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Post by hathaross Wed 15 Feb 2012, 19:22

Litlle parts of the interview and a video!!! FANTASTIC VIDEO of the photoshoot in HIS guess house Very Happy

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The entire interview (or almost) and a pic!! He´s so sooooo handsome... Not worthy

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George Clooney: The Private Life of a Superstar
2/15/2012 by Stephen Galloway

Think of George Clooney, and an image immediately springs to mind -- of a real-life Danny Ocean who lives in "the Playboy Mansion West," as he jokes; who jets back and forth between lavishly appointed, starlet-strewn houses in Los Angeles, Mexico's Cabo San Lucas and Lake Como, Italy; and who hangs out in an enviable modern-age Brat Pack with the likes of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Every movie star has a public persona that to some extent is at odds with the man inside. But with Clooney, the differences are striking.
True, he's as charismatic in person as anyone alive, as charming and gracious. But the private Clooney, 50, also is a revelation. He lives with chronic pain (the result of a devastating accident from 2005); admits to bouts of loneliness, despite being surrounded by friends; makes his home on the "wrong" side of the Hollywood Hills in a comfortable but unpretentious Tudor-style Studio City estate; and watches ESPN and Modern Family as well as everything from The Soup to Jersey Shore. In other words, his life is disturbingly like yours -- except for his sleep: He is in bed by 10 p.m. almost every evening, wakes multiple times a night and loathes going to bed without the TV on.
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"Turning off the television causes me to think, and once I start that vision roaring, I have a very tough time getting to sleep," he admits. With the flickering screen, "I'm able to numb out." Even then, "Without question, I wake every night five times."
He also acknowledges, "I drink at times too much. I do enjoy drinking, and there have been times in my life when it's crossed the line from being fun to having to drink late at night for absolutely no reason. So what I do is, I stop. I haven't had a drink since New Year's Eve."
Could one of the entertainment industry's most powerful emissaries -- a man who almost reflexively reminds us of Cary Grant, of glitter and glamour and all the bold brightness of Hollywood -- actually be quite an outsider in his heart of hearts?
There always has been a curious dichotomy to Clooney: He is a leading man in looks and stature who still largely acts like the guy next door; more pertinent -- particularly during this ultra-high-profile awards season -- he's a major star with the soul of an independent, one whose mind and being lurk in the small, significant movies the icons of our age usually struggle to outgrow. Indeed, the last of his projects to have earned more than $100 million domestically was 2007's Ocean's Thirteen.
And yet it works. He won a best supporting actor Oscar for 2005's Syriana, a challenging tale about a morally questionable oil executive in the Middle East. Two years later, he was nominated for his leading role in Michael Clayton, the complicated story of a corporate "fixer"; and two years after that, he was nominated for best actor again with Up in the Air, about a corporate employee whose sole job is to reduce staff (that is, fire them). All were men with ethical challenges; all were movies that tested our intellect and emotions. Clooney has received seven Oscar nominations altogether, for his work behind the camera as well as for playing subtly shaded characters forced to come to terms with their complicity, their failings and moral ambiguity. "Michael Clayton and Up in the Air, and particularly The Descendants, are all versions of moving outside your comfort zone," he says.
With two Oscar nominations this year alone (for best actor in Descendants and for co-writing The Ides of March), Clooney reveals what a long way he has come since one of his initial forays into film, 1997's Batman & Robin debacle. "There's this turning point," he explains. "When you first start out, you are just happy to get a job, any job. And as time goes on, either you move forward or screech to a halt."
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The combined budgets of his two current movies are a fraction of Batman's and about the equivalent of most superstars' fees -- $12 million for Ides and $20 million for Descendants. Clooney took a humble $300,000 upfront for the latter. It's one of his more intriguing aspects that he has remained so powerful and prominent in our imagination without bigger hits or taking more than scale -- at most a few hundred thousand dollars, backend excluded -- since the $10 million he received for 2000's The Perfect Storm. He is singularly unmotivated by money, though time and again he returns to the theme, expressing an awareness that, if necessary, he will sell one of his homes. (He puts nothing in the stock market, which he describes as "Vegas, without the fun.")
With Sony's Ides, in which he plays a flawed presidential candidate who succumbs to an aide's blackmail (and where for once he doesn't end up on the right side of the moral equation), Clooney saw his sleepless nights pay off. "I woke and sat down and wrote the whole scene in the kitchen between Ryan [Gosling] and myself: 'You want to be president. … You can start a war, you can lie, you can cheat, you can bankrupt the country, but you can't f-- the interns.' " He personally attended the 2010 American Film Market -- that annual November gathering in Santa Monica where buyers and sellers haggle over rights -- just to raise money for the film, then gave away his share of profits to get it made. "[Co-writer] Grant Heslov and I sat there for a day and a half, and they'd bring in 12 people from Japan, from the Netherlands, and I would pitch them the whole movie, and then the next group would come in," he says with a laugh. "I was an encyclopedia salesman!"
With acting, Clooney also has learned to check his pride at the door. He recently turned down $15 million for one project that came with a promised $45 million on the backend. But he ardently committed to the role of a father struggling with his dying wife's infidelity in Fox Searchlight's Descendants. Director Alexander Payne had rejected him for 2004's Sideways (opting for Thomas Haden Church instead), and yet that didn't stop Clooney from agreeing to appear in Descendants before he'd read the script. Even then, he sweated that Payne wouldn't like his work.
"The trickiest part was the first week," he recalls. "We had to shoot the scene [where he runs down the street in flip-flops after learning his wife has had an affair]. You're worried you may be too big, or not big enough. I was trying to understand what Alexander wanted. I was nervous; but I'm always nervous [early] in shooting, because there's so much that can go wrong."
Critics widely praised his work. (The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy applauded his "underplayed, sometimes self-deprecating and exceptionally resonant performance.") A Golden Globe followed.
"He has an amazing range and technical craft," says Payne. "He'll maintain his emotions and intensity while adjusting his head 4.5 degrees this way or that."
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Clooney's house, bought for $980,000 back in 1995 with ER paychecks (hardly chump change, but not the kind of price that proclaims movie-star excess), looks as if it could belong to any normal man who happened to make some money, apart from its subtle and discreet taste. There are no Oscars, Emmys or other awards visible in public places, no servants bustling in hushed tones -- just his personal assistant of many years, Angel, and a black cocker spaniel named Einstein that Clooney adopted from a local shelter. A few days earlier, Einstein ate all the loose cash left out by Clooney's present girlfriend, Stacy Keibler of Dancing With the Stars (a former professional wrestler). The women who pass in and out of his life, few lasting longer than two or three years, have been the source of endless Internet speculation, likely because they rarely appear to be his professional or intellectual equals, and range from waitresses to models to an Italian starlet.
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He won't go into his relationship with Keibler because "there is so little in my life that is private," but he does admit that this man who once won a bet with Michelle Pfeiffer that he wouldn't be married again by 40 hasn't ruled it out. Divorced from actress Talia Balsam, he has in the past rejected the idea; now he argues, "I don't even think about it, really."
Though women come and go, Clooney has kept the same tight-knit group of friends for years; indeed, almost all of his intimates -- such as Heslov, businessman Rande Gerber and actor Richard Kind -- have known him for two or even three decades, many since they were in acting class with him. It is these people, not other celebrities, with whom he spends most of his time (many gathered at his place to watch the Feb. 5 Super Bowl). Much has been made of Clooney's friendship with Pitt, but his fellow best actor nominee doesn't belong to that innermost circle. "Brad is one of the great guys," he says. "We're good friends, but it's different from what people think, meaning we don't spend a lot of time together. He has been to my home in Como; we motorcycle together. But until recently, I hadn't seen Brad in a year."
