George Clooney: "I wasn't interested in being a father until I met Amal."

George Clooney sneaks out to smoke. "I do it so the kids don't see me," he says. The actor is considering switching from tobacco to herbal cigarettes when he makes his Broadway debut soon, in a stage adaptation of the 2005 film. Good night and good luckHe claims it's a nasty habit and that, of his Kentucky clan, "eight uncles and aunts died of lung cancer." "My father was the only one who didn't smoke, and he's 91," he adds.

Clooney, dressed in a black shirt and navy pants, sits on a pink sofa at Casa Cipriani, a hotel in lower Manhattan. He stays for five hours, until the sun sets, without bothering to eat, check his phone, or speak to his bodyguards. He simply tells fascinating stories about love, Hollywood, and politics, like a modern-day Xahrazad.

Theatrical debut

Unlike the film, where he played the role of the non-smoking Fred Friendly, the producer of CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow, Clooney will play Murrow himself on Broadway, a man who had a habit of smoking three packs a day. Murrow reached out to radio listeners during World War II by broadcasting from London during the bombing raids, and later to early television viewers by interviewing celebrities like John F. Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt. He challenged powerful figures like Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Clooney and his longtime collaborator, Grant Heslov, wrote the film and the play. They had conceived the film as a live production for CBS. "I've always been excited by the risk of not having a network," says Clooney, who also lobbied for a live episode ofEmergencies when he played the dashing doctor Doug Ross to the NBC hit. But after Justin Timberlake ripped Janet Jackson's costume, exposing her breasts during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, CBS executives lost their appetite for the risk-taking of live television. Clooney had to mortgage his house to help finance the black-and-white film, which received six Oscar nominations, including best screenplay.

Clooney had intended to play the role of Murrow, but after reading the script, he told Heslov, "I'm not serious enough." Heslov agreed. "Murrow carried the weight of the world on his shoulders," Heslov says in a telephone interview, "and George wasn't at that point."

Now, two decades later, at 63, Clooney is ready. "I always felt Murrow was sad, and at 40, I couldn't relate to that," he says. Now he has to go back in time and cover his gray hair with black dye. "My wife hates it, because nothing makes you look older than dyeing your hair," he says. "My kids couldn't stop laughing."

Complicated beginnings

Clooney and Heslov started out together as actors in Los Angeles, performing in small theaters. One of these plays was The Biz, directed by Clooney's cousin Miguel Ferrer, which was about actors trying to make it big. Clooney also starred in a play about Sid Vicious called Vicious in 1986, which took him to Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre. He has not performed on stage since.

People might think it's a nepo baby –term used to refer to the children of celebrities who benefit from their parents' connections to boost their careers, but that's not the case with him. On the contrary: his rise was long and hard. When he arrived in Hollywood, he was a chauffeur for his actress and singer aunt Rosemary Clooney and her gang. "They called themselves the mean girls "—he says—"They drank enormous glasses of vodka. They were very tough, mean, and obscene. And when they started singing, they had incredible talent."

When people tell him it seems easy, he replies, "It comes easy because I work hard. Part of the art of doing what we do for a living is that it should look easy."

Nearly four decades later, Heslov and Clooney will take to the stage at the Winter Garden Theatre. Clooney admits that the idea of performing on Broadway is challenging. "I'm terrified," he says. "I'm not kidding! I'll be doing eleven monologues. When you get older, your memory isn't the same. When I was doing Emergencies It was twelve pages of medical dialogue. You'd look at it in the morning and say, "Well, come on, let's go!" Now you're older and you say, "What's wrong with me? Okay, don't have any wine tonight."

Critical of Trump

He says he co-wrote the film as a critique of the majority of the press that took a position before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Clooney criticized George W. Bush for the ill-conceived war, and he was called a traitor for opposing it. "Those were very difficult times," he recalls. The film, he says, "was about the importance of the press, because unchecked government is a problem."

Now, with Donald Trump in Washington, we live in a time where "you take a narrative, you make up your own story, you don't worry about the facts, you don't worry about the repercussions," he says. The actor says the play "is more about the truth, not just the press." "Facts matter," he adds.

Certainly, there are inevitable echoes between McCarthy's Washington and Trump's Washington, a place rife with conspiracy theories, reckless attacks, and punitive measures. "There are no rules that apply anymore," says Clooney. "It's like letting a baby cross the 405 Freeway in the middle of the afternoon."

But he prefers to maintain a positive attitude. "I believe in this whole idea that the arc of history bends toward justice, even though I know it doesn't seem that way right now. I think there are always pendulum swings, and that Trump's first election was the result of eight years with a Black president."

Regarding Trump's 2024 election, he says, "The Biden administration was terrible at explaining that we are a global economy, in which we were actually doing better than all the other G-7 countries. They fell short in telling the story because their messenger wasn't working as well as it could have," he says.

The interpreter, who was once defined by People As "the sexiest man alive," he says he met Trump when he was single. "He was a guy from New York," Clooney explains. "I was at a restaurant and I heard someone say, 'What's that waitress's name?'" Trump even suggested a doctor to Clooney who could help him with an injury he suffered while filming Syriana, the film that earned him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. He adds: "I hope he experiences that Scrooge-like night when he wakes up and there are some Christmas ghosts telling him, 'There are some good things you can do for people.'"

Clooney has been encouraged by some high-ranking Democrats to run for president. Would he ever do so? "No," he answers convincingly enough.

References

In a world with few moral authorities, Clooney harks back not only to Murrow but also to his father, Nick Clooney, a news anchor in Kentucky and later at AMC, who would call people out at dinner if they slighted someone or said something intolerant, then leave the table.

