The Clooney Project

Journal Note

2008-05-10T02:45:18Z

It's been quite some time since I opened this journal on George and it certainly has grown in leaps and bounds. So much so I'm afraid I've outgrown the space here at LiveJournal. With over 18,000 pictures it has become difficult to maintain and organize a gallery. I've decided that it's time to close Clooney Project and move on to the next step and create my own site. Unfortunately after some research I discovered that someone had purchased the domain Clooney Project. So Clooney Project will now become Clooney Unlimited. I am still in the process of setting up the site and transfering the posts from CP to CU but the majority is there including all the pictures. I will leave Clooney Project open during the transfer for needed references, any new updates will be made at Clooney Unlimited. I hope that everyone will enjoy the move and join me in my new adventures. I've just posted some great Magazines donated by Reve and added some wonderful candids from the past few days in NY. Here's the link http://www.clooneyunlimited.com/ I hope to see everyone there.

Time scans and New Candids

2008-05-08T02:39:47Z

I've added candids of George and Sarah leaving the hotel in NY 05-06-08

More Pics

Also added Magazines scans from Time: The 100 Most Influential People in the World issue. View them here.

Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute Gala

2008-05-06T02:47:40Z

more pics...

Costume gala draws fitting crowd

NEW YORK — L.A. might have the Oscars, but Manhattan's social event of the season is the annual Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute gala, which draws bold-faced, glammed-up names from both coasts and across the pond. This year's theme? Superheroes, a fitting one given the massive box-office hit that was Iron Man, and the upcoming flicks The Dark Knight, featuring the Caped Crusader, and The Incredible Hulk. Designer Giorgio Armani served as this year's honorary chair, while George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Vogue editor Anna Wintour chaired the benefit extravaganza.

Armani dressed Clooney and Roberts. "He asked me very sweetly if I'd be his date," Roberts, wearing a platinum Giorgio Armani Privé gown, said about the designer, who also outfitted other A-list celebrities, including Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Beyoncé Knowles and John Mayer.

Clooney was taking it all in stride. "I get to have a drink. It's easy for me," he said.

The event wasn't just a fashion show. There's an exhibit involved, "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy," which runs through Sept. 1.

Source: Link

and after .....

The most exclusive one will be Giorgio Armani’s invite-only soiree at Bungalow 8 in celebration of his friend George Clooney’s birthday. The celebrated actor, who turns 47 at midnight tonight, is co-chairing tonight’s Superheroes-themed gala alongside Armani and Julia Roberts.

Happy Birthday George!

Candid: New York 2008-05-04

2008-05-05T16:06:00Z

Sunday May 4 2008. George Clooney and girlfriend Sarah Larson arrive in the Big Apple ahead of Monday night's gala opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Clooney is one of the co-chairs of the event. More Pics

2008-05-12 People 100 Most Beautiful People

2008-05-04T04:00:29Z

I've added scans from this weeks 100 Most Beautiful edition of People. Also included is the page on Sarah Larson (George's current) since most of the article revolved around George. You can see both scans here... Link

New Still from Burn After Reading and Movie Caps

2008-04-29T19:38:13Z

Here's one new and one upgraded still from Burn After Reading which will open this years Venice Film Festival with it's World Premiere on the eve of August 27th. (Source)

Venice, Italy - Burn After Reading, a film by Oscar-winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen, will open the 2008 Venice Film Festival which runs from August 27 to September 6, organizers said Monday.
A world premiere of the film which stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and Richard Jenkins, will be screened on the evening of August 27, the organizers said.

In interviews Joel Coen has described Burn After Reading as a spy- comedy about the US Central Intelligence Agency and the culture of physical fitness in Washington, as well as Internet dating.

The Coen brothers' last film, No Country for Old Men, won four Academy Awards in 2007 including Best Picture.

The Venice Film Festival, the world's oldest cinema competition, was first held in the Italian lagoon city in 1932. This year it marks its 65th edition.

And thanks to Lilalucy I've added some great caps for Intolerable Cruelty and Out of Sight

Candids and Magazines

2008-04-27T07:13:21Z

George was out on the town Friday 04-25-08 in West Hollywood dining at Dan Tan's. Catch the Video at X17.

Mags Updates

Variety Plus
04-23-08

Thanks to Reve we now have scans of the UK Marie Claire May Issue!

More...