Despite his sociability, his enormous interpersonal skills and considerable warmth, there remains something apart about him, something that perhaps has stood in the way of a long-lasting romance. "Anyone would be lying if they said they didn't get lonely at times," he says. "The loneliest you will get is in the most public of arenas: You will go to a place and end up in the smallest compartment possible, because it's a distraction to everybody, and you end up not getting to enjoy it like everyone else."
[pagebreak]
He adds, "I have been infinitely more alone in a bad relationship; there's nothing more isolating. I have been in places in my life where that has existed."
He also has been cheated on and even ditched "and left for someone; all those things. And it was sometimes a surprise, and sometimes you saw it coming. The most painful was when I kept trying to get [one woman] back. But we all make dumb mistakes."
A prank of Pitt's may have been an even dumber mistake. "A couple of years ago, he really nailed me. He did one of those shows and they asked him when he was going to marry Angie, and he said, 'I'll marry when George can legally marry [a man].' " He laughs. "He really got me badly, something I have had to deal with the past few years. But I could give a shit. I have to live in the world that I care about and that's all that matters."
That world is one in which his celebrity is firmly grounded -- as evident in a picture he keeps on his living room wall, across from a blazing fire with a huge television screen above the mantelpiece. It's the famous red-and-black Shepard Fairey artwork of President Obama, with a similar red-and-black Clooney next to it. (He is a devoted Obama supporter.) The work is based on an Associated Press photograph taken at a Clooney-backed event in support of Darfur. He says he was standing right beside Obama at the time, but Fairey's rendering "cut me out," Clooney grins. Hence, while Obama has "Hope" written beneath him, Clooney has added "Dope" beneath himself.
Through the years, he says he has learned to think carefully before he speaks out on issues, but that makes his commitment to some causes all the more courageous. His criticism of the war in Iraq made him a highly controversial figure in the early 2000s. "They did a half-hour show on Fox saying my career was over, and there was a cover of one of those magazines with the word 'traitor' written on it, and the White House was passing out a deck of weasels and I was on one of the cards," he recalls.
After initial anger, there was a brief moment when he felt afraid. "I called my dad and said, 'Am I in trouble?' And he said, 'Grow up. You've got money. You've got a job. You can't demand freedom of speech and then say, "But don't say bad things about me." ' And he was right."
Today, he's savvy enough to know that whatever he does to support causes like Darfur -- or Haiti, for which he helped raise more than $50 million in a much-viewed telethon -- there's little way he can effect real change. "All you can do as a celebrity is throw a spotlight on things," he says, shrugging.
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Unlike other stars, Clooney learned early just how complicated celebrity can be, growing up the son of a local anchorman and the nephew of singer Rosemary Clooney. Depending on the progress of his father Nick's career, he'd be living in a mansion one moment and in a trailer the next.
"We were famous, always we were under this glass," he reflects. "I got to see how bad it could go with Rosemary -- financially, her career, all the missteps and then the comeback -- and I also got to understand that version of living in the public eye for such a long period of time. There was probably nobody ever better set up for fame than me."
Born in Lexington, Ky., Clooney remembers, "We were constantly moving, always moving, and either you were good at adapting or you weren't. I found myself getting better at it, and my sister, Ada, was less skilled." (She now lives in Kentucky with her two kids, close to their parents.)
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While Clooney senior was known locally, that didn't mean money was always available. His wife, Nina, who owned a consignment store, regularly sewed her children's clothes by hand and dealt with the constant upheavals of her husband's profession. "My father had a million careers," Clooney notes. "When I first remember him, he was a newsman in Lexington, Kentucky; then he was on a variety show, and then a newspaper writer -- and when he was unemployed he did four plays. We went from a beautiful house in Florence, Kentucky, to a tiny house in Columbus, Ohio, because the job wasn't as good. And then we moved to Mason, Ohio, and my father lost his main job and we lived in a trailer."
Clooney was 12 at that time, and though he says the experience was "fine," it's hard to believe it didn't disturb him. But endless adaptation honed his skills, teaching him to draw on his innate humor -- and also to use it as camouflage for his most private self.
"There were a lot of transitions," he recalls. "I would go from one school where I'd be the idiot to another school where I was the genius." Popularity ebbed and flowed with his classmates' reactions to his famous name -- and it was never worse than when the family moved to Augusta, Ky. "That was a little more wild and woolly," he says. "Suddenly there were a couple of guys that you were just going to have to fight. I did, and I lost."
At 14, a pivotal age for anyone, disaster struck in the form of Bell's palsy, a kind of paralysis whose cause is unknown that leads to dysfunction in the facial nerves. Clooney has made light of the matter, but it lasted far longer than most of his friends realize.
"As I started high school, half my face was paralyzed for six months," he says. "That's a long, long time. You wake up one morning and your tongue is numb, and you can't drink. Milk starts pouring out of the side of your face. You don't know when it's going to end; you don't know if it is going to end. And there's no treatment."
Clooney used humor to deflect attacks, even lampooning a school superintendent who had had a stroke, exaggerating his own paralysis to create a dead-on impersonation, which mortifies him to this day: "There are terrible things you do as a kid. You developed a personality, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill."
He did well in school, attending Northern Kentucky University and then the University of Cincinnati, where he majored in journalism. But before graduating, he followed his cousin Miguel Ferrer's advice and moved to Hollywood. Bit parts and occasional series failed to propel him to stardom; as he entered his 30s, the possibility of failure loomed large.
He drank, partied and even sampled cocaine, though he says, "I didn't have an issue with it. I'm not a big druggie, not at all. Blow is absolutely a nonstarter."
"I was unhappy," he reflects. "I was doing a series [on ABC] called Baby Talk, and I had a really big fallout with the producer and quit, and they threatened to sue, and I was doing a lot of television that I wasn't particularly proud of and wasn't particularly good in. I was mostly failing at things." Just as he began to question whether failure would be his future, everything changed in 1994 with ER, the hospital drama in which Clooney played Dr. Doug Ross and almost overnight became a sensation.
[pagebreak]
ER executive producer John Wells recalls how Clooney avidly pursued the gig, recognizing the quality of the script trumped the fact that Ross was a supporting role: "George was -- as he is now -- an extraordinarily talented networker, and he'd befriend the secretaries and get all the material before anybody else did. I hadn't even hired a director and he insisted on coming in." After Wells finally let him read, the producer called then-WB executive Les Moonves and said, "I've found our guy."
How Clooney handled himself once the series aired is indicative of the fundamental decency that remains his hallmark. He stuck to his five-year contract without trying to renegotiate or wriggle out of his deal; he even refused to take a $1 million bonus that was offered to the leads during season two because he didn't want to imply he'd stay.
"We were the number-one show, and it was very clear that George was breaking out, and Quentin Tarantino -- who directed an episode in season one -- wanted him for From Dusk Till Dawn," says Wells. "He was great and very professional, and when everyone else was getting huge raises, George always said no. He said, 'I'm going to honor my commitment to you.' "
ER helped launch Clooney as a movie star in pictures such as 1996's One Fine Day and 1997's The Peacemaker. For three years, until he left ER in 1999, he worked seven days a week to the point of exhaustion, juggling television and pictures.
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But with 1997's Batman and Robin, Clooney, cast in the lead role opposite Chris O'Donnell, was forced to reassess. The movie was simply terrible, and so was Clooney -- and he knew it. This was one of his many "revelations," to use Heslov's word. Now he wanted not just to work, but to do work that mattered.
When he teamed with director Steven Soderbergh on 1998's acclaimed Out of Sight, it was transformative, and he followed that film with a host of memorable pictures, from 1999's Three Kings to 2005's Syriana.
It was while making the latter that he fell during a scene in which he was taped to a chair while his character was tortured. His head split open, days before he was scheduled to wrap.
"I knew immediately [how serious it was]," he says. "I thought I'd had a stroke. It was like a train horn going off in your head and you can't see and you can't stand." Instantly, he chartered a plane from Morocco back to Los Angeles and checked into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
