Father-to-be Clooney doth insist too much
George Clooney can’t stop talking about becoming a father.
My wife thinks this is endearing. Then again, my wife thinks a 14-hour discussion about Benjamin Moore colour chips is riveting and necessary, so her credibility is suspect: “Acapulco Sand might look dingy in direct sunlight. The Santa Fe Tan is way too dark. I’m kind of torn between Foggy Morning and White Winged Dove. Wisp of Mauve is an option. What do you think?”
Honey, I think you’re insane. That’s what I think. They all look the same.
Mr. Clooney is now in the colour chip stage of his life reno, which is to say he’s eager to paint over his old bachelor days, but not sure about how the future will look when his new life dries this summer and he’s a dad to twins.
As his friend Matt Damon recently told ET: “He’s going to get prepared. He better figure it out, ’cause they’re on the way. But he’ll be great. He’ll be a mess, but (wife Amal) will take care of everything.”
Oh, really? The partner with the busier career — Amal is a human rights lawyer — is going to take care of everything? I don’t think so, Matt. That’s now how this works. But that is a telling quote. The transition from “he’ll be great” to “he’ll be a mess” suggests Clooney’s inner circle questions his survival skills in this new milieu.
It’s like saying, “George is a strong swimmer.” And then, “George may drown.” I believe they are right to be afraid. Let me ask you something. You ever see one of those hostage videos in which the victim is oddly upbeat while waxing calmly about how he’s fine and his captors are treating him great? The hostage rarely blinks. His message is optimistic but his tone is flat. He grins at strange moments. He sometimes emits a nervous laugh for no reason at all. He’s prone to shrugging. He says things he doesn’t seem to believe.
If you’re unfamiliar with the propaganda reels I’m describing, watch any recent interview with Clooney in which he waxes calmly about fatherhood. For example, at Cinema Con in Las Vegas on Tuesday, ET asked the 55-year-old if he’s got his head around the looming reality of having two babies at once.
“No,” says Clooney, his jaw clenched in stoic profile as his eyes fix on the middle distance, where invisible clowns are assembling a crib and humming war songs.
“I don’t know how you fully digest that, but I’m excited,” he adds with a shrug and then a perfunctory, “It’ll be fun.”
I can’t wait to scrub vomit off my sharkskin suits. It’ll be fun.
When asked if the couple has picked out any baby names — I’m starting to worry an addled Clooney may lobby for Foggy Morning or White Winged Dove — he cracks a joke that references Casamigos, the tequila company he owns and will likely be midnight raiding in the months ahead.
“My wife says I can’t name them Casa and Amigos — that’s the one thing I’m not allowed to do,” Clooney says, as nearby Julianne Moore breaks into one of her full-faced laughs and he looks deeper into the horizon, where the invisible clowns are now changing diapers and blotting their tears with baby powder.
“It was just a thought,” Clooney adds, turning toward the camera and not blinking.
This poor fool hasn’t sounded like himself all week.
“I played a pediatrician on ER,” he told E!
“I know swaddling,” he told Extra. “I know what I’m in for.”
Does he? Because all this talking about fatherhood seems to be masking a different reality: he does not know what he’s in for.
Mr. Clooney, as a father of twins, I strongly urge you to disappear from public view for the next few months. You need to decompress, to get mentally prepared for what awaits. To paraphrase Bill Murray from Lost in Translation: Your life, as you know it, will soon be gone, never to return.
Lock yourself in your Italian mansion with a stack of books with titles such as, What to Do When You’re Having Two: The Twins Survival Guide from Pregnancy Through the First Year. Practise swaddling a cantaloupe while unswaddling a pineapple and then switching without letting either roll off the table. It’s harder than you might think. Or just have some fun. And get some rest, Mr. Clooney. Forget about promoting your upcoming film, Suburbicon. Crawl into a hammock and sleep — 12, 16, 18 hours a day, no amount is too much. You’ll thank me later. The main thing is you need to stop talking about fatherhood. That’s all anyone wants to talk about and, frankly, it’s a waste of your precious time. It’s chewing into your final days of freedom.
You’re not a hostage. Not yet, anyway.