Nick Clooney liked to stand on a chair and recite one of Murrow's speeches about how television was becoming not a tool for information but a toy for distraction, an argument that foreshadowed the internet age. Now tech moguls have replaced social media moguls and control communication—and, to a large extent, emotions—in the United States. Clooney, who lacks social media, said he sees "a lot of cowardice" when tech moguls kowtow to Trump.

Clooney tries to instill his father's values. He fought for years to raise awareness about the conflict and hunger in Darfur. Among other charitable works, he founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice with his wife, Amal, a human rights lawyer, to "bring justice" and help victims of human rights abuses while simultaneously bringing the hammer down on those responsible.

Last June, Clooney and Obama appeared at a Los Angeles fundraiser that raised $28 million for President Joe Biden. At one point, Biden seemed to freeze on stage, and Obama pulled him away. Clooney was speechless. "I watched him for hours a year earlier at the Kennedy Center, and that night I saw someone much less sharp," Clooney says. "I've always liked Joe Biden, and I still like him."

But after Biden's failure in the debate, Clooney wrote a article as a guest for the New York Times in which he urged Biden to step aside. People thought Obama was behind that proposal, but Clooney said it was his idea, and that he had even been urged not to write the article.

Many Democrats were grateful to Clooney because he had said publicly what they were afraid to express privately. Biden, then 81, had promised to be "a bridge," but he stubbornly clung to power. But Biden's cordon sanitaire in the White House and other Democrats were angry with the actor. The article sparked a debate about whether the celebrities should have such prominent roles in a party already perceived as wealthy and out of touch with reality. Biden abdicated his responsibility by hiding his disabilities, Clooney says, and "the media, in many ways, failed."

Trump mocked Clooney on Truth Social, writing, "Clooney should get out of politics and go back to TV. Movies never worked out for him!" In a September interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Clooney joked, in response to Trump's suggestion, "I'll do it if he does."

Family life

Clooney arrived in New York at the end of January with Amal and their 7-year-old twins, Alexander and Ella. They have a home in England and another in Kentucky, near their parents, who just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. But their primary residence is now a farm in France. "Growing up in Kentucky, all I wanted was to get away from a farm, to get away from that life," he says. "Now I'm back in that life. I'm driving a tractor and all these things. It's the best chance to have a normal life."

Although he finds it "difficult" to walk through Central Park, he says he's enjoying the city and being able to take his children to school. "My son's favorite hero is Batman. I say to him, 'Do you know I was Batman?' And he goes, 'Actually, no.' And I say, 'You have no idea how right you are.' If he knew I was that Batman, he wouldn't respect me." Clooney has apologized for his role as a nipple-wearing Batman in the film. Batman and Robin"I was terrible in that role," he told GQ.

They recently went bowling. "I haven't bowled in 30 years," she laughs. "My God, it's amazing! Getting older, thinking you can still do things you love..." Yet her children make her feel younger. "We drive to school, and I make them listen to heavy metal because I like it when they sing. My daughter has fallen in love with tragic songs. She loves it." What was I made for? by Billie Eilish and Without you by Harry Nilsson. But they're happy kids, so I'm very lucky."

Heslov says Clooney has made sure to keep his old friends close by not being surrounded by sycophants, adding that Clooney's twins have had a "profound" effect on him: they've made him feel "more comfortable" and helped him realize that he should "take things in stride."

Clooney is excited about his starring role in Jay Kelly, a new Noah Baumbach film for Netflix, in which he plays a movie star beloved by everyone except his children. And he and Brad Pitt are about to make another Netflix movie.OceansClooney says wryly, "It's like we're all too old to do the jobs we used to do."

He points out that he had a longer career as a leading man because there wasn't a flood of actors clamoring to remove their generation of stars from their thunder. "That gave Brad, me, and some other actors room to keep working," he says. "Some kids have had success recently, like Glen Powell and others, and I say, 'This kid will have a very good career.'"

And what was the transition from glamorous bachelor to husband and father like? "I wasn't very interested in being a father," he says, "but then I met Amal and we fell in love. I have to say, after that, everything just made sense." He met her when she and a friend stopped by his house on Lake Como on their way to the Cannes Film Festival.

Before she arrived, her agent, Bryan Lourd, who knew her, told her, "I guarantee you'll marry her." But he didn't trust Lourd's taste. "Then Amal walked in. My jaw dropped, but I didn't think I had a chance with her because I was 17 years older, and she seemed to have everything I needed."

A few months later, they were both in London—he was composing a film score, and she was negotiating with the Muslim Brotherhood to protect women's rights in Egypt's new constitution—and he invited her to watch him compose. "I thought, 'Well, if you ever want to impress someone, he's with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road.'"

Why doesn't he feel threatened by his wife's success? "I'm proud to be on the same screen as her," he says. "I'm proud to be her husband. I'm proud to be the father of her children."

Clooney is aware of the passage of time. "I had a conversation with Amal when I turned 60," he says. "I said, 'Look, I can still play basketball and all over the court. I can still run. I can still do pretty much everything I did when I was 30. But in 30 years, I'll be 90. That's a real number. My dad just got here. And there are things you can't do,' no matter how many bars you have at 20 or 25 years old to make sure you're doing everything you can.' Not just working, because at the end of life, nobody says, 'I should have worked harder.'"

He becomes more contemplative. "There's something about finding the person you need, especially at a certain age, and from then on, everything is easy."

"We renovated our house," he continues. "Amal said to me, 'I want to paint that wall yellow.' If I were 27 and working in construction, I would have said, 'That's a hideous color.' But the truth is, at 60, you just say, 'Okay.' There are so many things that could cause that don't."

Clooney may not like yellow walls, but he's still radiant. "I hit the jackpot," he says. "Everything worked out. If I walked out onto the street and got hit by a bus tomorrow, it wouldn't be a big deal."