And here he is in Studio City out with Grant on Thursday 04-24-08

New Omega Ad

2008-04-25T11:43:21Z

"World's Sexiest Man" George Clooney donned a watchmaking loupe and a white lab coat to play a slightly different role than usual. The acclaimed actor posed for set of photographs that Omega will use for an a "Watchmakers Wanted" campaign to recruit skilled applicants for careers with the watch brand. George Clooney is one of Omega's worldwide brand ambassadors.

The photographs, which depict George Clooney in a moment of intense concentration, were taken by famed photojournalist Greg Williams. In a subsequent interview Clooney commented, “I think that the watchmakers down there felt a little uneasy with my skill. They started off with, ‘Yeah, let’s let George come in and play around’ but after I put three or four of the watches together I think they realized that perhaps they were in for some heavy competition.” (Source)

Darfur, Fan Art, Magazines, Candids and more...

2008-04-20T19:36:47Z

Olympic boycott over Darfur would be 'excessive': George Clooney

MADRID (AFP) — Boycotting the Beijing Olympic Games to try to pressure China into taking action to stop the violence in Sudan's war-torn region of Darfur would be "excessive", said US actor George Clooney in an interview published Saturday in Spain.

"It seems excessive to boycott the Games because China does business in Darfur. It's always more important to keep a line of communication open," the Oscar-winning thespian told the El Pais newspaper.

Clooney, 46, has become a leading advocate for action to end the conflict in Darfur and for more humanitarian aid for the millions caught up in the conflict, after filming a documentary on the ongoing violence there last year.

He set up Not on Our Watch, a humanitarian group that focuses global attention on Darfur and has raised over nine million dollars (five million euros) for the region, with his "Ocean's Thirteen" castmates Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Don Cheadle.

Some Western activists have proposed shunning the Beijing Olympic Games in August in a bid to pressure China, the top arms supplier to Sudan and a major investor, particularly in its oil industry.

The Darfur conflict, which the United Nations says has claimed the lives of about 200,000 people and displaced 2.2 million, has raged since 2003 when rebel groups demanded a greater share of the country's resources.

Arab militias aligned to the government in Khartoum have been accused of horrendous violence against civilians as well as soldiers in quelling the rebellion.

Clooney, who won the Oscar as best supporting actor in 2006 for his role as a CIA agent in the political thriller "Syriana", was named an official UN peace envoy in January.

The star, who owns a villa on Italy's Lake Como, also said in the El Pais interview that he though Europe was more ecologically friendly than the United States.

"What is certain is that there is less consumption (in Europe) than in the United States and people recycle more. Things work in a much more intelligent way," he said.

The actor, who suffered a broken rib in a motorcyle accident in the United States last year, said he tries to do his part to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions when in Italy by always travelling by motorcyle.

Source

Half say celebrities don't aid causes they promote: poll

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fifty-one percent of Americans say celebrities make little or no positive difference to the issues they promote while 45 percent say they have a large or some positive influence, according to a new survey.

Oprah Winfrey was seen as the best champion of causes with 49 percent of those surveyed in the Harris Poll saying she was very effective at raising awareness. The others in the top five were Bono (32 percent), Angelina Jolie (31 percent), Brad Pitt (23 percent) and George Clooney (22 percent).

Harris surveyed 2,513 U.S. adults online between March 11 and 18.

Younger people were more likely than older people to believe celebrities make a positive difference, and Democrats (55 percent) more likely than Republicans (36 percent) to feel the same, Harris said in a statement.

Fifteen percent of those surveyed said they have supported a cause because of what they heard an actor, singer or other celebrity say or do.
Forty-seven percent said it was bad for celebrities to endorse political candidates.

Fan Art:
I've added some great Wallpapers made by some great Clooney Fans!

Walls by Gabylicious (Thanks Gaby for posting these in the CNCP Forum!)

