George in the new US Esquire (january 2012)

Oooooh yeah. Thanks!

Sexy magazine cover!

esquire
have always had
some great shots
of him

Mmmmmm...come to momma. Nice shot they used. If only his left hand wasn't in the way.

wot?

wow! always a hottie and @MyGirlKylie , got ur point , we all wish that

I was thinking that too MGK! Move the hands George! MOVE THE HANDS!!!!

This is how he keeps us on the "high alert". We never know how much he is going to reveal, so we keep coming back and back again, just to have another pick !

He's just such a tease! He KNOWS we want to see his package.

Yep, and his reaction to our curiosity we can see in your avatar

That is an awesome cover! All the shades fall well beautifully... Magnetic... Wowieee laaa

Thank you for sharing

melbert wrote:He's just such a tease! He KNOWS we want to see his package.

You're right cause that smirky grin says "Sorry ladies, I know what you're looking for. Maybe next time..." Just to keep us coming back for more. You know... cause we do. lol

hey egocentrico!

MyGirlKylie wrote:

melbert wrote:He's just such a tease! He KNOWS we want to see his package.

You're right cause that smirky grin says "Sorry ladies, I know what you're looking for. Maybe next time..." Just to keep us coming back for more. You know... cause we do. lol

Aww, c'mon, ladies!! He is just being considerate (he knows that somebody would probably die of a heart attack if we saw too much!!).

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

You're right MM - but what a way to go!!!!

cindigirl wrote:You're right MM - but what a way to go!!!!

but
possibly
the most far!

In a word: WOW! Lookin' hot George! Sigh.....

I like his look on this cover! He's looks all newsie!

Thanks for posting!

Finally! The article is out!

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December 13, 2011, 12:00 PM

George Clooney's Thoughts for Today

What I've Learned (This Year)

Interviewed by Cal Fussman, September 30, 2011

Published in the January 2012 Meaning of Life issue, on sale soon

Hey, this is Einstein. I guess he's part cocker spaniel or something. I got him out of a shelter about a year and a half ago. I was looking for a dog because I hadn't had one for a while — and I wanted one that was house-trained. I'm just terrible at house-training dogs.

So I go online and see Einstein. They had a whole film about him. It was actually really sweet. You see him all beat up and shit in the shelter, and they show how they cleaned him up. God, I love this dog. So I called and said, "I like Einstein!"

The woman goes, "Well, we don't know if Einstein will like you."

"Well, can I meet with Einstein?"

"Yes, we'll bring him to your house, but if he doesn't like you, he can't stay. We have to have good homes for these dogs." She sounded very serious.

Okay. I have this really long driveway, and I open the gate for them, and I start to panic that Einstein is not going to like me. So I run into the kitchen, where I have these turkey meatballs, and I rub them all over my shoes.

This woman opens the door, and who knew Einstein was such a food lady of negotiable affection on top of everything? He throws himself at my feet.

She says, "I've never seen him react like that, ever!" And she left him with me on the spot. And forever, now, he just thinks of me as the guy with meatball feet. He loves me. I can do no wrong. He follows me everywhere.

I get asked a lot about getting into politics. I say, "Take a look at politics. You tell me what seems appealing about that."

If this were a Republican president and Republican government, the advisors around it would be selling this as the most successful three years of a presidency in years. They'd start by saying, "When my guy took office, we were losing four hundred thousand jobs a month. That would mean fourteen million less jobs if we continued along that pace. And it stopped immediately. We saved the auto industry. We passed a health-care bill that no one could pass" — although Republicans wouldn't have wanted that. "We killed Osama bin Laden." You could go down the list of things that you could brag about. But Democrats are terrible at selling. So they're just kind of apologizing, and everybody feels disillusioned.

They always think of Hollywood as a cash center. We sell really shitty movies sometimes and make a billion dollars. They should stop looking at us as a cash register to get funding. And they should ask themselves: Who are the best sellers in the game? Harvey Weinstein. Sit down with Harvey Weinstein. Sit down with Jerry Weintraub, who is a brilliant P. T. Barnum guy. Sit down with these brilliant showmen who know how to sell product. Then go out and figure out how to pitch your guy.

Negative ads in politics are a pretty crappy thing to do, but if the right guy gets in office, it's the right thing to do. The question is: At what point do you give away a portion of your soul, and to what extent does it actually cost you?

Here's the thing: We used to lead the world in making things. But we stopped making things. We don't make anything anymore. I miss that.