For three weeks, nobody was able to diagnose him, even though spinal fluid was leaking out of his nose. It was only when actress Lisa Kudrow led him to her neurologist brother that he discovered fluid also was leaking from his spine and he had torn his dura, the outermost layer enveloping the spinal cord.
"Then we started doing these things called myelograms, where they shoot contrast into your system and you can see what's leaking out," Clooney adds. "I had a two-and-a-half-inch tear in the middle of my back and a half-inch tear in my neck. The doctors did these blood patches, where they tie you down to a bed, and you're awake because they have a long needle and need to know if they're touching your spinal cord. And they take blood out and shoot it directly into your spinal column to try to get the blood to coagulate in those spots. I did about 15 of those over 15 days. It's like getting a spinal tap every day, and you're awake. But what we didn't understand was how big the holes were."
The pain was so great, he has said he contemplated suicide. "I thought I was going to die. Talk to any doctor about a CSF -- a cerebral/spinal fluid leak -- and they'll tell you it's way up there on the pain scale. There was this whole coming to terms with [mortality]."
On Christmas Day 2005, Clooney endured a successful nine-hour surgery. "Then you start on a series of painkillers. They'll hand you a giant tub of Vicodin, which is not a good drug for me; I had a lot of stomach pain and I really didn't like the high it gave me. Then there were a lot of other drugs. I was on morphine for a while, which created this horrible anxiety where I really thought I was in trouble."
The pain never has vanished but at least has diminished over time.
"It's been a long recovery," the actor says. "I had to accept that I'm going to beat this on a very different level, almost psychological. I went to a pain-management guy whose idea was, 'You can't mourn for how you used to feel, because you're never going to feel that way again.' Meaning, you wake up with the worst hangover ever, and that's your day, and you have to come to terms with it."
This is his life now. He recognizes he's getting older, must deal with pain that afflicts him on average three times per week and speaks of it with a characteristic lack of complaint.
"I've gone from where I can't function, where 'I just can't live like this,' to 'I've got a bad headache.' It's called 'positional,' meaning the longer you sit upright or stand upright, the worse it gets. That's how it is. As the day goes on, it gets worse. My ears will literally pop and my head goes ape-shit. But I'm scrappy."
He brushes it off. "My friend [actress] Karen Duffy, who is in unimaginable pain [from sarcoidosis, a disease in which inflammatory cells coalesce around various organs], has taught me so much: That any complaints I have are the most ridiculous thing in the world, because her pain is so much greater."
♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️
It was during this time that awareness of others' pain led to his concern for Darfur.
He first learned about the Sudanese government's killings of ethnic groups from a 2005 column by New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof, then contacted Kristof and decided to go to Sudan himself. He plans to return in March, though he doesn't want to go into detail because his entry into the country will put him at risk.
That aside, "It's really hard on your system," he says. "I got malaria two years ago, and it really knocked me out. I've had a couple of recurrences. I didn't understand that it keeps coming back." His last attack was during the Christmas holiday, but he still wants to return, with just a cameraman and two others, because he believes he can draw attention to the hundreds of thousands who have been killed and whose story is often ignored.
"Everything about it is difficult, and you never feel safe, and we are not traveling with guns and security guys," he continues. "I ran into the Machine Gun Preacher [Sam Childers, a former gang member who crusades for Sudanese orphans], and he's like, 'Who do you travel with?' And I say, 'I just go with three people.' "
Once, while in Sudan with his father, Clooney was held up at gunpoint. It was "in the middle of nowhere and we were pulled over by a bunch of 13-year-old kids with Kalashnikovs, and that's where it's dangerous because it's random violence." Luckily, a colleague just walked over to an assailant and pushed his gun away as if speaking to a child and said, "No."
"I couldn't believe it was that simple," Clooney marvels, "because I was embarrassed at how scared I was."
When he needs refuge from all this, he heads to Lake Como, where he owns a huge waterfront home discovered almost by accident in 2001, when his motorbike broke down right outside it. After the owners invited him in for pizza and asked if he wanted to buy it -- and Clooney learned it was $7.5 million, half the price he had expected -- he pounced.
"I truly bought it as an investment," he says. "I didn't think I'd ever spend time there. I thought, 'Screw it, I'll buy it, hold it for a year, roll it over' -- and then I stayed there and went, 'Oh my God!' It is the thing singularly that I've done for myself that's brought me the most joy. It changed everything in my life."
Clooney has invited Hollywood friends such as fellow Oscar nominee Viola Davis to honeymoon there and has welcomed guests from Walter Cronkite to former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan. Payne and his editor even cut Descendants in Como. Clooney loves the back-and-forth of conversation and speaks glowingly of late dinners in the fading light.
But his world increasingly is centered on his social causes (he was honored by former Nobel laureates in 2007 with the prestigious Peace Summit Award), his work and his friends. He will appear next in the Proposition 8 play 8, running for one night -- and was thrilled the afternoon of our Feb. 7 discussion that a California court of appeals had overturned the anti-gay marriage resolution. "But they've still got a long way to go and a lot of court battles ahead," he says.
After the play, he'll star in Monument Men, a Nazi-era drama he currently is writing with Heslov, in which he wants his father to play his older self. But he admits at this stage that directing, more than acting, is his greatest passion. "I like acting now, because I am able to be much more selective," he says, "but there's nothing more creative than directing."
His drive as actor, writer and director consumes him, along with his need to create a body of work that genuinely stands the test of time. "When you make those kinds of films, often it's just by the skin of your teeth," he says. "The major thing that scares me isn't failure; I've experienced that a lot. What scares me is not making the attempt."
This man who already has an Oscar, and a body of work that almost anyone in Hollywood would envy, becomes even more pointed. "I'm terrified of dying and having not accomplished the things that I want to do," he says. "I am terrified of not finishing, or at least not participating enough. Everybody has a fear of death, but my fear isn't dying; it's of not getting the job done."
♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️
CLOONEY ON CLOONEY: The actor looks back on some of his signature projects.
Out of Sight (1998) -- "Steven Soderbergh and I were both coming off of really low points in our careers. Steven had to audition for [producers] Danny DeVito and Stacey Sher, and I sort of had to audition as well. Initially, Sydney Pollack, who became a very dear friend of mine, was to direct, and when they decided that I was going to do it, he said, 'George isn't a movie star!' "
Three Kings (1999) -- "I saw David [O. Russell, the director with whom Clooney had a famous falling-out] a few weeks ago at a party. There was a bunch of filmmakers there. And I felt compelled to go over and go, 'So are we done?' And he goes, 'Please.' And I said, 'OK.' Because we made a really, really great film, and we had a really rough time together, but it's a case of both of us getting older. I really do appreciate the work he continues to do, and I think he appreciates what I'm trying to do."
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) -- "It was hysterical to be shooting the burning-of-the-cross scene, with all these guys in Ku Klux Klan outfits. Half of them were black! We were underneath the Van Nuys airport at 2 in the
morning as the planes were flying in and all they'd see is this cross and this giant parade of [African Americans] dressed like the Ku Klux Klan."
Ocean's Eleven (2001) -- "Putting it together was exactly like the opening of the movie. Steven Soderbergh and I would go to people's homes and sit down and say, 'Here's what we think.' We sat down with Matt Damon and
Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, and they all signed on and it all worked out easily. But we also sat with Johnny Depp, and we didn't get him. I think the part was for a Brit, and he didn't want to do it."
Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) -- "Fox News and other places were calling me a traitor [for his opposition to the war in Iraq], and my dad said, 'This isn't courage -- what other people did is.' And he talked about the people who really took chances -- when Muhammad Ali said, 'I won't fight in Vietnam.' And that's what made me write Good Night, and Good Luck. I made $120,000 and there was no backend. But honest to God, there was nothing more fun."

