SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: George Clooney, welcome to 7.30.
GEORGE CLOONEY, ACTOR: Hi, Sarah, how are you?
SARAH FERGUSON: I’m very well, thank you. I want to start by asking about his role that Noah Baumbach has created for you, Jay Kelly. What is it about the role that appealed to you?
GEORGE CLOONEY: Well, I mean, first and foremost, it was the chance to work with Noah before I read the script, and then I saw the script and I thought I was really lucky to be able to play a character that was so self-involved and so filled with qualities that I find very sad – regret, lack of actual love. Things that I think are difficult things for people in life, whether you’re a movie star or not, and I thought it was a really interesting character study.
(Excerpt from movie, Jay Kelly)
SARAH FERGUSON: It seemed to me as a viewer that choosing to play someone who looks like you, sounds a lot like you, but is in some ways a lesser version of you is quite a courageous thing to do. Was that a courageous piece of craft for you?
GEORGE CLOONEY: Well, that’s an interesting thing. My wife’s a human rights lawyer and we deal a lot of the time with people like Maria Ressa, who’s from the Philippines and Nobel Prize winner, or Nadia Murad, who’s survived ISIS, and we’re around courageous people all the time. So courageous is a word that I sort of reserve for things that matter.
Was it interesting and complicated to try to figure out a way to make this guy likeable? I mean, you remember when you’re doing a film like this, a story like this, you have a character that’s flawed, and you have to find a way to make people want to sit through two hours with him.
And so that was complicated, but I would reserve the word courageous for people that I have a great deal more respect for.
SARAH FERGUSON: I salute the answer given the world that we live in. I want to move to Adam Sandler who turns in just an incredible performance.
GEORGE CLOONEY: Isn’t he great?
SARAH FERGUSON: Can you just describe what it is for you to be playing opposite someone who is performing at such a high level as an actor?
GEORGE CLOONEY: Well, I have to say we’ve known each other for about 30 years. Played a lot of basketball together. I knew he was going to be great in the part.
There was just, when you read it, you go, he’s going to knock this out of the park and there’s a confidence he has that you get to when you get to a certain age where you don’t feel like you have to prove you could act anymore.
(Excerpt from movie, Jay Kelly)
And so he’s at this comfortable level as an actor where now he can kind of sit in these characters and not have to prove that he’s able to not just be funny and he breaks your heart in the film. And it was fun to be able to know, even if I’m not looking at him in the scene, to know exactly where he is and what he’s doing.
That was sort of the feeling I think we both had of like, we know we talk on top of each other through the whole film, and that requires confidence because you don’t want to step on people’s lines, but you also want them to blend together.
(Excerpt from movie, Jay Kelly)
So it was just fun to watch him as confident as he was, as comfortable as he was in this role.
SARAH FERGUSON: Just to the incredible train scene travelling through Italy, it’s like a piece of European theatre. I understand it’s work for you but was it as exuberant to make as it looks?
(Excerpt from movie, Jay Kelly)
GEORGE CLOONEY: Look again, it’s work. I mean, you work 12-hour days, of course it’s work, but honestly, I used to cut tobacco for $3 an hour. That was work. This was a joy.
All those actors who were in that train scene, all of them are really super successful in Italy, in England. They’re super successful actors. They were grossly overqualified for the roles they were playing. And we shot that for five weeks because it’s a 50-page scene, and they were gung-ho for it the whole way.
There was no misery of like, I don’t have any lines today, or kind of thing. Everybody was in it. It felt like a gypsy camp of all of us travelling together and doing stuff, and it just felt great. We had a blast, and I have such great respect for all of those actors. We had a great time.
SARAH FERGUSON: It’s certainly how it looked. George Clooney, for this role playing Jay Kelly and everything else that you’ve given us, thank you very much indeed.
GEORGE CLOONEY: Well, thank you. You’re very kind. Thanks.