Walls by Deesign

Walls by JohnX

Secrets of the stars
21 April 2008
The Courier-Mail

What GEORGE CLOONEY can't live without
The guys: ``There are seven men. We've all been together for many, many years. We're really close and really supportive of one another.''
Loyalty: ``Probably the one thing I'm most proud of in my life is how hard I've worked at keeping everybody around. It can get tricky because when you start to get famous, people surround you and tell you how great you are.''
Immediacy: ``Anyone who knows me knows I actually live for the moment. I have to make every day count.''
Making work fun: ``I started out in television and I was in shows that didn't allow so much fun or I wasn't in a position where I could do that. I made a decision to have a really good time doing my work. You know, it isn't brain surgery.''
Coffee: ``I live on the stuff.''
Basketball: ``That's my exercise.''
Prenuptial agreements: ``They're very important. I have one with anyone that I go to dinner with.''
Good manners: ``Being polite is important. I hold doors open for people. Not just girls, but people. And when filming of Oceans 12 disturbed my neighbours in Laglio (in northern Italy), I wrote a letter of apology to them.''
Drinking: ``Drinking is imperative. If you lived my life, you'd drink, too.''

Candid Updates:
Added some more pics from George's arrival in Rome (Airport) 2008-04-08

A few words from Clooney's ex Lisa Snowdon
Pulled from the Recent Daily Mail Interview "Lisa Snowdon's life through a lens".

People always ask me what George Clooney was like in bed. It's usually after a few drinks have made them brave. I never tell. We finished three years ago, but I still get asked about it a lot. The media attention when we were together was unbelievable. I'm not sure how I survived it. The hardest thing to deal with was the perception that I was going out with George to further my career. In fact, it did me no favours at all. Work almost totally dried up. People saw me living a new life and thought I wouldn't be interested in modelling again. And TV people didn't know where to place me. They'd see me in Hollywood with George and think, "She's not going to be interested in doing a show for the BBC."

I miss George's castrated pot-bellied pig. Max was really the cutest pet and I got along with him famously. That surprised a few people, because he wasn't keen on women, as it was a woman who castrated him. But I never had any problems with him. When I was staying at George's house in LA, I'd always know it was time to wake up because Max would start squealing, asking to be let in. So I'd go downstairs and give him some fruit for breakfast. Often he'd happily wander around the house. I'd come out of the bathroom and meet him on the landing. A pot-bellied pig might not sound like an ideal pet, but once you get to know them it's just like having a dog around.

Personally speaking George reached out and squeezed me by the arm ...
By Justine Picardie
20 April 2008
The Sunday Telegraph

When the invitation arrived to have dinner with George last week, I was delighted. You see, me and George, we go a long way back. We're the same age - 46 - but I only got to know him in the mid-1990s, when I saw him every week. And though I'm happily married to another man, there have been times in the past, I confess, when I've spent Saturday nights on the sofa ogling George.

As it turned out, dinner wasn't quite as intimate as I'd hoped: it was with 65 others, in a Covent Garden restaurant. George was sitting with his friend Mariella Frostrup, who was hosting the evening with Lucy Yeomans, the editor of Harper's Bazaar, to celebrate the premiere of his latest film, Leatherheads; I was some distance away, on another table, with a good view of the back of his head.

Of course, my relationship with George Clooney has been entirely one-sided since the start. But the thing is, when you've admired someone from afar for so many years - and I've been a fan of Gorgeous George since he was cast as lovable Dr Ross in ER in 1994 - it's difficult not to feel involved in his life. Hence my knowledge of his pot-bellied pig Max, a 300lb playmate who died in 2006, and how George and Max shared a home, and sometimes a bed.

I also know about the ups and downs of his romantic life: the break-up of his marriage to Talia Balsam in 1993; the subsequent involvements with a dizzying array of women (including Renée Zellweger, his co-star in Leatherheads), and the fact that his current girlfriend, Sarah Larson, is a 29-year-old former Las Vegas cocktail waitress.

Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea here, I'm not a stalker; nor am I the only woman who feels weirdly attached to George Clooney. For example, when I happened to tell my dentist about the supper invitation, she was so excited that she promptly gave me a teeth-whitening kit. 'You can't meet George with tea stains on your molars,' she said.

Similarly, a friend of mine who was also at the Harper's dinner confessed to me, sotto voce, that she had spent the previous 48 hours in preparation. 'I've waxed and exfoliated every nook of my body,' she said, and indeed, she was positively glowing, with a look on her face that I hadn't seen since her wedding day.

But as the evening wore on, without any closer contact with George, she and I began to feel a little deflated, even bitter. Thus it was that I found myself brooding over how he hadn't come through for my sister, and if that sounds irrational, then let me explain.