Hollywood still makes things. We still export a couple billion dollars' worth of product overseas. Original, new product. Some people might not agree that it's original or new, but basically it is. There aren't a whole lot of industries that are exporting things right now — big time with big money. We spent about twenty years making money off of making money. And that's a very dangerous place to exist.

I didn't put money in the stock market. To me that's like Vegas without the dancing girls — none of the fun, no gambling or dancing or drinking — and you don't get to participate. So I paid off my house in cash when I could. It's about having a foundation for when things go bad. I still have that mentality. When things go badly, I'll have this piece of land I can sell first, and then I have this piece of land I can sell second. You always think that way.

You get better as an actor over time if you're growing. Like singers. My aunt Rosemary, later in life, couldn't hit a note and couldn't hold a note. But she was a better singer — much better. She said, "I don't have to prove I can sing anymore." Just serving the music makes a huge difference. There's a simplicity to how you're doing it that makes it easier to convey. There's another trick — good writing.

Good storytelling sets you up. There's a scene at the end of Michael Clayton where I get into the car and say, "Just drive." It's a close-up of me and we're driving. Everybody really loves that scene because it just stays on me the whole time. And people ask, "What was going through your head?" The truth of the matter is if you showed that scene at the beginning of the movie, people would say, "I'm bored out of my mind."

So that shows you that it's not the actor that's doing that — it's the story that led to that and got you there. The trick as an actor is not to sell it. Let the story do the work.

Somebody asked me, How can you relate to being a father? Well, I'm also not running for president, but I played that role in Ides of March. I wasn't an actual lawyer when I did Michael Clayton, and I don't fire people for a living like I did in Up in the Air. Go down the list. It's just a job. An acting job is playing pretend.

I've been a child of somebody's. I've been an uncle. All my friends have kids. I'm around kids. I have an understanding of what it is. And I also have a really good script that informs me what is required of this father. Because, for the most part, the father I play in The Descendants doesn't resemble any of the fathers that I know. I don't have friends who have the kind of issues that this guy has. So a lot of it is just the information you get from the screenplay.

There are Method actors that are really wonderful. I don't bash anybody's way of working because the results are the only thing that matter in this game. But for me, I don't have to do heroin to play a heroin addict.


Nigel Parry

I have a real interest in pushing some of the limits of things that studios don't want to make. Because I can. I won't be able to at some point in the near future. But right now I can, and while I can, I want to do it. So when you're eighty years old and they ask you what you did, you can go, "When I had the keys to the car, I drove it as fast as I could and as hard as I could. I took it to places that the owner didn't really want me to take it."

That's a fun thing to do. Understanding that at some point they're going to come back and repossess the car. I don't mind that. I just want to be able to say we gave it a shot when we had the time.


There's ten of us, we've been best friends for thirty years. Ten guys. And their wives, and their kids, are all family now. I'm not big on keeping up on the phone, none of us are. Some guys I won't talk to for two months and then you pick up the phone and hear, "So, anyway." There's no guilt or where have you been? or what's been going on? or why haven't we talked? There's an ease to it.

I remember when Richard Kind's dad suddenly died. This was about seven or eight years ago — maybe more. Richard's a really wonderful character actor. He loved his dad, and he was very grown-up about passing on the news. He called and left a message: My dad died, I'm in Chicago, the funeral's going to be in New Jersey tomorrow morning. I'll talk to you when I get back.

This was five o'clock at night. I was in L. A. Rick is a Jew. They bury the next day. They don't screw around. They get you right in the ground. So I called up Michael, Grant's brother, and told him Richard's dad died. He said, "We should be there." The guys were all around the country. One was in Denver. One was in San Diego.

So I got a jet and we spent the whole night flying around the country. San Diego, Denver. We landed in Trenton, New Jersey. Richard didn't know anything about it.

We got to the synagogue, this giant synagogue, with the people up front. And Richard didn't know we were going to be there. We're sitting there, the nine of us in the back row. And Richard gets up to speak about his dad and he sees his nine best friends there. And what I loved about it was that all of us understood that there are moments in your life that are real passages. Your father dying is a very big one. Because you are now the man of the family. We understood how important that was at that time.

There is a great joy in the patience of slowly setting the table and sitting back and watching it happen. Just waiting and waiting. Seeing them slowly take the bait. Some practical jokes could take years — years and years and years. And the beauty of not panicking and going, "Heh, see what I'm doing to you?" In general, we do them because they make us laugh hysterically.

Before there were digital cameras, if anybody's wife set their camera down, immediately it was brought into the bathroom, where you'd use it to take pictures of your ass, and then you'd stick the camera back in its spot. I remember once, my buddy Thom was having a party for Harry Hamlin. It was Harry's birthday. And Harry had a film camera. He set it down in the midst of the party. I grabbed the camera and went over to Grant.