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ENJOY!!!! Very Happy


Last edited by Katiedot on Fri 17 Feb 2012, 05:10; edited 4 times in total (Reason for editing : added text and pics)
hathaross
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More than a little bit enthusiastic about Clooney

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George Clooney: The Private Life of a Superstar: Hollywood Reporter Feb 2012 Empty Re: George Clooney: The Private Life of a Superstar: Hollywood Reporter Feb 2012

Post by melbert Wed 15 Feb 2012, 19:47

thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!!!!!! This was a wonderful article. Not all the same stuff over and over and over again (ok, there was some).
Poor Einstein "ate" Stacy's pay for the week.
melbert
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Post by cindigirl Wed 15 Feb 2012, 19:57

Hathaross, wow, what a magnificent post. Thank you so much. I read the whole thing it was so interesting. Big accomplishment for me because I don't usually have that much patience. Thanks again.

Gave you a positive, would have given you two if I could I love you
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Post by Cinderella Wed 15 Feb 2012, 20:06

A wonderful article and a wonderful picture! That is the George I thought existed! What a wonderful man!

I gave you some green too, Hathaross! Thank you for posting! Give Flowers2

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Post by Joanna Wed 15 Feb 2012, 20:23

Thanks hathaross Thumbs up!

10 out of 10 That's a fabulous article and intriguing video with it. 10 out of 10

Give Flowers2 Respect to George, for his brave manner regarding his physical pain.
Loved the story of Einstein's crazy deed ! ( Naughty melbert !)
Look forward to seeing Nick on the big screen too, in the future.
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Post by lelacorb Wed 15 Feb 2012, 20:35

Very nice interview, finally something new! Thank you.
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Post by hathaross Wed 15 Feb 2012, 20:51

You´re welcome!!! Very Happy

I love his new jacket!! Very SEXY posing for photos. Not worthy
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Post by Joanna Wed 15 Feb 2012, 20:54

I LOVE the leather LOOK Sofa bounce
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Post by cindigirl Wed 15 Feb 2012, 21:03

Quote from article:
"I have a very tough time getting to sleep,” he admits. "I'm able to numb out," he says, though even with the TV on, Without question, I wake every night five times.”

I don't know, maybe we can help him out with his sleep problem. We'll make him forget about his 'projects.'
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Post by it's me Wed 15 Feb 2012, 21:44

too anxious

@ getting thinkgs done

I bet he knows
how to calm down
but
he feels the need to go to Africa
next month
and running after many projects


It was so sad
to read about that Xmas surgery

15 days of constant shots

the chronic pain

working on his mind
to cope with it

btw
Iloveyou
Lisa Kudrow


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Post by silly girl Wed 15 Feb 2012, 22:55

I think some of this he has said already...although still a good article....do you think he really hasn't had a drink since NYE?

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Post by hathaross Wed 15 Feb 2012, 23:07

I have to say that after reading the interview, I admire him even more ...

He really is a fighter!! fighting for his life and to keep their ideas and what he believes.

I think he hasn´t have a drink since NYC... he dont need to lie after all he has said in the interview Laughing
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Post by Michelle meyers Wed 15 Feb 2012, 23:13

Nice interview and video. thank you! Very Happy
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Post by it's me Wed 15 Feb 2012, 23:22

He really is a fighter!!
yep
the suave man is a rock

but I'm angry at him!

anyway
good: less (or NO) drinks Thumbs up!
& more wine
(but not too much!)
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Post by hathaross Wed 15 Feb 2012, 23:30

angry with him, why?

Yeah, a little wine is good for health so he can drink a little bit of it if he wants Smile
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Post by Dexterdidit Wed 15 Feb 2012, 23:41

Thanks for that. Great article, pictures and a video. Wow, really nice he looks good. And I do love that Einstein, getting even it seems. LOL
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Post by Joanna Wed 15 Feb 2012, 23:52

I wonder what it looked like when it passed later ??
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Post by LyndaGirl Thu 16 Feb 2012, 00:35

Great interview & pic. Finally! some new info about G. Very Happy Many thanks Hathaross! cheers
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Post by Maggy Thu 16 Feb 2012, 01:40

Great interview and video. Cheerleader
Thanks for posting!

In a personal note: I think George's bad habits (drinking) may come from the lack of not have had a steady relationship with a woman.
A caring partner would not had allowed for him to destroy his health
to bad habits.

But, heads up.
Didn't his astrology reading said he would marry this year.
Maybe she will help him, be the link to a better George. (fingers crossed) Laughing
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Post by Maggy Thu 16 Feb 2012, 01:46

Maggy wrote:Great interview and video. Cheerleader
Thanks for posting!

be the link to a better George. (fingers crossed) Laughing

Health wise lol!
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Post by Pari Thu 16 Feb 2012, 05:26

Thanks Hathaross... simply loved that George treat!!! I love you
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Post by it's me Thu 16 Feb 2012, 06:37

Maggy wrote:Great interview and video. Cheerleader
Thanks for posting!

In a personal note: I think George's bad habits (drinking) may come from the lack of not have had a steady relationship with a woman.
A caring partner would not had allowed for him to destroy his health
to bad habits.

But, heads up.
Didn't his astrology reading said he would marry this year.
Maybe she will help him, be the link to a better George. (fingers crossed) Laughing


marry this year?
do you REALLY believe that?
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Post by it's me Thu 16 Feb 2012, 06:38

but
where is the link to the other pics????????????????
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Post by Maggy Thu 16 Feb 2012, 07:06

No, I know it would take a miracle for G to marry that's why I said "fingers crossed"
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Post by Pari Thu 16 Feb 2012, 08:32

it's me wrote:too anxious

@ getting thinkgs done

I bet he knows
how to calm down
but
he feels the need to go to Africa
next month
and running after many projects


It was so sad
to read about that Xmas surgery

15 days of constant shots

the chronic pain

working on his mind
to cope with it

YUP!! We must continue our prayers for him+his wellbeing It's me dear... You most probably do already... I love you All our prayers will continue to be his strength... God has a way of sorting things out, balming us where we ache and healing us where we sorrow... I am certain there are awesome miracles waiting for our George... I hope Einstein will teach him how to receive them... because "nature" is sure great at it Smile

Aaaaaw Maggy... I love you
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Post by it's me Thu 16 Feb 2012, 08:53

how, eating money no stop???


What a Face
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Post by Pari Thu 16 Feb 2012, 08:58

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
It's Me poisson davril
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Post by Pari Thu 16 Feb 2012, 09:05

Einstein could've been dead and gone... IF he chose to give up at some point during his times of pain and misery... BUT, he "knew" and "trusted" that there was going to be one Rascal of an Owner, who would love him so much so as to smear meatball mash on his footwear... just so that he could keep him for himself... I love you

Hmmm... and one fine day, Einstein did receive his miracle!!! Just as the parched hungry cracked-up earth crust soaks up the miracle summer rain, he went head over heels (literally?Very Happy) over everything he saw... and hugged his acceptance of it all... Aaaaaw... and so we say now, that George and Einstein knew that they were meant to be Very Happy They each found their miracle home in one another... Yummmm Yummmm Yummmm... I love you Like that like that like that... Hug1 It's me...
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Post by it's me Thu 16 Feb 2012, 13:03

Pari wrote:Einstein could've been dead and gone... IF he chose to give up at some point during his times of pain and misery... BUT, he "knew" and "trusted" that there was going to be one Rascal of an Owner, who would love him so much so as to smear meatball mash on his footwear... just so that he could keep him for himself... I love you

Hmmm... and one fine day, Einstein did receive his miracle!!! Just as the parched hungry cracked-up earth crust soaks up the miracle summer rain, he went head over heels (literally?Very Happy) over everything he saw... and hugged his acceptance of it all... Aaaaaw... and so we say now, that George and Einstein knew that they were meant to be Very Happy They each found their miracle home in one another... Yummmm Yummmm Yummmm... I love you Like that like that like that... Hug1 It's me...


oh....
now I understand
Pari Hug1

(you don't know how much I hate those pain and misery words ...those words......)
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Post by bellybaby Thu 16 Feb 2012, 13:14

Just saw this video at Eonline.....http://www.eonline.com/videos/

I can't get a link of the video itself, but this will get you to the page of videos - the one where George gets lonely, especially at awards time, and sometimes in relationships... No

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Post by hathaross Thu 16 Feb 2012, 13:21

On working on The Descendants: in the guees house too.