Ruth was an even more devoted fan of ER - in fact, she was the person who introduced me to it in the first place - and like me, she was a journalist, hoping for a Clooney interview at some point in her career. As it happens, she was on the verge of getting one, 10 years ago, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This did not get in the way of Ruth's determination to go through with the interview - 'the Clooney-luvin' Pollyanna inside you just won't give in' she observed of herself at the time - but for one reason or another, George couldn't make it on the day.

When Ruth complained about the no-show, a top-secret boxed set of preview videos arrived, for the forthcoming season of ER. (Not, I hasten to add, from George Himself, but a sympathetic press officer at Channel 4.) Which meant that I spent many hours alongside my sister in the last weeks of her life, watching ER, in order to discover whether or not Dr Ross and Nurse Hathaway would live happily ever after. (They did.)

Anyway, as the dinner was drawing to a close last week, another friend of mine - an actress - decided to take direct action, and led me across the room to where George was standing, getting ready to leave. She introduced me, he shook my hand and said, 'Hi, I'm George.'

'I know,' I said, gracelessly, but I couldn't think straight at the time: I was too rattled by the fact that a) he is smaller in the flesh than he is on screen, with a tan the colour of dark leather, and b) he is nevertheless astonishingly handsome. Fortunately, he took control of the situation, by displaying a technique that he recently described to the New Yorker. When faced with 'the friend of a friend who has become a little dizzy in his presence', Clooney understands that 'your job is to find the best way for those people to hold on to their dignity ... they have to be shown a path back to their normal selves'.

What was the path he showed me? He said, 'I'm thinking of taking out a newspaper ad to say that my film is number one in the Ukraine.' He flashed that white-toothed smile of his, but instead of looking smug - an accusation levelled by some critics - he seemed charmingly

self-deprecating, in his oblique reference to the fact that Leatherheads had had an inauspicious opening weekend at the box office.

I stammered out a reply, saying that I was sure the film was great, and I looked forward to seeing it, and he did that thing successful politicians do. He looked me in the eye, for the duration of our brief encounter, and then reached out, squeezed my arm, and kind of patted me on the back of my neck. 'Good to meet you,' he said. 'You take care ...'

Afterwards, a Hollywood scriptwriter who'd witnessed this exchange remarked, 'George has perfect timing on when to squeeze and pat.'

But me, I'm not cynical; though in the unlikely event another offer comes through to meet Clooney, maybe I'll be the one who doesn't show up. That way, he'll stay sprinkled with fairy-dust whenever I see him shimmering across the silver screen.

Magazines
Thanks to Marta for these great scans

04-23-08 Hola

041608 Semana and 04108 Hola

2008-04-16 OK (SP)

2008-04-09 OK (SP)

2008-03-05 Hola

More Mags
Thanks to Reve for sending us some more wonderful scans.

2008-04-14 Tele Cable Sat

2008-04-00 Studio

2008-04-00 Paris Match

Madame (Fr)

Adverts
Thanks to Marta for sending this Martini Advert

Magazine Updates

2008-04-19T07:50:32Z

Thanks to Reve for sending in these great scans of the May issue of Premiere (Fr)

Thanks to Merlin for these Scans of the April issue of Heat (UK) that she posted in the CNCP Forums.

The Charlie Rose Show 04-11-2008

2008-04-15T04:45:54Z

More from Paris, Magazines and Gallery Updates

2008-04-15T04:04:16Z

Here's George having dinner in Paris on 04-11-08

Additional Candid Updates:

2007-12-00 Galla (Russia)

Thanks and Credit to Merlin for these scans from Apr Issue of Hello (UK)

Added these from the Rome Press Conference / Photocall

Additional public events updated:

2008-03-26 Salisbury NC Leatherheads Press Conference
2008-03-27 Greenville Press Conference

2008-04-11 Paris VIP Room

2008-04-14T06:39:12Z

2008-04-11 Paris Bourget Airport Arrival

2008-04-12T13:12:37Z

Here's George arriving in Paris at the Bourget Airport 04-11-08

Leatherheads in Rome and Paris, Candid Updates, The New Yorker Magazine Scans

2008-04-12T05:00:51Z

Actress Renee Zellweger and actor George Clooney attend the premiere of "Leatherheads" on April 11, 2008 in Paris, France.

More...

Renee Zellweger and George Clooney attend the 'Leatherheads' party hosted by Belstaff at the Eden Hotel on April 10, 2008 in Rome, Italy.

More...