"Grant, I've got Harry Hamlin's camera! Go in the bathroom and I'll take a picture of your ass."

"No!" Grant says.

So I see Michael. "Michael, come on! In the bathroom, I'll take a picture of your ass with Harry Hamlin's camera." Michael says, "No."

So then Richard Kind comes in. "Hel-lo!" And I say, "Richard! We've all taken pictures of our ass on Harry's camera!"

And Richard goes, "Okay!"

We go into the bathroom and I set up to take his picture. He drops his pants down. Usually we'd just frame the ass, but I framed it so you could see Richard's face, too. He was looking over his shoulder.

What you have to understand is that none of us really know Harry. We know him like, "Hey, hi, Harry, how are you?" But that's it. The party was at Thom's house because Harry's wife was a friend of Thom's wife at the time.

About a week later, Thom plays us his message — from Harry Hamlin: "Yes, uh, Thom, it's Harry. I want to thank you again for a great birthday party. Could you explain to me why Richard Kind is showing his ass on my camera?"

To this day, we have our Harry Hamlin jokes because of it. It's not a joke at Harry's expense. All we have to do is say Harry Hamlin and everybody thinks about Richard Kind's butt.

I keep thinking: Now that every single human being on earth has a camera phone, where are all those UFO pictures? Remember you used to see those pictures. Some guy just happened to have a Polaroid when the UFOs appeared? Either it was all bullshit, or my theory is that the martians have decided, "Don't go down there, man. All those fuckers have cameras now."

Ides of March I did for scale — scale as a director, scale as an actor, scale as a writer. And I don't have any back end on it. So I'm not going to make any money after that. I enjoy living in a nice house and having a nice life. So I do two or three commercials overseas a year to sort of fill in, because they pay pretty well.

The wedding one in Norway was great. I usually try to keep away from anything that would have to do with me personally. I always think the commercials should make fun of me, sort of as a personality, but I try to keep my personal life out of it. But they called and sent the script, and the idea was funny. This woman in Norway wakes up and she's married to me. It makes a big difference when you're working with the Carol Burnett of Norway. She's great, and it turned out fantastic.

That commercial in particular helped fund a satellite project that keeps an eye on the Sudanese border to try to hold these war criminals in check. The satellite project costs about a million and two a year. So I'm always looking for a gig like that.

People forget that I was married. I love that, Will he get married? I don't talk about it because I don't think about it. I don't ever question other peoples' versions of how they live their lives or what they do.

I understand that it's a subject of interest for people. But sometimes it exists only because it came up years ago. It becomes this conversation piece that constantly resurfaces.

Everybody sort of has their own versions of what they think I am and what they think that is. I'm just living my life and doing the best I can. The rest of those versions, there's not much I can do about. No matter what I do, I'm somehow upsetting someone in some way or making somebody happy. I can only live my own life and my version of it.

My life isn't focused on results. My life is really focused on the process of doing all the things I'm doing, from work to relationships to friendships to charitable work. If I focused on results, if it's only about the ultimate results, I'd be a failure in Sudan, I'd be a failure in film, I'd be a failure with my friendships, I'd be a failure in relationships. I look at it as an ongoing process.



Nigel Parry
Jacket, shirt, and trousers by Giorgio Armani; shoes by Church's.

The most dangerous places are not what you would think. It's not Janjaweed militia taking us and shooting us. Or the Muslim Brotherhood saying, Shoot their plane out of the air.

We were there during a restricted travel time and they sent a message on the Internet saying to shoot us out of the air. Not that they could, necessarily. There were plenty of those versions that we went through. I was with Jane Holl Lute, who was an assistant secretary-general at the UN at the time. Her husband's Douglas Lute, who was in charge of military operations overseas. So between them they were sort of involved with most military operations in the world. And I never had my bearings right. We were in Khartoum, which is clearly not a very safe place. We'd be in one place and I'd be ducking down, and she'd be like, "What are you ducking for?" And then we'd be in the Congo, and we'd be in a pit, and I'd be standing looking at stuff, and they go, "Get down!" It's not like you're in New York and you know where to go and where not to go.

But the scariest moments are the random ones. Like when two fifteen-year-old kids with Kalashnikovs drop a tree in the middle of a dirt road. Those are the ones that make you think, Well, I'm not going to get killed for standing against Omar al-Bashir, the guy who's charged in The Hague for war crimes. That's not what's going to get you hurt. What's going to get you hurt is two fifteen-year-old kids who really don't understand life yet, but they've got Kalashnikovs and you've got a truck and stuff that they would like. In the middle of nowhere.