LINK

and this from ET:

LINK
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Post by lucy Thu 16 Feb 2012, 14:16

Thanks for that hathaross, I really enjoy seeing bits "n" pieces of his home. There is something about his home that I just love, besides him of course, must like the masculine feel of it, along with all the landscaping, plants it has a very natural feel.
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Post by fava Thu 16 Feb 2012, 16:03

I was surprised in the video that he did not have a list of directors he would like to work with. Scorcese, Eastwood, Woody Allen, Spielberg, Fincher??

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Post by melbert Thu 16 Feb 2012, 16:15

You know Fava, I don't recall him EVER referring to those directors in all the interviews I ever read or heard. I wonder if they intimidate him?
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Post by cindigirl Thu 16 Feb 2012, 17:34

From Huffington Post today:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
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Post by silly girl Thu 16 Feb 2012, 17:38

I thought it was odd that he didn't mention Scorsese or Eastwood etc....maybe he doesn't want to say he wants to work with them in case it would be awkward when he sees them...thinking they might not want to work with him...

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Post by sadDonkey Thu 16 Feb 2012, 22:24


Very interesting answer to that question if there is any actress he would like to work with: "I love Emily Blunt, she is little young to play oppisite maybe I could play her old uncle or something".
If Stacy's official age is true then Emily is just three years younger.
Sometimes I wonder if he is aware of what he is saying or if he is aware of he could be Stacy's creepy uncle.

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Post by silly girl Thu 16 Feb 2012, 22:34

Saddonkey that is exactly what I think every time I hear him say something like that....he said he felt odd with the actress Violante from the American because she was so young and I think she is the same age or around the same age as EC....

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Post by cindigirl Thu 16 Feb 2012, 22:40

Silly girl, he may have felt awkward with Violante because he and she had to do a sex scene together in the film. He said he wasn't used to doing anything that graphic.

And maybe Elisabetta was looking on supervising the whole thing. LOL No
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Post by sadDonkey Thu 16 Feb 2012, 22:48


@silly girl
or when he talks about Ryan Gosling... No
Ryan is just a year younger than his latest bedmate.

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Post by silly girl Thu 16 Feb 2012, 22:48

True Cindi, anyone would feel awkward I would think, but I thought I read an interview where he said something about how young she was....that's only why I mentioned it.....thanks....

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Post by bamboochacha Thu 16 Feb 2012, 23:53

No liquor? This could be life changing for everyone as when one is sober - nothing dumb, stupid, or sloshed is funny, cute or smart. It'll be interesting to see what he dates/hangs out with in the future if sobriety is fact. flower
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Post by melbert Fri 17 Feb 2012, 00:41

Since she loves to drink apparently, right Bamboochacha!
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Post by bamboochacha Fri 17 Feb 2012, 01:22

and vice versa. if she's/anyone's hammered - it'll be difficult for her/them to be in the company of someone in serious frame of mind. life altering for sure. lol. flower
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Post by melbert Fri 17 Feb 2012, 01:57

I do know that - been there/gone thru that! It's a hard thing to do.
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Post by lovelylois Fri 17 Feb 2012, 02:37

From the Daily Mail
The confessions of George Clooney... I'm lonely, I can't sleep and I used cocaine (but I hated it)
By DAVID GARDNER
Last updated at 10:03 PM on 16th February 2012

He is the last Hollywood playboy, a debonair movie star with a cast of famous friends and a succession of beautiful women on his arm.

With two Oscar nominations this year alone, George Clooney seems like he has it all.

But the 50-year-old actor reveals in a new interview that he suffers from bouts of loneliness, lives with chronic pain and has trouble sleeping.


Opening up: George Clooney with girlfriend Stacy Keibler at the Golden Globes in Hollywood last month

‘Gorgeous’ George even confesses to being cheated on – and dumped.

The private agony of Tinseltown’s most eligible bachelor is revealed in a lengthy, soul-searching interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the ‘bible’ of the film industry in the US.

Far from his image as a jet-setting superstar, Clooney says he’s in bed most nights by 10pm.

But he relies on the flickering of the TV to doze off and wakes up often throughout the night.

‘Turning off the television causes me to think, and once I start that vision roaring, I have a very tough time getting to sleep,’ he admits. ‘I’m able to numb out.’


Hollywood circuit: Clooney, seen here with pal Brad Pitt, says he can feel the most lonely at a big public event

But he adds: ‘Without question, I wake every night five times.’

Although he is seen as the leader of a modern-day ‘Brat Pack’ with friends like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon, Clooney said he also suffers from loneliness.

‘Anyone would be lying if they said they didn’t get lonely at times,’ he says.

‘The loneliest you will get is in the most public of arenas: You will go to a place and end up in the smallest compartment possible, because it’s a distraction to everybody, and you end up not getting to enjoy it like everyone else.’

He adds: ‘I have been infinitely more alone in a bad relationship; there’s nothing more isolating. I have been in places in my life where that has existed.’


Eternal bachelor: Seen here last year with former flame Elisabetta Canalis

He is famously averse to marriage and every break-up comes with accusations that he’s afraid of commitment, but Clooney insists he hasn’t ruled out marriage.

‘A couple of years ago, [Brad Pitt] really nailed me. He did one of those shows and they asked him when he was going to marry Angie [Angelina Jolie], and he said, ‘I’ll marry when George can legally marry [a man].’ He adds: ‘He really got me badly, something I have had to deal with the past few years. But I could give a s***.’

He’s friends with Pitt, calling him ‘one of the great guys,’ but he adds: ‘It’s different from what people think, meaning we don’t spend a lot of time together. He has been to my home in Como; we motorcycle together. But until recently, I hadn’t seen Brad in a year.’

Clooney refuses to discuss his current relationship with statuesque former wrestler Stacy Keibler.

Most surprising to his many female fans may be that Cooney has been the victim of infidelity.

He said he’d been ditched ‘and left for someone; all those things. And it was sometimes a surprise, and sometimes you saw it coming. The most painful was when I kept trying to get (one woman) back. But we all make dumb mistakes.’

The normally taboo subjects of drink and drugs even came up in the interview, appearing in the Reporter’s latest issue.

He says he hasn’t had a drink since New Year’s Eve.

‘I drink at times too much,’ he acknowledges. ‘I do enjoy drinking, and there have been times in my life when it’s crossed the line from being fun to having to drink late at night for absolutely no reason. So what I do is, I stop.’

He admits he’s sampled cocaine. ‘I didn’t have an issue with it. I’m not a big druggie, not at all. Blow is absolutely a nonstarter,’ he adds.

The actor has spoken before about the pain he suffered from a leak in his spinal cord that was so intense he contemplated suicide. ‘I thought I was going to die,’ he says of the consequences of a fall when he was filming ‘Syriana’ in 2005.

'I thought I’d had a stroke. It was like a train horn going off in your head and you can’t see and you can’t stand,’ he says.

After a nine-hour surgery, he said he was put on a regimen of prescription drugs.


Oscar nominee: Clooney in his hotly-tipped Academy Award film The Descendants

‘Then you start on a series of painkillers,’ he says. ‘They’ll hand you a giant tub of Vicodin, which is not a good drug for me; I had a lot of stomach pain and I really didn’t like the high it gave me.

‘Then there were a lot of other drugs. I was on morphine for a while, which created this horrible anxiety where I really thought I was in trouble.’

He said he still suffers daily pain today. ‘As the day goes on, it gets worse. My ears will literally pop and my head goes ape-shit. But I’m scrappy,’ he says.

Clooney, who is nominated for Academy Awards this year for lead actor in ‘The Descendants’ and for co-writing ‘The Ides of March,’ is also known for his humanitarian work bringing the world’s attention to the suffering in Darfur and Sudan.

The actor, who has three Golden Globes and an Oscar, reveals in the interview how he was held up at gunpoint while travelling with his father in Sudan.

It was ‘in the middle of nowhere and we were pulled over by a bunch of 13-year-old kids with Kalashnikovs, and that’s where it’s dangerous because it’ s random violence.’

