
German judges found that the defendant, a Syrian national then aged 14, supported the ideology of the Islamic State group at the time.
The court heard he was also in contact via social media with a young man in Austria who planned to attack a Swift concert in Vienna, had sent him a video with bomb-building instructions, and organised contact with an IS member.
All three of Swift’s concerts at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium were cancelled in August last year after a terror plot was uncovered by authorities.
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Swiftie on cancelled Vienna show
Concert organisers had expected up to 65,000 fans inside the stadium at each concert and as many as 30,000 onlookers outside.
Authorities said the main suspect, now 20, planned to target those outside of the stadium and hoped to “kill as many people as possible”.
Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of the directorate of state security and intelligence, added at the time that the suspect was “clearly radicalised in the direction of the Islamic State and thinks it is right to kill infidels”.
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Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Swift later called the decision to cancel her shows in Austria “devastating,” and said: “The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows.
“But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”
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