It's really not political. It's more random crime than anything. You can get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. You're always aware. And fame won't play any great part in the outcome. You can't pull out your, you know, 1997 Sexiest Man Alive People magazine and say, "You really shouldn't shoot me. You're doing the whole country a huge disservice."

Part of the trick is to put yourself in that position. We put ourselves there because part of the story is that you're putting yourself in harm's way. That allows you to come back and do a junket with thirty news outlets — which makes a difference in the amount of attention you're generating for the cause.

I talked with the president at one of those fundraisers some months back, and I asked him, "What keeps you up at night?"

And he said, "Everything. Everything that gets to my desk is a critical mass. If it gets to my desk, then no one else could have handled it." So I said, "So what's the one that keeps you up at night?"

He goes, "There are quite a few."

So I go, "What's the one? Period."

And he says, "Pakistan."

I get that: There's the question of whether Zardari's government is actually in control, or whether the military is. And how close the Taliban, or Al Qaeda, or whoever else is to having their hands on real weapons of mass destruction. It's the closest government there is to allowing those weapons to either be used or sold to places that we really wouldn't like to have those weapons. That's a concern for all of us.

It's interesting to see the world through world leaders' eyes. I've met with a few over the years. And I have to say, I wouldn't want the responsibility that those people have. I like having singular focus on singular issues.

I don't sleep much. Five to six, I'd say. You could argue that people, as they get older, sleep less — probably because they're afraid of dying at some point. I know my parents don't sleep much. I know that I used to be able to sleep until noon when I was younger. I couldn't fathom staying in bed until ten now. I wouldn't know what to do unless there's a football game on.

At Lake Como, you live your life the way you're supposed to live your life if you're lucky. The two-hour lunch. The glass of wine. Everybody sitting around and talking. Dinner starts at nine and it ends at midnight or one.

There are conversations that go on for long periods of time with really interesting people, always. We get these wild, eclectic groups of people that have no business being together. Kofi Annan with Willie Nelson and Woody Harrelson and one of my buddies with a stripper. Samantha Power, who wrote her last book out under a tree at my house. Some athlete and some Italian designer. People I don't know well. Regis Philbin's stayed. There are wild, strange conversations that I really adore.

Hosting is work. It means you don't get to go up to your room and disappear and take a nap. Like everybody else does after lunch. I'm talking about hosting, not hosting a dinner party, but hosting people staying in your home.

You have to have everything set up. "Okay, guys. Whoever wants to take a boat out, we'll take a boat out at three. Three to five. If we want to take the scooters to get gelato, we'll do that from 5:30 to 7:00."

At a table of fifteen, you can't let one person sit in the corner and not participate. You have to go, "Hey, Frank. Tell us a story about ..." You want everybody involved at the table.

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Nigel Parry
Jacket, shirt, and trousers by Giorgio Armani; shoes by Church's.

There are quite a few things that the devil could tempt me with. I would argue youth. But I could argue against it in so many ways. The only reason that being younger would in any way be appealing is that I wish I could play sports at the level I now understand them. I could dunk a ball when I was in high school. But now I know how to play the game really well. I remember getting into varsity basketball games and literally being just lost — just absolutely panicked on what to do. And now I would know exactly what to do.

I could be tempted by youth if I was allowed to hold on to all the wisdom that I've gotten. In everything, not just sports. In life. In acting. I'd be tempted by youth only so I could continue doing it a little longer.

Keep looking for new trouble.

More to follow . . .

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Nothing shown here is a prop. Many men have an idealized notion of what Clooney's life is like. It turns out to be largely what you would imagine. Jacket, shirt, and trousers by Giorgio Armani; watch by Omega.

George Clooney's Thoughts for Today

What I've Learned (This Year)

Interviewed by Cal Fussman, September 30, 2011

Published in the January 2012 Meaning of Life issue, on sale soon

Hey, this is Einstein. I guess he's part cocker spaniel or something. I got him out of a shelter about a year and a half ago. I was looking for a dog because I hadn't had one for a while — and I wanted one that was house-trained. I'm just terrible at house-training dogs.

So I go online and see Einstein. They had a whole film about him. It was actually really sweet. You see him all beat up and shit in the shelter, and they show how they cleaned him up. God, I love this dog. So I called and said, "I like Einstein!"

The woman goes, "Well, we don't know if Einstein will like you."

"Well, can I meet with Einstein?"