Luckily, a colleague came to his aid and calmly pushed the gun away. “’I couldn’ t believe it was that simple because I was embarrassed at how scared I was,’ admits Clooney.


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Post by lucy Fri 17 Feb 2012, 06:12

IS this real?
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Post by lucy Fri 17 Feb 2012, 06:19

Maybe he doesn't mention those directors because of his insecurities?
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Post by it's me Fri 17 Feb 2012, 06:22

well
almost everything
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George Clooney: The Private Life of a Superstar: Hollywood Reporter Feb 2012 Empty Re: George Clooney: The Private Life of a Superstar: Hollywood Reporter Feb 2012

Post by Katiedot Fri 17 Feb 2012, 10:06

Here's the full interview plus video (thanks Henway!)



Never mind those two Oscar noms: Behind George Clooney's confident charm is a very real man who wrestles with doubt, wakes five times a night and is "terrified" of not achieving what he wants.
Think of George Clooney, and an image immediately springs to mind -- of a real-life Danny Ocean who lives in "the Playboy Mansion West," as he jokes; who jets back and forth between lavishly appointed, starlet-strewn houses in Los Angeles, Mexico's Cabo San Lucas and Lake Como, Italy; and who hangs out in an enviable modern-age Brat Pack with the likes of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Every movie star has a public persona that to some extent is at odds with the man inside. But with Clooney, the differences are striking.
True, he's as charismatic in person as anyone alive, as charming and gracious. But the private Clooney, 50, also is a revelation. He lives with chronic pain (the result of a devastating accident from 2005); admits to bouts of loneliness, despite being surrounded by friends; makes his home on the "wrong" side of the Hollywood Hills in a comfortable but unpretentious Tudor-style Studio City estate; and watches ESPN and Modern Family as well as everything from The Soup to Jersey Shore. In other words, his life is disturbingly like yours -- except for his sleep: He is in bed by 10 p.m. almost every evening, wakes multiple times a night and loathes going to bed without the TV on.

"Turning off the television causes me to think, and once I start that vision roaring, I have a very tough time getting to sleep," he admits. With the flickering screen, "I'm able to numb out." Even then, "Without question, I wake every night five times."

He also acknowledges, "I drink at times too much. I do enjoy drinking, and there have been times in my life when it's crossed the line from being fun to having to drink late at night for absolutely no reason. So what I do is, I stop. I haven't had a drink since New Year's Eve."

Could one of the entertainment industry's most powerful emissaries -- a man who almost reflexively reminds us of Cary Grant, of glitter and glamour and all the bold brightness of Hollywood -- actually be quite an outsider in his heart of hearts?

There always has been a curious dichotomy to Clooney: He is a leading man in looks and stature who still largely acts like the guy next door; more pertinent -- particularly during this ultra-high-profile awards season -- he's a major star with the soul of an independent, one whose mind and being lurk in the small, significant movies the icons of our age usually struggle to outgrow. Indeed, the last of his projects to have earned more than $100 million domestically was 2007's Ocean's Thirteen.

And yet it works. He won a best supporting actor Oscar for 2005's Syriana, a challenging tale about a morally questionable oil executive in the Middle East. Two years later, he was nominated for his leading role in Michael Clayton, the complicated story of a corporate "fixer"; and two years after that, he was nominated for best actor again with Up in the Air, about a corporate employee whose sole job is to reduce staff (that is, fire them). All were men with ethical challenges; all were movies that tested our intellect and emotions. Clooney has received seven Oscar nominations altogether, for his work behind the camera as well as for playing subtly shaded characters forced to come to terms with their complicity, their failings and moral ambiguity. "Michael Clayton and Up in the Air, and particularly The Descendants, are all versions of moving outside your comfort zone," he says.

With two Oscar nominations this year alone (for best actor in Descendants and for co-writing The Ides of March), Clooney reveals what a long way he has come since one of his initial forays into film, 1997's Batman & Robin debacle. "There's this turning point," he explains. "When you first start out, you are just happy to get a job, any job. And as time goes on, either you move forward or screech to a halt."

The combined budgets of his two current movies are a fraction of Batman's and about the equivalent of most superstars' fees -- $12 million for Ides and $20 million for Descendants. Clooney took a humble $300,000 upfront for the latter. It's one of his more intriguing aspects that he has remained so powerful and prominent in our imagination without bigger hits or taking more than scale -- at most a few hundred thousand dollars, backend excluded -- since the $10 million he received for 2000's The Perfect Storm.

He is singlularly unmotivated by money, though time and again he returns to the theme, expressing an awareness that, if necessary, he will sell one of his homes. (He puts nothing in the stock market, which he describes as "Vegas, without the fun.")

With Sony's Ides, in which he plays a flawed presidential candidate who succumbs to an aide's blackmail (and where for once he doesn't end up on the right side of the moral equation), Clooney saw his sleepless nights pay off. "I woke and sat down and wrote the whole scene in the kitchen between Ryan [Gosling] and myself: 'You want to be president. … You can start a war, you can lie, you can cheat, you can bankrupt the country, but you can't f-- the interns.' "

He personally attended the 2010 American Film Market -- that annual November gathering in Santa Monica where buyers and sellers haggle over rights -- just to raise money for the film, then gave away his share of profits to get it made. "[Co-writer] Grant Heslov and I sat there for a day and a half, and they'd bring in 12 people from Japan, from the Netherlands, and I would pitch them the whole movie, and then the next group would come in," he says with a laugh. "I was an encyclopedia salesman!"

With acting, Clooney also has learned to check his pride at the door. He recently turned down $15 million for one project that came with a promised $45 million on the backend. But he ardently committed to the role of a father struggling with his dying wife's infidelity in Fox Searchlight's Descendants. Director Alexander Payne had rejected him for 2004's Sideways (opting for Thomas Haden Church instead), and yet that didn't stop Clooney from agreeing to appear in Descendants before he'd read the script. Even then, he sweated that Payne wouldn't like his work.

"The trickiest part was the first week," he recalls. "We had to shoot the scene [where he runs down the street in flip-flops after learning his wife has had an affair]. You're worried you may be too big, or not big enough. I was trying to understand what Alexander wanted. I was nervous; but I'm always nervous [early] in shooting, because there's so much that can go wrong."

Critics widely praised his work. (The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy applauded his "underplayed, sometimes self-deprecating and exceptionally resonant performance.") A Golden Globe followed.
"He has an amazing range and technical craft," says Payne. "He'll maintain his emotions and intensity while adjusting his head 4.5 degrees this way or that."

********
Clooney's house, bought for $980,000 back in 1995 with ER paychecks (hardly chump change, but not the kind of price that proclaims movie-star excess), looks as if it could belong to any normal man who happened to make some money, apart from its subtle and discreet taste. There are no Oscars, Emmys or other awards visible in public places, no servants bustling in hushed tones -- just his personal assistant of many years, Angel, and a black cocker spaniel named Einstein that Clooney adopted from a local shelter.

A few days earlier, Einstein ate all the loose cash left out by Clooney's present girlfriend, Stacey Keibler of Dancing With the Stars (a former professional wrestler). The women who pass in and out of his life, few lasting longer than two or three years, have been the source of endless Internet speculation, likely because they rarely appear to be his professional or intellectual equals, and range from waitresses to models to an Italian starlet.

He won't go into his relationship with Keibler because "there is so little in my life that is private," but he does admit that this man who once won a bet with Michelle Pfeiffer that he wouldn't be married again by 40 hasn't ruled it out. Divorced from actress Talia Balsam, he has in the past rejected the idea; now he argues, "I don't even think about it, really."

Though women come and go, Clooney has kept the same tight-knit group of friends for years; indeed, almost all of his intimates -- such as Heslov, businessman Rande Gerber and actor Richard Kind -- have known him for two or even three decades, many since they were in acting class with him. It is these people, not other celebrities, with whom he spends most of his time (many gathered at his place to watch the Feb. 5 Super Bowl).

