George Clooney: On the Road to the Oscars
By Scott Huver, Hollywood.com Staff
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Friday, February 17, 2006
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival honors George Clooney with its 2006 Modern Master Award |
The usually bucolic, laid-back State Street scene outside Santa Barbara’s historic Arlington Theater was uncharacteristically electric with anticipation as film-loving locals, out-of-towners, industry insiders and throngs of college students from the nearby University of California outpost crowded together hoping for a glimpse of the cinematic superstar arriving to collect the prestigious Modern Master award from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. And honoree George Clooney didn’t disappoint, flashing his trademark grin as he stepped out of his limo and going to work signing autographs and posing for more pictures with the fans than for the professional photographers.
Clooney, who just days earlier made history by receiving best director and best original screenplay nominations for Good Night, and Good Luck and, in an Oscar first, a best supporting actor nomination for a separate film, Syriana, was being honored for his accomplishments in bringing high-quality and high-minded entertainment to the screen.
Before the tribute, Hollywood.com chatted with Clooney and asked the newly minted “hyphenate”–actor-writer-director-producer–if the success of both films had inspired him to work on even more issue-oriented projects. “I've always done that sort of thing,” he said. “Three Kings was topic-oriented. Fail Safe was topic-oriented. I believe in them. I also believe in entertainment. I don't think that it's one or the other, I really don't. I think that you can actually pull them both off, so that's the idea.” Clooney was looking forward to shifting gears for the serious-minded to the lighthearted with another big-screen romp with his celebrity pals: Ocean’s 13 is on the horizon. “It'd be fun–if we could get all those guys together again!”
“Man of the hour, man of the week, man of the year,” is how film critic and historian Leonard Maltin described Clooney, who met the star for the first time to moderate the tribute. “He brought integrity, and I think that people see him as a decent man which he appears to be,” Maltin told Hollywood.com when asked how Clooney hit a chord with audiences this year, “And he's using his clout in a very purposeful way, and I think that's terrific…He's a movie star and that's how he got to do the other [serious] films, but he has to maintain that status and I think that's something he's very aware of.”
Actor Clint Howard–a familiar face in his brother Ron’s films like Cinderella Man and in Santa Barbara to promote his new indie Planet Ibsen–showed up because he goes way back with Clooney. “I did a TV movie with George back in the mid '80's called Sunset Beat that I think he would definitely like to forget about, but every time I see him I don't let him.” Despite his subsequent superstardom, Howard said Clooney’s still very much the same guy he was pre-fame. “Here's a guy who's put himself into a really unique position, and yet he's just a regular guy who likes to hang out and have fun.”
After hitting the awards gala circuit alongside Clooney so frequently lately, Hollywod.com pointed out that as soon as any fete is over he’s always insisting he needs to break away to the bar for a cocktail. We wondered if it was, indeed, a bonus to have an open bar at these kinds of events, to take the edge off all the attention? “I joke about it, but usually I don't have a drink before I go up,” Clooney grinned, “because I'll say something really dumb.”
That didn’t seem likely: sitting down on stage with Maltin in front of a huge audience (that included fellow superstar Sharon Stone) Clooney unleashed his trademark blend of charm, wit, self-deprecation, candor, opinions and insight. Hollywood.com has the highlights:
On his reputation for being a nice guy, and the implication that others of his stature in Hollywood might not be so pleasant:
“I actually don't think that's true. You know famous people. I find that in general they're pretty great. I think they handle interesting situations pretty well, in general. I've run into a couple of schmucks, but hey…You want me to name names, is that it? I'll tell you right now, I don't like Julia Roberts. I don't like her, and I don't think she's pretty. That's just my opinion. Well, that and Brad Pitt. He doesn't like her either [laughs].”
On his two pet projects receiving such acclaim as extraordinary films:
“I figure I have to make up for Batman and Robin. I owe everyone something. Listen, you feel very lucky. The truth of the matter is, most of the time, there are projects that you want to work on, and things you want to get done. Obviously, those are two films that weren't very easy to get made, at the time we were trying to get them made, which was just as the war broke out, and they were asking some tough questions, which wasn't at the time really popular. And they were labeled as unpatriotic. So it was hard to do. Those are films that you want to make, and I feel really lucky that they worked, and that's because of a lot of other people besides me, truly...We sat down and we thought, ‘What's a blockbuster, really? Well, let's do it black and white, let's have David Strathairn star in it, and it'll be about the McCarthy era.’ So that played really well in the room. And Syriana, it was a really tough time to do that film. Good Night was a passion piece, and it was easy to get going, because we had nothing to lose. We felt like, ‘Well we were gonna make it, no matter what.’ If we had to finance it ourselves, we'd do it.”
On his TV roots and early career as a struggling actor:
“When I was playing George Burnett on The Facts of Life, I was trying to make a mullet really important–that's my next film, The Mullet. No, I didn't get to audition for films…I was reading pilots, and reading for three lines for a casting director in a feature film and not getting it. ER changed all of that, in one weekend. In a night really, Thursday night at ten o'clock. If I hadn't gotten Thursday night at ten o'clock with ER, I wouldn't be sitting here…I was on some really bad [shows]. I did a TV series called Sunset Beat, where I played an undercover cop on a Harley during the day, and a rock star at night. I thought I was great in it. But you know, when you're an actor, and you're making any money at all, I mean, you're beating 99 percent of the odds…Ultimately, you take some lumps and you do some really bad things along the way. I don't feel vindicated or like ‘Oh, isn't it great now.’ If I get hit by a bus tonight, I win. Otherwise I'm on Hollywood Squares, you know? I'll be on some reality show eating worms. I'll be in dinner theatre singing all the songs from O Brother Where Art Thou? as if I actually sang them–I didn't sing it. So you know, you win if–it all depends on when you die.”
On keeping perspective on success in Hollywood:
“In a weird way, I had a great break, because my aunt had been extraordinary. Rosemary Clooney was my aunt. And as big a hit as you could be in 1950. By 1957, '58 she was done. It's not like she got less talented. The music changed. And she didn't understand that–she thought ‘Wow, I'm a genius,’ when they told her she was a genius. So when it all went away, she thought it was her. And it hurt her for about 15 years or so, and of course later she had a comeback. And I had the luxury of seeing how little success has to do with you. You know, the best actors I ever saw were in an acting class who never made it out. Some of the best, most interesting things I've ever seen were in tiny little theatres that never saw the light of day. Look, you prepare, you're ready for it, you hope you get a break, but you do need somebody to go, ‘Okay: you, come on…” I was actually lucky that I didn't get famous early. I would've been shooting crack into my forehead if I'd gotten famous then. ‘I'm huge!’ I don't know how kids who are young do it, because I don't think you have no perspective because you actually do think you're brilliant.”
Photo(s) by Adriana M. Barraza- © 2006- Hollywood Media Corp.- All Rights Reserved