"Yes, we'll bring him to your house, but if he doesn't like you, he can't stay. We have to have good homes for these dogs." She sounded very serious.

Okay. I have this really long driveway, and I open the gate for them, and I start to panic that Einstein is not going to like me. So I run into the kitchen, where I have these turkey meatballs, and I rub them all over my shoes.

This woman opens the door, and who knew Einstein was such a food lady of negotiable affection on top of everything? He throws himself at my feet.

She says, "I've never seen him react like that, ever!" And she left him with me on the spot. And forever, now, he just thinks of me as the guy with meatball feet. He loves me. I can do no wrong. He follows me everywhere.

I get asked a lot about getting into politics. I say, "Take a look at politics. You tell me what seems appealing about that."

If this were a Republican president and Republican government, the advisors around it would be selling this as the most successful three years of a presidency in years. They'd start by saying, "When my guy took office, we were losing four hundred thousand jobs a month. That would mean fourteen million less jobs if we continued along that pace. And it stopped immediately. We saved the auto industry. We passed a health-care bill that no one could pass" — although Republicans wouldn't have wanted that. "We killed Osama bin Laden." You could go down the list of things that you could brag about. But Democrats are terrible at selling. So they're just kind of apologizing, and everybody feels disillusioned.

They always think of Hollywood as a cash center. We sell really shitty movies sometimes and make a billion dollars. They should stop looking at us as a cash register to get funding. And they should ask themselves: Who are the best sellers in the game? Harvey Weinstein. Sit down with Harvey Weinstein. Sit down with Jerry Weintraub, who is a brilliant P. T. Barnum guy. Sit down with these brilliant showmen who know how to sell product. Then go out and figure out how to pitch your guy.

Negative ads in politics are a pretty crappy thing to do, but if the right guy gets in office, it's the right thing to do. The question is: At what point do you give away a portion of your soul, and to what extent does it actually cost you?

Here's the thing: We used to lead the world in making things. But we stopped making things. We don't make anything anymore. I miss that.

Hollywood still makes things. We still export a couple billion dollars' worth of product overseas. Original, new product. Some people might not agree that it's original or new, but basically it is. There aren't a whole lot of industries that are exporting things right now — big time with big money. We spent about twenty years making money off of making money. And that's a very dangerous place to exist.

I didn't put money in the stock market. To me that's like Vegas without the dancing girls — none of the fun, no gambling or dancing or drinking — and you don't get to participate. So I paid off my house in cash when I could. It's about having a foundation for when things go bad. I still have that mentality. When things go badly, I'll have this piece of land I can sell first, and then I have this piece of land I can sell second. You always think that way.

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The path leads to the guesthouse — exposed beams, warm tones, club chairs, bar, framed Ides of March poster not yet hung — and the tennis/basketball court, with its cavelike locker room. Suit and shirt by Louis Vuitton; shoes by Church's.

The path leads to the guesthouse — exposed beams, warm tones, club chairs, bar, framed Ides of March poster not yet hung — and the tennis/basketball court, with its cavelike locker room. Suit and shirt by Louis Vuitton; shoes by Church's.

You get better as an actor over time if you're growing. Like singers. My aunt Rosemary, later in life, couldn't hit a note and couldn't hold a note. But she was a better singer — much better. She said, "I don't have to prove I can sing anymore." Just serving the music makes a huge difference. There's a simplicity to how you're doing it that makes it easier to convey. There's another trick — good writing.

Good storytelling sets you up. There's a scene at the end of Michael Clayton where I get into the car and say, "Just drive." It's a close-up of me and we're driving. Everybody really loves that scene because it just stays on me the whole time. And people ask, "What was going through your head?" The truth of the matter is if you showed that scene at the beginning of the movie, people would say, "I'm bored out of my mind."

So that shows you that it's not the actor that's doing that — it's the story that led to that and got you there. The trick as an actor is not to sell it. Let the story do the work.

Somebody asked me, How can you relate to being a father? Well, I'm also not running for president, but I played that role in Ides of March. I wasn't an actual lawyer when I did Michael Clayton, and I don't fire people for a living like I did in Up in the Air. Go down the list. It's just a job. An acting job is playing pretend.

I've been a child of somebody's. I've been an uncle. All my friends have kids. I'm around kids. I have an understanding of what it is. And I also have a really good script that informs me what is required of this father. Because, for the most part, the father I play in The Descendants doesn't resemble any of the fathers that I know. I don't have friends who have the kind of issues that this guy has. So a lot of it is just the information you get from the screenplay.