Much has been made of Clooney's friendship with Pitt, but his fellow best actor nominee doesn't belong to that innermost circle. "Brad is one of the great guys," he says. "We're good friends, but it's different from what people think, meaning we don't spend a lot of time together. He has been to my home in Como; we motorcycle together. But until recently, I hadn't seen Brad in a year."

Despite his sociability, his enormous interpersonal skills and considerable warmth, there remains something apart about him, something that perhaps has stood in the way of a long-lasting romance. "Anyone would be lying if they said they didn't get lonely at times," he says. "The loneliest you will get is in the most public of arenas: You will go to a place and end up in the smallest compartment possible, because it's a distraction to everybody, and you end up not getting to enjoy it like everyone else."

He adds, "I have been infinitely more alone in a bad relationship; there's nothing more isolating. I have been in places in my life where that has existed."

He also has been cheated on and even ditched "and left for someone; all those things. And it was sometimes a surprise, and sometimes you saw it coming. The most painful was when I kept trying to get [one woman] back. But we all make dumb mistakes."

A prank of Pitt's may have been an even dumber mistake. "A couple of years ago, he really nailed me. He did one of those shows and they asked him when he was going to marry Angie, and he said, 'I'll marry when George can legally marry [a man].' " He laughs. "He really got me badly, something I have had to deal with the past few years. But I could give a shit. I have to live in the world that I care about and that's all that matters."

That world is one in which his celebrity is firmly grounded -- as evident in a picture he keeps on his living room wall, across from a blazing fire with a huge television screen above the mantelpiece. It's the famous red-and-black Shepard Fairey artwork of President Obama, with a similar red-and-black Clooney next to it. (He is a devoted Obama supporter.)

The work is based on an Associated Press photograph taken at a Clooney-backed event in support of Darfur. He says he was standing right beside Obama at the time, but Fairey's rendering "cut me out," Clooney grins. Hence, while Obama has "Hope" written beneath him, Clooney has added "Dope" beneath himself.

Through the years, he says he has learned to think carefully before he speaks out on issues, but that makes his commitment to some causes all the more courageous. His criticism of the war in Iraq made him a highly controversial figure in the early 2000s. "They did a half-hour show on Fox saying my career was over, and there was a cover of one of those magazines with the word 'traitor' written on it, and the White House was passing out a deck of weasels and I was on one of the cards," he recalls.

After initial anger, there was a brief moment when he felt afraid. "I called my dad and said, 'Am I in trouble?' And he said, 'Grow up. You've got money. You've got a job. You can't demand freedom of speech and then say, "But don't say bad things about me." ' And he was right."

Today, he's savvy enough to know that whatever he does to support causes like Darfur -- or Haiti, for which he helped raise more than $50 million in a much-viewed telethon -- there's little way he can effect real change. "All you can do as a celebrity is throw a spotlight on things," he says, shrugging.

♦♦♦♦♦
Unlike other stars, Clooney learned early just how complicated celebrity can be, growing up the son of a local anchorman and the nephew of singer Rosemary Clooney. Depending on the progress of his father Nick's career, he'd be living in a mansion one moment and in a trailer the next.

"We were famous, always we were under this glass," he reflects. "I got to see how bad it could go with Rosemary -- financially, her career, all the missteps and then the comeback -- and I also got to understand that version of living in the public eye for such a long period of time. There was probably nobody ever better set up for fame than me."

Born in Lexington, Ky., Clooney remembers, "We were constantly moving, always moving, and either you were good at adapting or you weren't. I found myself getting better at it, and my sister, Ada, was less skilled." (She now lives in Kentucky with her two kids, close to their parents.)

While Clooney senior was known locally, that didn't mean money was always available. His wife, Nina, who owned a consignment store, regularly sewed her children's clothes by hand and dealt with the constant upheavals of her husband's profession.

"My father had a million careers," Clooney notes. "When I first remember him, he was a newsman in Lexington, Kentucky; then he was on a variety show, and then a newspaper writer -- and when he was unemployed he did four plays. We went from a beautiful house in Florence, Kentucky, to a tiny house in Columbus, Ohio, because the job wasn't as good. And then we moved to Mason, Ohio, and my father lost his main job and we lived in a trailer."

Clooney was 12 at that time, and though he says the experience was "fine," it's hard to believe it didn't disturb him. But endless adaptation honed his skills, teaching him to draw on his innate humor -- and also to use it as camouflage for his most private self.

"There were a lot of transitions," he recalls. "I would go from one school where I'd be the idiot to another school where I was the genius." Popularity ebbed and flowed with his classmates' reactions to his famous name -- and it was never worse than when the family moved to Augusta, Ky. "That was a little more wild and woolly," he says. "Suddenly there were a couple of guys that you were just going to have to fight. I did, and I lost."

At 14, a pivotal age for anyone, disaster struck in the form of Bell's palsy, a kind of paralysis whose cause is unknown that leads to dysfunction in the facial nerves. Clooney has made light of the matter, but it lasted far longer than most of his friends realize.
"As I started high school, half my face was paralyzed for six months," he says. "That's a long, long time. You wake up one morning and your tongue is numb, and you can't drink. Milk starts pouring out of the side of your face. You don't know when it's going to end; you don't know if it is going to end. And there's no treatment."

Clooney used humor to deflect attacks, even lampooning a school superintendent who had had a stroke, exaggerating his own paralysis to create a dead-on impersonation, which mortifies him to this day: "There are terrible things you do as a kid. You developed a personality, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill."

He did well in school, attending Northern Kentucky University and then the University of Cincinnati, where he majored in journalism. But before graduating, he followed his cousin Miguel Ferrer's advice and moved to Hollywood. Bit parts and occasional series failed to propel him to stardom; as he entered his 30s, the possibility of failure loomed large.

He drank, partied and even sampled cocaine, though he says, "I didn't have an issue with it. I'm not a big druggie, not at all. Blow is absolutely a nonstarter."

"I was unhappy," he reflects. "I was doing a series [on ABC] called Baby Talk, and I had a really big fallout with the producer and quit, and they threatened to sue, and I was doing a lot of television that I wasn't particularly proud of and wasn't particularly good in. I was mostly failing at things." Just as he began to question whether failure would be his future, everything changed in 1994 with ER, the hospital drama in which Clooney played Dr. Doug Ross and almost overnight became a sensation.

ER executive producer John Wells recalls how Clooney avidly pursued the gig, recognizing the quality of the script trumped the fact that Ross was a supporting role: "George was -- as he is now -- an extraordinarily talented networker, and he'd befriend the secretaries and get all the material before anybody else did. I hadn't even hired a director and he insisted on coming in." After Wells finally let him read, the producer called then-WB executive Les Moonves and said, "I've found our guy."

How Clooney handled himself once the series aired is indicative of the fundamental decency that remains his hallmark. He stuck to his five-year contract without trying to renegotiate or wriggle out of his deal; he even refused to take a $1 million bonus that was offered to the leads during season two because he didn't want to imply he'd stay.

"We were the number-one show, and it was very clear that George was breaking out, and Quentin Tarantino -- who directed an episode in season one -- wanted him for From Dusk Till Dawn," says Wells. "He was great and very professional, and when everyone else was getting huge raises, George always said no. He said, 'I'm going to honor my commitment to you.' "

ER helped launch Clooney as a movie star in pictures such as 1996's One Fine Day and 1997's The Peacemaker. For three years, until he left ER in 1999, he worked seven days a week to the point of exhaustion, juggling television and pictures.

But with 1997's Batman and Robin, Clooney, cast in the lead role opposite Chris O'Donnell, was forced to reassess. The movie was simply terrible, and so was Clooney -- and he knew it. This was one of his many "revelations," to use Heslov's word. Now he wanted not just to work, but to do work that mattered.

When he teamed with director Steven Soderbergh on 1998's acclaimed Out of Sight, it was transformative, and he followed that film with a host of memorable pictures, from 1999's Three Kings to 2005's Syriana.

It was while making the latter that he fell during a scene in which he was taped to a chair while his character was tortured. His head split open, days before he was scheduled to wrap.