Actors Renee Zellweger (L) and George Clooney (R) attend the 'Leatherheads' premiere at the Warner Cinema Moderno on April 10, 2008 in Rome, Italy.

More...

2008-04-10 Rome , 2008-04-08 London Hotel , 2008-04-08 Rome Airport , 2008-04-09 Rome Autographs , 2008-04-11 Milan also updated 2008-04-08 London Automat

George interviewed with the French TV channel Canal+ show 'Le Grand Journal', April 11, 2008 in Paris

More ...

George appeared as a guest on the Italian talk show 'Che tempo che fa' Milan, Italy - 04-10-08

More ...

I've added scans of The New Yorker 04-14-08

More...

Candids from Rome plus a few online articles

2008-04-10T05:00:13Z

How Clooney avoided a life at the grocery checkout
By GEORGE HADLEY-GARCIA

Genre-hopping
Clooney also likes, for variety's sake and probably with an eye to extending his career longevity, to try his hand at different genres. He admits, "I never wanted people to say there's a George Clooney kind of picture. That would be pretty limiting. Plus, to me, it would mean I wasn't really capable of doing more than one type of picture, that I wasn't an actor of much depth. . . . I like to think I've grown and can do drama, comedy, all sorts of pictures and characters, with surprises ahead for myself and for the audience."

In 2006, the actor won an Academy Award for his supporting role in "Syriana," and was also nominated in the directorial category for a film in which he also starred, "Good Night, and Good Luck," based on the historical characters of broadcaster Edward R. Murrow and political witch-hunter Joseph McCarthy, the Republican senator from Wisconsin in the 1950s.

Now, Clooney stars as the title character in "Michael Clayton," another heavy drama, and one that earned an Academy Award for British supporting actress Tilda Swinton in February.

The actor praises his costar: "If you've seen Tilda in a myriad other movies before this, you know how richly she deserves every award under the sun. She is a chameleon. She can enact anything, and not just from one nationality to another. She can vamp, she can play virtually a male, be androgynous or feminine, she can be heartbreakingly vulnerable, she can play evil — I mean, she does it all. I am in awe of her."

Michael Clayton is a fixer at a law firm, to which he is loyal despite feeling burned-out, having by now engaged in several less-than-noble coverups and public relations exercises to benefit far-from-noble people and corporations. Swinton's character, Karen, works at an agro-chemical company and has desperate need of Clayton's professional services. Clayton, from a family of cops, is questioning his identity and what he does for a living. The film's theme is that professional success, if it involves shady doings, doesn't necessarily translate to lasting happiness.

What drew Clooney to Clayton the character and the movie?

"Tony Gilroy (who also directed) had done a wonderful script, and I thought the story and setting were very contemporary, very relevant. So much of what is wrong and worsening about our society has to do with corporations, and yet we sometimes forget that corporations are made up of people, many of whom are not what I'd define as individuals if their entire reason for being is following the company line, right or wrong. That's similar to the nationalistic position of my country, right or wrong. And look where that led Germany, to name one country. . . . And Michael is coming to realize that it isn't worth it, that what he does is not what he should be doing.

"I like it when a character has been doing — and we mostly all do some of this — what he has to do to get ahead in a very competitive modern business world. But then there comes a time . . . when he takes stock — of himself, his life, . . . and whether he can live with himself and his choices once he's older and looks back. I like turning-point themes, if they're well done. This film is very well done."

It's also interesting that Clooney's latest film, "Leatherheads" (which just opened in the United States), is a complete contrast in genre and tone — and unlike "Michael Clayton," it's directed by George Clooney. The football-themed picture, set in the 1920s, is advertised with the tag line, "If love is a game, who'll make the first pass?" It costars Renee Zellweger and is a "comedy drama romance."

Last Friday, the film made Clooney the center of Hollywood controversy, when showbiz publication Variety revealed that he had given up his voting rights with the Writers Guild of America after his involvement in the film's screenplay was called into question. Clooney maintains that he heavily rewrote the film, which had languished in production for 17 years.

When asked why he chose to work on "Leatherheads," Clooney pauses, before replying, "Several things, really. Renee is a joy, as a person and a costar."

Ever the ladies' man
This brings us to the fact that of the many females with whom Clooney has been romantically linked, none of the longer relationships — not that any of them have been very long, including his distant, not-to-be-discussed marriage — have been with famous women.