There are Method actors that are really wonderful. I don't bash anybody's way of working because the results are the only thing that matter in this game. But for me, I don't have to do heroin to play a heroin addict.

I have a real interest in pushing some of the limits of things that studios don't want to make. Because I can. I won't be able to at some point in the near future. But right now I can, and while I can, I want to do it. So when you're eighty years old and they ask you what you did, you can go, "When I had the keys to the car, I drove it as fast as I could and as hard as I could. I took it to places that the owner didn't really want me to take it."

That's a fun thing to do. Understanding that at some point they're going to come back and repossess the car. I don't mind that. I just want to be able to say we gave it a shot when we had the time.

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There's ten of us, we've been best friends for thirty years. Ten guys. And their wives, and their kids, are all family now. I'm not big on keeping up on the phone, none of us are. Some guys I won't talk to for two months and then you pick up the phone and hear, "So, anyway." There's no guilt or where have you been? or what's been going on? or why haven't we talked? There's an ease to it.

I remember when Richard Kind's dad suddenly died. This was about seven or eight years ago — maybe more. Richard's a really wonderful character actor. He loved his dad, and he was very grown-up about passing on the news. He called and left a message: My dad died, I'm in Chicago, the funeral's going to be in New Jersey tomorrow morning. I'll talk to you when I get back.

This was five o'clock at night. I was in L. A. Rick is a Jew. They bury the next day. They don't screw around. They get you right in the ground. So I called up Michael, Grant's brother, and told him Richard's dad died. He said, "We should be there." The guys were all around the country. One was in Denver. One was in San Diego.

So I got a jet and we spent the whole night flying around the country. San Diego, Denver. We landed in Trenton, New Jersey. Richard didn't know anything about it.

We got to the synagogue, this giant synagogue, with the people up front. And Richard didn't know we were going to be there. We're sitting there, the nine of us in the back row. And Richard gets up to speak about his dad and he sees his nine best friends there. And what I loved about it was that all of us understood that there are moments in your life that are real passages. Your father dying is a very big one. Because you are now the man of the family. We understood how important that was at that time.

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The court has a special, slightly padded surface, and it's set up for both tennis and basketball. Clooney's close circle of friends shows up to play regularly. The padding around one of the hoop stanchions says, "The Boys."

There is a great joy in the patience of slowly setting the table and sitting back and watching it happen. Just waiting and waiting. Seeing them slowly take the bait. Some practical jokes could take years — years and years and years. And the beauty of not panicking and going, "Heh, see what I'm doing to you?" In general, we do them because they make us laugh hysterically.

Before there were digital cameras, if anybody's wife set their camera down, immediately it was brought into the bathroom, where you'd use it to take pictures of your ass, and then you'd stick the camera back in its spot. I remember once, my buddy Thom was having a party for Harry Hamlin. It was Harry's birthday. And Harry had a film camera. He set it down in the midst of the party. I grabbed the camera and went over to Grant.

"Grant, I've got Harry Hamlin's camera! Go in the bathroom and I'll take a picture of your ass."

"No!" Grant says.

So I see Michael. "Michael, come on! In the bathroom, I'll take a picture of your ass with Harry Hamlin's camera." Michael says, "No."

So then Richard Kind comes in. "Hel-lo!" And I say, "Richard! We've all taken pictures of our ass on Harry's camera!"

And Richard goes, "Okay!"

We go into the bathroom and I set up to take his picture. He drops his pants down. Usually we'd just frame the ass, but I framed it so you could see Richard's face, too. He was looking over his shoulder.

What you have to understand is that none of us really know Harry. We know him like, "Hey, hi, Harry, how are you?" But that's it. The party was at Thom's house because Harry's wife was a friend of Thom's wife at the time.

About a week later, Thom plays us his message — from Harry Hamlin: "Yes, uh, Thom, it's Harry. I want to thank you again for a great birthday party. Could you explain to me why Richard Kind is showing his ass on my camera?"

To this day, we have our Harry Hamlin jokes because of it. It's not a joke at Harry's expense. All we have to do is say Harry Hamlin and everybody thinks about Richard Kind's butt.

I keep thinking: Now that every single human being on earth has a camera phone, where are all those UFO pictures? Remember you used to see those pictures. Some guy just happened to have a Polaroid when the UFOs appeared? Either it was all bullshit, or my theory is that the martians have decided, "Don't go down there, man. All those fuckers have cameras now."

Ides of March I did for scale — scale as a director, scale as an actor, scale as a writer. And I don't have any back end on it. So I'm not going to make any money after that. I enjoy living in a nice house and having a nice life. So I do two or three commercials overseas a year to sort of fill in, because they pay pretty well.

