CURIOUS ABOUT GEORGE
Prying minds want to know if Clooney plans to have little ones of his own
eorge Clooney has been dealing with inquiring minds since his ER days on TV.
Reporters’ questions used to focus on who the eligible bachelor was dating. But since his recent marriage to human-rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin, Clooney is coping with the inevitable parenthood question.
Whatever, the 54-year-old always handles the personal digging the same way: He sidesteps it with a passive-aggressive scolding.
That’s exactly what he does when he’s asked about fatherhood during a pre-Mother’s Day media conference for the Disney sci-fi film Tomorrowland.
“I knew you were going to get to it somehow,” says Clooney, smirking. “I didn’t think you’d go the Mother’s Day route. I thought you’d do, ‘There’s a little kid (in Tomorrowland) who’s you as a young boy. Does it make you feel like you could have a little boy?’
“But no, you went, ‘You have a mother, and most of us have mothers, and wouldn’t you like to be a father?’ Go back and tell everyone you asked the question. But thank you for asking.”
After the cheeky no-comment, Clooney is more forthcoming in discussing Tomorrowland.
In the movie, he plays the grownup version of a former boy genius inventor who joins a teen (Britt Robertson) on a mission to uncover save-the-world secrets that exist in another dimension. Yes, the film might be named after a Disney theme park attraction, but it tackles some important issues regarding mankind’s future.
“Putting me in a summer movie is a very bold thought,” Clooney says, but adds more seriously: “Listen, first and foremost, I think it’s a really bold thing for Disney to be willing to do a film that is not a sequel and that is not a comic book, and to truly invest in a summer film of this sort of ilk.”
When the Oscar-honoured actor and director was first approached to play the Tomorrowland role, he hesitated — but only for a bit.
“When I opened up a description of the character — 55-year-old hasbeen — I go, ‘Wait, hang on, which part am I reading for?’ ” says Clooney. “He’s a former genius, a boy genius, who has gotten bitter in his old age.”
Actually, the actor champions the positive message in Tomorrowland. “What I love about (Tomorrowland) is that it speaks to the idea that your future is not preordained and pre-destined, and if you’re involved, a single voice can make a difference.”
In other words, he is an optimist who survived the threat of nuclear war during an ever-changing time in his 1960s and 1970s youth.
“There were an awful lot of things going on that you felt you could change,” says Clooney. “I grew up in an era where the voice, the power of the one, really did feel as if it mattered.
“We had the riots that are reminiscent of the things we are looking at today, but we had the civil rights movement and we had Vietnam, and we had the women’s rights movement, and all those things that you felt you could actually have some part of changing.”
Certainly, Clooney has tried to make a difference. He’s an active member of the Not on Our Watch Project, which attempts to prevent atrocities. He helped organize the telethon Hope for Haiti, raised money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights and other social issues, and continues to be a strong lobbyist for Save Darfur.
“I think there’s a funny thing about careers in a strange way, which is, as you’re working, you find that as time goes by you become more comfortable in your career path, and you’re able to focus on other things and other people,” Clooney says.
“When you are in this line of work where there’s a lot of attention focused on you that you don’t really need, you try to turn that focus and put it on places that matter to me, like in sub-Saharan Africa and places like that.”
Serious stuff, but he keeps it loose on set, especially when filming Tomorrowland in and around Vancouver. Rumour has it he managed to entertain cast and crew with his performances of The Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight.
“My rapping skills are wellknown,” he says. “Many of the great rappers today have fashioned their stylings from me. I was 18 when The Sugarhill Gang hit the scene, and so it’s funny because I’m literally at the actual oldest age of anybody who knows those songs.”
Timing is the motivation for his performances, apparently.
“We’re in the water, and it’s cold, and we’re shooting 14 hours, and we’ve been out all night, and it’s terrible,” Clooney says. “What could be worse? And then I rap.”
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