"Do you know what a media circus it becomes when it's two celebrities involved, rather than one?" he exclaims before pausing again to let it sink in, possibly thinking of what life is like for a pairing such as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. (Indeed, just last week, Clooney revealed that a comment he'd made to paparazzi a week earlier about being the godfather of Pitt and Jolie's child was just a joke.)

Of course, Clooney is no stranger to Cupid's follies in his films. "I like romance. I like it a lot, in real life and on the screen. And also, I think when it's a period picture, the romance is more believable. I think a movie set today, it's not quite as romantic. I think another era, like the '20s, say, is more credible for romance. Unless you have a very . . . particular contemporary script. But in any case, I liked the era of early football. It was so — to us — kind of naive, and the uniforms and the helmets were kind of goofy. I like working in that time frame. Also, I think Renee really fits that time. We're both pretty fond of retro styles and golden-age movies and period stuff."

Which type of film does Clooney prefer? Is it even fair to ask?
"Well, I like both, and I don't spend a whole lot of time comparing," he says. "But when you're doing a 'Michael Clayton' or 'Syriana,' you have to make sure that you're delivering an entertaining product while you're also making your points credibly, and keeping the integrity of the characters and the situation, without way overdoing it — getting too heavy-handed about it."

Although George is articulate and analytical about his work and the movie business, he's known to be closed-mouthed about his private life. He shares one of the reasons he chose to have a home in Italy (it's "beautiful and romantic, and I find the people quite friendly"); but he won't elaborate on his motorcycle accident last September, ("those things happen"). He's been happy enough to reveal — reportedly against his publicist's advice — that he was mugged at gunpoint by children on a goodwill trip to Sudan; but he keeps tight-lipped on whether he is more serious about current girlfriend Sarah Larson than previous ones (the marriage question usually pops up when Clooney makes the gossip columns). Now well into his 40s, does he want to start a family?

"What I admire is long-lasting and genuine relationships, like my parents'," he says. "In such a situation, two people should be married and do make wonderful parents."

Does he feel that marriage is more difficult in today's less romantic, more harsh world?

"You tell me," he answers without answering.

As for the topic of being an international sex symbol, forget it: "That is one really tired subject," he sighs.

Pigging out on outlandish pets
Clooney is more forthcoming about his late and genuinely lamented pot-bellied pig Max, with whom he lived for many years. Asked whether he will be replacing Max, he responds, "It's not a matter of substitution. Max was unique, really a best friend to me. That was a relationship which lasted until the end, and I honestly believe pigs are very intelligent, special creatures. Max certainly was. I'll always remember him with a smile."

He adds that pigs are catching on as favored pets with several actors, including Hayden Christensen. "He has two pot-bellied pigs. If I remember right, their names are Buddy and Petunia.

"Some pigs like other pigs and need their company. I imagine Petunia and Buddy and Hayden are all quite compatible. But Max was a people person — I mean, a people pig. As far as he was concerned, it was him and me. He would share me with a friend if he had to, but — and this is absolutely true — he did get jealous. Max liked it best when he had me just to himself. Some cats and dogs are that way too, you know."

Might Clooney ever act in and/or direct a movie about a pot-bellied pig? He chuckles fondly. "That is a great idea. If," he emphasizes, "the script is good and it's not just for the sake of presenting a lame, stereotypical story about a pig. It would have to have integrity, or I wouldn't be. . . . I'd be interested, but I wouldn't feel right if it didn't tell the audience something new and special about the animal and at the same time entertain them."

Paper or plastic? For the foreseeable future, George Clooney won't even have to choose between actor or director.

"Michael Clayton" opens 12 April, and is reviewed in The Japan Times tomorrow.

Source and Thanks to Lilalucy for posting this in the CNCP Forum

The Clooney conundrum: handsome hero of Hollywood
Liberal campaigner, ladies' man, and yet still one of the boys. As the actor leaves a trail of swooning women across London, John Walsh asks: how does he do it?

First Bruni, now Clooney. Only a week after France's first lady packed her Christian Dior frocks and flew back to Paris, another sharply dressed foreign glamourpuss descended on London this week, sampled the local cuisine, posed for photographs in front of baying paparazzi, talked politics for hours with Gordon Brown and was snapped with Mrs Brown on the doorstep of No 10.