The wedding one in Norway was great. I usually try to keep away from anything that would have to do with me personally. I always think the commercials should make fun of me, sort of as a personality, but I try to keep my personal life out of it. But they called and sent the script, and the idea was funny. This woman in Norway wakes up and she's married to me. It makes a big difference when you're working with the Carol Burnett of Norway. She's great, and it turned out fantastic.

That commercial in particular helped fund a satellite project that keeps an eye on the Sudanese border to try to hold these war criminals in check. The satellite project costs about a million and two a year. So I'm always looking for a gig like that.

People forget that I was married. I love that, Will he get married? I don't talk about it because I don't think about it. I don't ever question other peoples' versions of how they live their lives or what they do.

I understand that it's a subject of interest for people. But sometimes it exists only because it came up years ago. It becomes this conversation piece that constantly resurfaces.

Everybody sort of has their own versions of what they think I am and what they think that is. I'm just living my life and doing the best I can. The rest of those versions, there's not much I can do about. No matter what I do, I'm somehow upsetting someone in some way or making somebody happy. I can only live my own life and my version of it.

My life isn't focused on results. My life is really focused on the process of doing all the things I'm doing, from work to relationships to friendships to charitable work. If I focused on results, if it's only about the ultimate results, I'd be a failure in Sudan, I'd be a failure in film, I'd be a failure with my friendships, I'd be a failure in relationships. I look at it as an ongoing process.

The most dangerous places are not what you would think. It's not Janjaweed militia taking us and shooting us. Or the Muslim Brotherhood saying, Shoot their plane out of the air.

We were there during a restricted travel time and they sent a message on the Internet saying to shoot us out of the air. Not that they could, necessarily. There were plenty of those versions that we went through. I was with Jane Holl Lute, who was an assistant secretary-general at the UN at the time. Her husband's Douglas Lute, who was in charge of military operations overseas. So between them they were sort of involved with most military operations in the world. And I never had my bearings right. We were in Khartoum, which is clearly not a very safe place. We'd be in one place and I'd be ducking down, and she'd be like, "What are you ducking for?" And then we'd be in the Congo, and we'd be in a pit, and I'd be standing looking at stuff, and they go, "Get down!" It's not like you're in New York and you know where to go and where not to go.

But the scariest moments are the random ones. Like when two fifteen-year-old kids with Kalashnikovs drop a tree in the middle of a dirt road. Those are the ones that make you think, Well, I'm not going to get killed for standing against Omar al-Bashir, the guy who's charged in The Hague for war crimes. That's not what's going to get you hurt. What's going to get you hurt is two fifteen-year-old kids who really don't understand life yet, but they've got Kalashnikovs and you've got a truck and stuff that they would like. In the middle of nowhere.

It's really not political. It's more random crime than anything. You can get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. You're always aware. And fame won't play any great part in the outcome. You can't pull out your, you know, 1997 Sexiest Man Alive People magazine and say, "You really shouldn't shoot me. You're doing the whole country a huge disservice."

Part of the trick is to put yourself in that position. We put ourselves there because part of the story is that you're putting yourself in harm's way. That allows you to come back and do a junket with thirty news outlets — which makes a difference in the amount of attention you're generating for the cause.

I talked with the president at one of those fundraisers some months back, and I asked him, "What keeps you up at night?"

And he said, "Everything. Everything that gets to my desk is a critical mass. If it gets to my desk, then no one else could have handled it." So I said, "So what's the one that keeps you up at night?"

He goes, "There are quite a few."

So I go, "What's the one? Period."

And he says, "Pakistan."

I get that: There's the question of whether Zardari's government is actually in control, or whether the military is. And how close the Taliban, or Al Qaeda, or whoever else is to having their hands on real weapons of mass destruction. It's the closest government there is to allowing those weapons to either be used or sold to places that we really wouldn't like to have those weapons. That's a concern for all of us.

It's interesting to see the world through world leaders' eyes. I've met with a few over the years. And I have to say, I wouldn't want the responsibility that those people have. I like having singular focus on singular issues.

I don't sleep much. Five to six, I'd say. You could argue that people, as they get older, sleep less — probably because they're afraid of dying at some point. I know my parents don't sleep much. I know that I used to be able to sleep until noon when I was younger. I couldn't fathom staying in bed until ten now. I wouldn't know what to do unless there's a football game on.

At Lake Como, you live your life the way you're supposed to live your life if you're lucky. The two-hour lunch. The glass of wine. Everybody sitting around and talking. Dinner starts at nine and it ends at midnight or one.

