Page 14 - 20_Bafta Academy_Catherine Zeta-Jones_ok

academy profile
12
“The best part of fame is being able to make films that you want to make.”
Photos above: scenes from Solaris; opposite page l-r: George Clooney in Welcome To Collinwood and behind the camera on Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind
George Clooney has a heavy chest cold and is feeling pretty lousy. But he has two films close to his heart to promote around Europe – the sci- ence fiction drama Solaris and his directorial debut, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind – and he’s not a man to shirk his duties.
After years in film and TV hell, his bedside manner in the small- screen hospital drama ER finally made his name, and he’s consoli- dated that success to achieve genuine movie star status.
Throughout it all, he’s retained a friendly, approachable, one-of- the-guys persona. He promotes his films tirelessly around the world, happily signing autographs and chatting with admirers.
People both inside and out- side the movie business like him. What other actor could have
persuaded busy Ocean’s 11 co- stars Brad Pitt and Matt Damon to fly to Montreal for the day for non-speaking cameos in Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind? They’re seen briefly as contestants on a TV show.
“That was a pure and simple favour,” explains Clooney. “To this day I can’t believe that they showed up for a shot in which we didn’t even stop the camera on them. That’s what great friends they are.”
He doesn’t rest on his movie star looks, as others might, and let the roles come to him. Section Eight, the production company he runs with writer-director Steven Soderbergh, provides work for the pair of them as well as having pro- ducer credits on movies including Far From Heaven and Insomnia.
Despite their business partner- ship and friendship, he still felt obliged to write a letter to Soderbergh putting his name for- ward for the Solaris lead.
“If you’re going to ask for something or propose something to your partner, I write a letter in order not to have him look me in the eye and say, ‘you’re not the right guy for the job’. You want a little buffer zone in case it doesn’t work out. So I wrote a letter say- ing if he thought I could do it, I would do it for free.”
His outlook on work and fame is partly a legacy of his family background, notably his late aunt, the singer Rosemary Clooney. “The only advice I got was not to wake up at 70 years old and think about what you should have tried. Do it, but be willing to fail. If it fails, you’ve given it a shot,” he says.
“The best part of fame is being able to make films that you want to make. Films, like Three Kings and O Brother, Where Art
Thou?, that matter and you think will last longer than the opening weekend. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to have a script like Solaris or Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind which no one is going to make. Then you go, ‘what if I did it, we did it this way, and I did it for free?’ and have them go, ‘okay’.”
His aunt’s version of There’s No Business Like Show Business is heard over the end credits of Confessions. “When I moved out of Kentucky I lived with her for the first year of trying to be an actor. I was a struggling actor living in Beverly Hills, which was strange,” he recalls.
“She taught me a lot about the trappings of fame that she learnt the hard way. She didn’t tell me how to deal with it, you just saw it through her way of life. She was famous and then not famous, and you realise that she didn’t become less of a singer along the way. Things changing have absolutely nothing to do with you. I learnt a lot from her.”
Clooney never set out to make his directing debut on Confessions..., the story of TV pro- ducer Chuck Barris who claimed to be a CIA assassin on the side. Charlie Kaufman’s script had been around at Warner Bros for some time, with directors Curtis
star power
George Clooney tells Steve Pratt how fame has given him filmmaking independence and the courage to fail.