He is one of the most bankable film stars in the world (Oceans 13 netted him £7m) but his finest role is playing Mr Perfect. He does it well, if not quite to perfection. Ludicrously handsome at 46, with huge, liquid brown eyes, salt-and- pepper hair and pristine teeth, he's commonly accepted as the man most women, of any age, would most like to part from his designer trousers.

He has, it's said, charm to burn, deploying a form of self-deprecating, mildly saucy banter that leaves women prostrate with lust.

His status, somewhere between a screen god and a tribal chief, means he is often photographed surrounded by a harem. On Monday this week, at a Harper's Bazaar dinner at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in London, he was snapped in the company of Elle Macpherson, Thandie Newton, Jemima Khan, Natascha McElhone, Helena Bonham Carter and his old squeeze Mariella Frostrup.

The following night, at the premiere of his new, self-directed film, Leatherheads, in which he co-stars with another former squeeze, Renee Zellweger, he posed with the 10 women auditioning, on the reality TV show I'd Do Anything. If any of the auditionees were reluctant to be in the frame with George, it wasn't obvious. "He's so good looking, up close," enthused a woman who attended the Harper's dinner, "his head is so perfectly formed, his skin so perfectly buffed and polished, his clothes worn with such confidence. I tried to have a conversation with him, but I suddenly realised I was with George Clooney, and a wave of adrenalin shot through my body and I felt completely paralysed".

It's a popular response, though sometimes less breathlessly expressed. At the photo-op in Downing Street, according to reports, Sarah Brown expressed a desire that Mr Clooney should play her husband in a movie, should the occasion arise. "She's not the only woman," remarked the Daily Mirror, "who'd like to swap her hubby for Gorgeous George." On the red carpet in Leicester Square, listening to the girlish cheers and squeaks, Zellweger was asked if she minded being eclipsed by her leading man. No, she said. "That's just the Clooney effect."

What's the secret of the Clooney effect? Is it simply good looks and attentive charm that give him such droit de seigneur over the world's female population? Then what is it about him that attracts millions of straight male admirers? It must be said that he plays a convincing mensch: a liker of male company in the bar or the pizza parlour.

His box office bursting, though critically savaged, movies Oceans 11 and its sequels, are predicated on the idea of male friendship, of loyalty and cameraderie under threat. Many filmgoers emerge from them convinced that the Clooney's private life is a ceaseless round of madcap revels in the company of Brad and Matt and Benicio; Clooney does indeed socialise with A-listers, but insists that his real friends are nine non-famous chaps he linked up with 25 years ago.

Then there's his beloved pet, the late Max, a 300lb pot-bellied Vietnamese pig given to him by Kelly Preston. Clooney often rhapsodised over his porcine buddy, who lived with him for 18 years, sometimes slept on his bed, and whose demise on 1 December, 2006, grieved him, he said, more than the loss of any ex-girlfriend. Who could resist such a cute animal lover? Which woman would not half-enjoy the disconcerting experience of envying a pot-bellied pig?

And, of course, the relationship was handy for deterring people from asking Clooney who had most claim on his heart.

Since his four-year marriage to Talia Balsam broke up in 1993, he has insisted he will never marry again. He is a serial monogamist (currently with Sarah Larson, a former Las Vegas cocktail waitress) whose coded message to women is: you can't be the first, girls, and you won't ever be Mrs Clooney. But you might, just possibly, be the next.

The most important factor, perhaps, in the constituents that make up Mr Perfect, is virtue. Clooney is extraordinarily good at making virtue sexy and vice heroic. His breakout TV role was that of Dr Doug Ross on ER. Ross was a paediatrician (good) and a womaniser (bad) who, in between saving stricken children (good), seduced several women (bad-ish) while holding a candle for his lost love, Nurse Carol Hathaway (good).

In his films, by contrast, he has played many gangsters and robbers: in From Dusk Till Dawn, Out of Sight, O Brother Where Art Thou? Welcome to Collinwood and the three Oceans movies. (He auditioned for the part of the psychopathic Mr Blonde in Reservoir Dogs, but was turned down.)

It could be argued that his career has been built on the dislocation between his heroic good looks and the inconvenient fact that his on-screen character robs banks and shoot people. Perhaps because of that, he has embarked, in recent years, on a series of film projects that deal with political issues – and have real-life villainy extremely clearly in view.

His directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind in 2001, was the jaunty, comic-book story of Chuck Barris, a game-show host (like Clooney's father, Nick) who doubles as a CIA assassin. The CIA, unsure how fictional it was, called it "outrageous" and "ridiculous" and denied that anyone called Chuck Barris had ever worked for them. In Good Night and Good Luck in 2004, he again delved into his father's career, this time as a broadcast journalist in the 1950s, and pitched the lean-jawed Ed Murrow, host of CBS's See It Now against the loathsome, Communist-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy.

More a morality play than an effective drama, it offered a blunt lesson about the media's responsibility in taking on the government. Syriana in 2005 explored the global reach of the oil industry and the corruption attending on the granting of drilling rights. Some critics complained about its anti-American tendency; one wrote "Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film with more conviction".

One could try to write off Clooney's late involvement in political issues as an attempt to seem an homme serieux, rather than just a pointlessly handsome millionaire playboy. But most critics praised Syriana, and the conviction of Clooney's performance brought him his first (and so far only) Oscar, for best supporting actor. When he visited Gordon Brown on Tuesday, as a "messenger of peace" for the United Nations, it was obvious that he was not a Geri Halliwell-style "ambassador" of polite concern.

He has been addressing the Darfur conflict since the summer of 2006, when he visited the region with his father to make a film, Sand and Sorrow, about the refugees' plight. He and his fellow actor Don Cheadle were awarded the Summit Peace Award by a gathering of Nobel peace laureates last December for their efforts. "Don and I stand here before you as failures," said Clooney in his acceptance speech. "The simple truth is that when it comes to the atrocities in Darfur ... those people are not better off now than they were years ago."

In Downing Street, he talked to Mr Brown about the practical need for helicopters to airlift people to safety, and suggested London as a place where rebel leaders could meet. The PM, bowing to the charisma of the man who his wife would like to impersonate him in a film, told the press he was "grateful" for Clooney's "leadership".

"The thing about Clooney," says another of his army of women fans, "is that he's a proper person. He used to be a journalist, like his dad, and he knows what's going on in the outside world. And we know he can write and direct, we know he's the real McCoy. He's a serious person".

Ecce homo. He's handsome, he's charming, he's got skin like this and eyes like that, he makes women faint, but he's also the embodiment of male cameraderie, he loves pets, he drinks, he doesn't want to go into politics ("Run for office?" he once asked. "No. I've slept with too many women, I've done too many drugs, and I've been to too many parties") but he hates repression, oil-hungry fat cats and the CIA. He has portrayed a saintly pediatrician, and a charming vault-robber with equal success, he was once married but now only wants girlfriends, he's a messenger of peace who cares about refugees and tries to persuade world leaders to make a difference to Darfur. It's quite a good-guy rap-sheet.

One looks in vain for a chink in his armour. Here's one. Leatherheads, his new movie, has tanked. It cost Universal $58m, but, despise an aggressive advertising campaign, took only $13.5m on its opening weekend and came second in the charts behind a gambling movie called 21.

Universal bosses are concerned that Leatherheads won't turn a profit. It's a definite blip. But it's unlikely to halt the onward rush of George Clooney's conquest of the world's hearts.

This week, his name is on the lips of many British women, and all over the covers of serious magazines. Major interviews with him can be found in both Esquire and The New Yorker. In the latter, Ian Parker attempts to nail his quality: "Clooney is America's national flirt, a pitchman on talk shows and red carpets who, against the background hum of the world's lust and envy, is lightly ironic, clever and self-deprecating, with furrowed brow and bobbing head, and a gyration in the lower jaw suggesting something being moved around under the tongue."

A masticatory tic of the lower jaw, eh? No wonder he got on well with Gordon Brown

Source

This evening, Gorgeous George caused quite a stir when he left his Roman hotel Hotel de Russie to dine at Bolognese restaurant. Fans and photogs were waiting in droves for a chance to see the star. A few scored autographs and one fan managed to slip Clooney a small Valentine-looking booklet of some sort. 04-09-08

Leatherheads Rome Photocall/Press Conference and Candids

2008-04-09T17:51:15Z

Actors Renee Zellwegger and George Clooney attend the "Leatherheads" photocall at the St. Regis Grand Hotel on April 9, 2008 in Rome, Italy.

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Here's George out and about in London 04/08/08

George stopped off at the Automat Restaurant in London after the Leatherheads Premiere