There are conversations that go on for long periods of time with really interesting people, always. We get these wild, eclectic groups of people that have no business being together. Kofi Annan with Willie Nelson and Woody Harrelson and one of my buddies with a stripper. Samantha Power, who wrote her last book out under a tree at my house. Some athlete and some Italian designer. People I don't know well. Regis Philbin's stayed. There are wild, strange conversations that I really adore.

Hosting is work. It means you don't get to go up to your room and disappear and take a nap. Like everybody else does after lunch. I'm talking about hosting, not hosting a dinner party, but hosting people staying in your home.

You have to have everything set up. "Okay, guys. Whoever wants to take a boat out, we'll take a boat out at three. Three to five. If we want to take the scooters to get gelato, we'll do that from 5:30 to 7:00."

At a table of fifteen, you can't let one person sit in the corner and not participate. You have to go, "Hey, Frank. Tell us a story about ..." You want everybody involved at the table.

There are quite a few things that the devil could tempt me with. I would argue youth. But I could argue against it in so many ways. The only reason that being younger would in any way be appealing is that I wish I could play sports at the level I now understand them. I could dunk a ball when I was in high school. But now I know how to play the game really well. I remember getting into varsity basketball games and literally being just lost — just absolutely panicked on what to do. And now I would know exactly what to do.

I could be tempted by youth if I was allowed to hold on to all the wisdom that I've gotten. In everything, not just sports. In life. In acting. I'd be tempted by youth only so I could continue doing it a little longer.

Keep looking for new trouble.

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Already posted, Laetval, but I'll keep the pictures because it'll save me from adding them!

Thoroughly enjoyed this interview

Wasn't that great?! Love his big magazine interviews, and quite a few new quotes for us!

Haven't covered all the news Katie... but I sure think I am reading something like this after a long l o n g l o o o o o o o o n g time
Like a big yummm treat !!!

Loved it. Sometimes George Clooney just is! Which makes his choice of girlfriend just not! Unfathomable. And then shoving them deliberately into the limelight to promote themselves and him- it never makes sense to me. Odd, odd, odd.

Double-wow, man, this has to be THE BEST interview that I ever seen of George Clooney. It shows just how down-to-earth this man really is. Many more wonderful years to you, George.

I had to laugh at the thing about him rubbing meat on his shoes so that the dog would like him. A bit weird, no? How insecure do you have to be to do that?

Aren't the Esquire interviews with him usually very good? After the silly Rolling Stone interview, I was really looking forward to this one and hoping they delivered something worth reading. And they have. Puts the Rolling Stone article author to shame.

I loved it! Now, I finally get a glimpse of the George I thought existed!

Katiedot wrote:I had to laugh at the thing about him rubbing meat on his shoes so that the dog would like him. A bit weird, no? How insecure do you have to be to do that?

That was funny! I had to LOL at the guy wondering why Richard Kind's ass was on his camera. Poor Richard, really is the 'butt' of his practical jokes.

Hmmmm...wonder if he needs someone to help occupy his time during the night. I'm a bit of an insomniac myself and usually sleep 4-5 hrs so... Gimme a call, G.

during the night
better TO SLEEP



insecure?
guess a lot
sometimes
-like we all...

The smile is back on my face

it's me wrote:during the night
better TO SLEEP

To sleep at night would be lovely. unfortunately my brain will not shut up and let me most of the time. lol

sorry

a kind sweet help from your beloved one
don't help?

Wonderful article!!!!!

This interview is just great, smart, funny one of the best. I loved it.
Thanks for posting.

A Celebitchy article on his US Esquire interview from today.

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This is the post I made in the stacy's lastest tweet thread :

by laetval on Mon Nov 14, 2011 3:37 pm

Why George allows her to post a pic of HIS dog to the world?

If George really wanted to show or to introduce HIS dog to the world he would certainly do it via a press interview in a magazine (as he has already talked of his dog in recents interview) WITH pics of them. Not a pic of his conquest and HIS dog she posts in a social network he hates so much!!

Isn't funny (and I'm glad! ) that what I said above it's happened!

Good work laet- you always get it right!

My name is Expert but you are the real EXPERT, Laetval.
That says a lot about her.

nonsenses keep falling

look
(dunno where to post it)

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Interesting video. Thanks it's me.

iPad-Exclusive Video: George Clooney on the Meaning of Life

Now available in the iTunes Store, twenty minutes of extended interviews with the actor on what he's learned about family, war zones, and much more. Like so:




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available
by paying?

The Martians, oh boy oh boy oh boy, president of a science class ey ! LOL