‘The whole country has been engaged in hate and anger, and I’ve been part of it’ … George Clooney. Photograph: Magdalena Wosinska/New York Times/Redux/eyevine George Clooney ‘I was offered $35m for one day’s work’: George Clooney on paydays, politics and parenting The Oscar-winner discusses directing the coming-of-age drama The Tender Bar, raising twins in a pandemic and choosing causes over cash

George Clooney is smoother than a cup of one of those Nespresso coffees he has advertised for two decades and for which has earned a highly caffeinated £30m-plus. With that, on top of the tequila company Casamigos, which he co-founded then sold four years ago for a potential $1bn (£780m), the ER juggernaut and – oh yeah! – the hugely successful film career as an actor, director and producer, it seems safe to assume that Clooney could, if he were a bit less cool, start every morning by diving into a pile of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. So, George, I ask, do you ever think: “You know what? I think I have enough money now.”

We meet on the terrace of a hotel in London, to talk about his new film, The Tender Bar, which he directed and which stars Ben Affleck, but it feels more like we are in Beverly Hills in the 50s, with Frank Sinatra and Clark Gable at the next table. Clooney, 60, is a very old-fashioned kind of movie star. He doesn’t really bother with relatability, because he knows there is no point in pretending he is just one of the guys when the reason he didn’t go to Barack Obama’s 60th birthday party this summer was because “we were in Italy” – ie at his villa on Lake Como.

Yet even the star of your film, Ben Affleck, has had his less-than-ideal moments in the spotlight, I say. “Sure, sure,” he says. So how have you avoided any real public embarrassments? “I was 33, 34 when ER took off, so I was older, right? Also, Rosemary was a huge singer – huge! And then rock’n’roll came and she lost her career. And she didn’t get it, because at 21 she thought she was the real deal and by 26 it was gone. So, I’m lucky enough to understand how little the fame side has to do with me.”

I suspect that parenthood and the soft emotions it inspires is partly what drew him to direct The Tender Bar. Unlike so many of his other movies – such as The Ides of March and, my favourite of all his films, Good Night, and Good Luck, both of which he produced, directed and starred in – there are no prickly political overtones here. It is a straight‑down-the‑line coming-of-age story about a young boy, JR (Daniel Ranieri and then Tye Sheridan), whose single mother (Lily Rabe) and irascible uncle (Affleck) help him to get ahead in life. It is well acted, especially by Affleck, even if, at times, it veers close to soft-focus Wonder Years territory.

He has always “liked a good fight”, he says with relish, although he is very aware of the eye-rolling sparked by actors getting involved in politics; he can quote how TV hosts such as Bill O’Reilly and Bill Maher have mocked him. “But I would be so ashamed if, for instance, in this last Trump regime, I hadn’t been on the record of being against some of the horrible things he’d done. My kids would be like: ‘So, they were putting kids in cages and you didn’t say anything?’ The blowback is nowhere near as bad as the shame I’d feel.”

“That has not gone unnoticed by me. The pressures on a son of a famous man are a lot. But I have an advantage, which is that I’m considerably older, so the competitive juices will be different. I’ll be 75 when my son will be in any way compared to me, so it won’t be the same vibe. Also, it is very important to Amal and me that they grow up knowing that their own path is the only way, and they have nothing to live up to but their own expectations.”

Rich, handsome, successful, smart: I don’t know if Clooney is the perfect man, but he is certainly the perfect interviewee. He is excellent at selling himself, which isn’t to say he is inauthentic – on the contrary. But a man can be genuine and hyperaware of what people want from him. His answers to my questions – neither too rambling nor too terse – reveal just enough to gratify me, but not too much to embarrass him. He is deft at getting ahead of criticisms before they are brought up. When I bring up his advertising deals, he neatly segues into talking about how proud he is to work with Nespresso, adding that whenever people have pointed out problems with the company, they fix them, thereby heading off questions about last year’s report of child labour in the company’s supply chain before I can ask them. “It’s fun to be able to [change] things like that,” he smiles.

Source: The Guardian

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