George Clooney brings more than star power to ‘ Midnight Sky’
“The Midnight Sky,” streaming on Netflix, is an epic sci- fi drama directed by and starring George Clooney that takes place as an apocalypse is extinguishing life on earth.
Clooney’s brilliant, sole surviving scientist must make contact with Sully ( Felicity Jones) and her fellow astronauts in space, warning them not to return. But to reach a radio he must first survive an Arctic trek.
“Despite the apocalypse,” Clooney, 59, said during a Zoom discussion, “it offers hope and warmth.
“We were three weeks in Iceland and shot all my stuff first. Then Felicity calls and says, ‘ I’m pregnant. What do you want to do?’
“She’d got a trainer and was going to work on the wires ( for floating in space). We didn’t want her to work on wires.
“It really came down to: The best versions of things are when you accept them and don’t see them as ‘ problems.’ Suddenly it became Wilbur, who is her son’s actual name. He became a character to us.
“The crew, these wonderful actors, they all grew protective and we wrote scenes about naming the kid and doing the ultrasound — which is the only sound they’re getting — inside Felicity.
“There was a real fight for story,” Clooney revealed of the Netflix release, “whether this thing of mankind is worth the struggle. When you see that, it is.”
Jones, known as the young Ruth Bader Ginsberg and her Oscar- nominated work as Stephen Hawking’s wife in “Theory of Everything,” admitted, “Initially I was very worried I would get fired. I was trying not to look pregnant and denying myself a lot of chocolate cakes. It was a relief when George made me feel completely comfortable — all the way through.
“Then I could relax. It was an instinctive, special process, a testament to his modernity to embrace what was happening and the truth of what was happening. A pregnant woman in space is quite extraordinary.”
Added David Oyelowo, whose astronaut must manage a crucial space walk, “George has done ‘ Gravity,’ ‘ Solaris’ and now this. George is to space movies what De Niro is to gangster movies! So when he tells me something I better listen.”
The message was: You need to have a very strong “core” to be able to do this. “To be seeming to be weightless and floating, a lot of effort goes into looking like there’s no effort.
“Training started three months before. Boy, did we need it. These wires are attached to your body and,” he joked of being twirled and flipped, “I’m so glad I already had my four children.”