It finally happened: George Clooney appeared on Reddit yesterday to have an AMA chat to promote his latest film, Monuments Men. Considering that some of the users’ comments were, “Son of a bitch. Did I just fall in love with George Clooney?” and “That was a lot deeper than I was expecting,” it’s safe to say that Clooney succeeded in charming the Reddit crowd with his thoughtfulness and humor. Here are the best bits from Clooney’s revelations, including Brad Pitt’s prank on him, the nipples on the batsuit, and his “lonely eyes.”
On how he ended up starring in From Dusk Til Dawn:
Quentin [Tarantino] directed an episode of ER and Rob [Rodriguez] and he were working on this project at the time and Quentin came over and said ‘You wanna come in and meet on this project?’ Yeah, are you kidding? I’d get to work with Juliette Lewis and Harvey Keitel and Rob and Salma [Hayek] and Quentin. I was playing a pediatrician on a hospital show and all of a sudden I get to murder people? I thought that was pretty great. I got to spend 8 weeks or so in the Titty Twister, what was the downside?
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Best prank played on him on a movie set:
It was Brad [Pitt], we were shooting Oceans 12 in my hometown in Lake Como and he had a flier sent around saying George only wants to be called by his character’s name Danny Ocean, don’t look him in the eyes, and it got into the local paper. As you know, jokes don’t translate at all, and they called me il divo, and said that I was treating the crew like shit. When it got into the paper I came downstairs and Brad had the paper in his hand, and I said “You’re mine from here on out.”
Brad just said, “Please don’t harm my children.” Yeah, he’s done some pretty rotten things.
On how he helped found the organization Satellite Sentinel project, which leverages satellite imagery to document evidence of crimes against humanity:
I was putting time in the Sudan, with all the conflict in Sudan, and now as they work through trying to make the newest country in the world work, I became very involved with John Pendergast. We were sitting in the desert on a satellite phone and someone was talking about what to wear to the Oscars, and I was sitting among people dying in the desert. It made me wonder how come you can google earth my home but not set up satellites to monitor what is happening here? And John said let’s make it happen. Basically we fund ourselves and we are able to track the true movements and see a lot of the atrocities in real time. We will have images up in a few days, in the hope to try to slow down or make it prohibitive. We’ll give them to the Hague and the images will be used against them. We’ve already given tons of actual atrocities, true movements, bombs being dropped on villages but they would claim it was tribal infighting when of course no tribe has these weapons.
On the movie role he’s most embarrassed about:
I wasn’t thrilled with the nipples on the batsuit. You know that’s not something you really think about when you’re putting it on. You figure all batsuits have nipples and then you realize yours was really the first. Batman was just constantly cold I guess.
On whether he regrets playing Batman:
It’s a funny thing, you’ve got to remember that when you’re doing a movie, a lot of times you’re spending 4 or 5 months on set and sometimes you’re making really good friends and sometimes not. Some of the best films have been the least fun experiences and some of the worst, I’ve made lifelong friends out of it. It’s the kind of thing where the memory of the film is very different than how it was reviewed, because it’s months out of your life and you end up making close friends or having great experience on films that don’t necessarily work. And that’s a tricky thing to come to terms with.
On why he has such lonely eyes:
I actually have only one lonely eye. The other eye’s got nothin’ but friends.
On his hobby:
I’m a cobbler, I like to make shoes.
On his cobbling skills compared to Daniel Day-Lewis’:
Let me just tell you this. When Daniel Day-Lewis was spending all his time playing Lincoln, I was just fixing shoes. He’s spending all the time focused on the hat, and the pipe, and getting into character, and I remained focused—with the overalls and the hammer.
On why he made Monuments Men:
Grant [Heslov, co-writer] and I finished shooting The Ides of March and looked back at the films we’d been doing, and it was nothing but cynical films. We’re really not cynical people, so we thought we should do one with a positive view of the world. Grant had read the book and said maybe this is a film. We took it to Sony and they loved the idea. It was less about art in what we were looking for and more about looking for a new interesting story. I didn’t know the story before.
On the chemistry between him and Sandra Bullock in Gravity:
It’s tricky cause Sandy drinks so much that oftentimes it’s just hard to keep her upright. No, you know, Sandy and I have known each other for over 20 years and we both were struggling actors when we first met. She was dating a friend of mine at the time who’s still a good friend of ours. Every time we’re together it’s funny. She’s somebody I adore, really, she’s just fun to be in a room with. I’m sure people will assume people aren’t quite who they appear to be on screen—they’re shorter or taller or meaner or dumber—but Sandy is exactly what she appears on screen, an incredibly charming woman who’s really just fun to hang out with. Very smart and centered, even though she does drink a lot.
On being mocked at awards shows:
You actually feel bad for the comedians up on stage cause you know if you’ve ever gone to a comedy club and you see somebody bomb it makes you cringe. Shows like that are designed to have fun with you without being devastatingly unkind. I’ve been the target of a couple of stupid jokes that didn’t work, but in general I’ve only seen a couple that were really vicious toward people, and they didn’t work. When they don’t work you feel badly for the person doing it.
