Clooney gets political with Suburbicon
TORONTO — For all the political discussions surrounding his career, his life and his new film Suburbicon, George Clooney does not want to run for office.
“The reality is, I have to assume there are many more people out there much better qualified to do that than me,” the superstar actor-writer-director-producer said in an interview at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, where Suburbicon was shown.
“I think the reason people talk about it is because our bench doesn’t seem very good on the Democratic side right now,” the two-time Oscar winner said.
“There is a lot of looking and nobody sees anybody. So for me, I will support whomever I can by doing fundraisers … what I probably am better at than making policies.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s tenure has come up often in discussions of Suburbicon. The dark satire stars Matt Damon, Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac in a tale of a deadly home invasion that unfolds alongside a white town’s vicious attack on an innocent black family in an American town in the 1950s.
Scenes of townsfolk staging increasingly angry protests outside the black family’s home feel eerily reminiscent of racial tensions brewing in the U.S., such as the August white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, to which Trump responded that “both sides” were to blame.
Clooney, who directed and co-wrote the film, said the Coen brothers penned a first draft of the script a long time ago and offered him a part in it, but they ultimately abandoned the project.
Inspired by a racial divide in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in 1957, Clooney and his longtime producing partner, Grant Heslov, wanted to the movie to have a slapstick feel so it wouldn’t feel like a polemic.
But when Trump was elected during the middle of shooting, the tone had to change as “the goofy seemed too goofy,” Clooney said.
“I just have to constantly say this: Black Lives Matter protested for racial equality. The KKK, the alt-right protest for racial supremacy, they can never be compared.
“It makes me furious — furious — to see that coming from the president.”
Clooney discussed a wide variety of topics, including the twins he and wife Amal, a human rights lawyer, had in June.
At age 56, Clooney said he’s still open to acting, but he’s not going to take on roles just to be on camera anymore. “I’m waiting for another Michael Clayton or another The Descendants. I’m waiting for one that makes sense for me to do.”