"I knew immediately [how serious it was]," he says. "I thought I'd had a stroke. It was like a train horn going off in your head and you can't see and you can't stand." Instantly, he chartered a plane from Morocco back to Los Angeles and checked into Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

For three weeks, nobody was able to diagnose him, even though spinal fluid was leaking out of his nose. It was only when actress Lisa Kudrow led him to her neurologist brother that he discovered fluid also was leaking from his spine and he had torn his dura, the outermost layer enveloping the spinal cord.

"Then we started doing these things called myelograms, where they shoot contrast into your system and you can see what's leaking out," Clooney adds. "I had a two-and-a-half-inch tear in the middle of my back and a half-inch tear in my neck. The doctors did these blood patches, where they tie you down to a bed, and you're awake because they have a long needle and need to know if they're touching your spinal cord. And they take blood out and shoot it directly into your spinal column to try to get the blood to coagulate in those spots. I did about 15 of those over 15 days. It's like getting a spinal tap every day, and you're awake. But what we didn't understand was how big the holes were."

The pain was so great, he has said he contemplated suicide. "I thought I was going to die. Talk to any doctor about a CSF -- a cerebral/spinal fluid leak -- and they'll tell you it's way up there on the pain scale. There was this whole coming to terms with [mortality]."
On Christmas Day 2005, Clooney endured a successful nine-hour surgery. "Then you start on a series of painkillers. They'll hand you a giant tub of Vicodin, which is not a good drug for me; I had a lot of stomach pain and I really didn't like the high it gave me. Then there were a lot of other drugs. I was on morphine for a while, which created this horrible anxiety where I really thought I was in trouble."

The pain never has vanished but at least has diminished over time.
"It's been a long recovery," the actor says. "I had to accept that I'm going to beat this on a very different level, almost psychological. I went to a pain-management guy whose idea was, 'You can't mourn for how you used to feel, because you're never going to feel that way again.' Meaning, you wake up with the worst hangover ever, and that's your day, and you have to come to terms with it."

This is his life now. He recognizes he's getting older, must deal with pain that afflicts him on average three times per week and speaks of it with a characteristic lack of complaint.

"I've gone from where I can't function, where 'I just can't live like this,' to 'I've got a bad headache.' It's called 'positional,' meaning the longer you sit upright or stand upright, the worse it gets. That's how it is. As the day goes on, it gets worse. My ears will literally pop and my head goes ape-shit. But I'm scrappy."

He brushes it off. "My friend [actress] Karen Duffy, who is in unimaginable pain [from sarcoidosis, a disease in which inflammatory cells coalesce around various organs], has taught me so much: That any complaints I have are the most ridiculous thing in the world, because her pain is so much greater."

♦♦♦♦♦
It was during this time that awareness of others' pain led to his concern for Darfur.

He first learned about the Sudanese government's killings of ethnic groups from a 2005 column by New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof, then contacted Kristof and decided to go to Sudan himself. He plans to return in March, though he doesn't want to go into detail because his entry into the country will put him at risk.

That aside, "It's really hard on your system," he says. "I got malaria two years ago, and it really knocked me out. I've had a couple of recurrences. I didn't understand that it keeps coming back." His last attack was during the Christmas holiday, but he still wants to return, with just a cameraman and two others, because he believes he can draw attention to the hundreds of thousands who have been killed and whose story is often ignored.

"Everything about it is difficult, and you never feel safe, and we are not traveling with guns and security guys," he continues. "I ran into the Machine Gun Preacher [Sam Childers, a former gang member who crusades for Sudanese orphans], and he's like, 'Who do you travel with?' And I say, 'I just go with three people.' "

Once, while in Sudan with his father, Clooney was held up at gunpoint. It was "in the middle of nowhere and we were pulled over by a bunch of 13-year-old kids with Kalashnikovs, and that's where it's dangerous because it's random violence." Luckily, a colleague just walked over to an assailant and pushed his gun away as if speaking to a child and said, "No."

"I couldn't believe it was that simple," Clooney marvels, "because I was embarrassed at how scared I was."

When he needs refuge from all this, he heads to Lake Como, where he owns a huge waterfront home discovered almost by accident in 2001, when his motorbike broke down right outside it. After the owners invited him in for pizza and asked if he wanted to buy it -- and Clooney learned it was $7.5 million, half the price he had expected -- he pounced.

"I truly bought it as an investment," he says. "I didn't think I'd ever spend time there. I thought, 'Screw it, I'll buy it, hold it for a year, roll it over' -- and then I stayed there and went, 'Oh my God!' It is the thing singularly that I've done for myself that's brought me the most joy. It changed everything in my life."

Clooney has invited Hollywood friends such as fellow Oscar nominee Viola Davis to honeymoon there and has welcomed guests from Walter Cronkite to former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan. Payne and his editor even cut Descendants in Como. Clooney loves the back-and-forth of conversation and speaks glowingly of late dinners in the fading light.

But his world increasingly is centered on his social causes (he was honored by former Nobel laureates in 2007 with the prestigious Peace Summit Award), his work and his friends. He will appear next in the Proposition 8 play 8, running for one night -- and was thrilled the afternoon of our Feb. 7 discussion that a California court of appeals had overturned the anti-gay marriage resolution. "But they've still got a long way to go and a lot of court battles ahead," he says.

After the play, he'll star in Monument Men, a Nazi-era drama he currently is writing with Heslov, in which he wants his father to play his older self. But he admits at this stage that directing, more than acting, is his greatest passion. "I like acting now, because I am able to be much more selective," he says, "but there's nothing more creative than directing."

His drive as actor, writer and director consumes him, along with his need to create a body of work that genuinely stands the test of time. "When you make those kinds of films, often it's just by the skin of your teeth," he says. "The major thing that scares me isn't failure; I've experienced that a lot. What scares me is not making the attempt."
This man who already has an Oscar, and a body of work that almost anyone in Hollywood would envy, becomes even more pointed. "I'm terrified of dying and having not accomplished the things that I want to do," he says. "I am terrified of not finishing, or at least not participating enough. Everybody has a fear of death, but my fear isn't dying; it's of not getting the job done."

♦♦♦♦♦
CLOONEY ON CLOONEY: The actor looks back on some of his signature projects.

Out of Sight (1998) -- "Steven Soderbergh and I were both coming off of really low points in our careers. Steven had to audition for [producers] Danny DeVito and Stacey Sher, and I sort of had to audition as well. Initially, Sydney Pollack, who became a very dear friend of mine, was to direct, and when they decided that I was going to do it, he said, 'George isn't a movie star!' "

Three Kings (1999) -- "I saw David [O. Russell, the director with whom Clooney had a famous falling-out] a few weeks ago at a party. There was a bunch of filmmakers there. And I felt compelled to go over and go, 'So are we done?' And he goes, 'Please.' And I said, 'OK.' Because we made a really, really great film, and we had a really rough time together, but it's a case of both of us getting older. I really do appreciate the work he continues to do, and I think he appreciates what I'm trying to do."

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) -- "It was hysterical to be shooting the burning-of-the-cross scene, with all these guys in Ku Klux Klan outfits. Half of them were black! We were underneath the Van Nuys airport at 2 in the morning as the planes were flying in and all they'd see is this cross and this giant parade of [African Americans] dressed like the Ku Klux Klan."

Ocean's Eleven (2001) -- "Putting it together was exactly like the opening of the movie. Steven Soderbergh and I would go to people's homes and sit down and say, 'Here's what we think.' We sat down with Matt Damon and Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, and they all signed on and it all worked out easily. But we also sat with Johnny Depp, and we didn't get him. I think the part was for a Brit, and he didn't want to do it."

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) -- "Fox News and other places were calling me a traitor [for his opposition to the war in Iraq], and my dad said, 'This isn't courage -- what other people did is.' And he talked about the people who really took chances -- when Muhammad Ali said, 'I won't fight in Vietnam.' And that's what made me write Good Night, and Good Luck. I made $120,000 and there was no backend. But honest to God, there was nothing more fun."
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