Why George Clooney Took A Break From Acting For Four Years

Similar to a post we've had before, I know.  I often wonder how much becoming a father has affected George's desire to be on the big screen?  I don't think it's a coincidence that the years he was away from the screen are when his children were born, but this doesn't seem to get mentioned in articles like this.  What do you guys think?

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Why George Clooney Took A Break From Acting For Four Years

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  • DIRK LIBBEY
    
  
  
  

PUBLISHED: FEB. 11. 2021

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George Clooney has had the sort of Hollywood career that most only dream of. He's been an A-list talent for decades. His movies have grossed billions of dollars, and he's well respected as an actor and simply as a person. Clooney is one of those people who gets his choice of projects, but after 2016 he just stopped choosing projects. Until the recent Netflix movie The Midnight Sky, which Clooney directed and starred in, we hadn't seen him on the screen in several years. Now the Ocean's Eleven star has spoken about that decision, which had actually been part of a long-term plan.

Speaking with fellow actor Michelle Pfeiffer for Variety, George Clooney explains that over the last couple of decades he's been shifting his focus to other parts of the entertainment industry, It seems Clooney was afraid that as he got older he might become less desirable in front of the camera, and he didn't want that to mean he could not work at all. This pivoted him away from acting, resulting in his four year hiatus. According to Clooney,

For about 20-some years now, I really focused on other elements of the industry, because I didn’t want to worry about what some casting director or director thought about me at 60 years old, which I’m going to be this year. I wanted to have more control of my career. I like what we do for a living. I didn’t really walk away from the business; I just have walked away from the front end of the camera.

It certainly shows a significant amount of foresight that George Clooney was thinking about his acting career at 60 back when he was 40. And while Clooney has had a career that has lasted longer than most actors, it's certainly true that at some point the roles were likely to become fewer and further between. While we haven't seen him act in a movie since 2016, that's been his choice, not somebody else's. He has spent that time doing other things, like directing movies he doesn't appear in like 2017's Suburbicon, as well as producing a TV series.

If you're a serious George Clooney fan hoping his Netflix film The Midnight Sky was a return to the screen, that doesn't seem to be the case-- at least not necessarily. Clooney doesn't indicate that he's "back" in any real way. It seems more than likely that George Clooney isn't done making movies in front of the camera, but he may be done making projects where he doesn't have the degree of control over his films that he wants. He's seemingly in no hurry and his past success has put him in a place where he doesn't need to work on anything that doesn't interest him.

I definitely think the kids had a big part in him stepping back. They are only little once and you don't want to miss that.
I'm also sure he has seen other actors miss time with their children. The main thing is I think his family comes first no 
matter what.

Yes, his priorities have changed, I think - and there's been the odd pandemic - it seems an age

since Money Monster for instance (cannot imagine what the security for that must have been

like come to think of it).

I always remember him complaining about his face magnified a hundred times on an awards

screen too - not that I think that would stop him doing something he really wanted to do. But

nowadays his priorities are different - and varied - in terms of where to be in the world in all

sorts of ways. It is not just film anymore.

annemarie wrote:I definitely think the kids had a big part in him stepping back. They are only little once and you don't want to miss that.
I'm also sure he has seen other actors miss time with their children. The main thing is I think his family comes first no 
matter what.

Exactly.  Although he's never explicitly said so, I always got the feeling that he was somewhat resentful of his dad not being around much when he was little himself.  I can't remember which interview this was in, but years ago he mentioned "Cat's in the Cradle" as a song that reminded him of his childhood.  Kind of an ouch moment, I thought.

I think a lot of factors are playing into the choices he's been making. He has a really good take on what a career in Hollywood entails and how it can end. He's seen it first hand with his aunt Rosemary and some of the other big stars he got to know early on.

He also knows the toll a career like his can take on family and friends - which are both so important to him. I think the twins' arrival made him re-order his priorities - at least for a while. I have a feeling he has enough of an ego to not want to be out of the spotlight for too long. He is, after all, a performer.

I keep going back to when he said he wanted to get behind the camera more than in front of it.  Vanity may be a part of that but probably finding the right role that suits him at this stage in his life is probably more of a factor.  I too think it’s a combination of reasons but he is smart.  He knows Hollywood, he knows himself really well and he understands what is truly important in life.

I think it’s probably a little of both. He did make lots of comment over the years about not having kids because he didn’t want to be an absentee father, so I’m sure the kids play a role. But I also remembering him talking about his fear of depending on outside entities for work when he was older from really early on. I think he was still on ER when he told a story in an interview about going in to audition for a role years earlier and seeing a
much older actor who had been super famous at one time there to audition for like a guest star role on a sitcom, and he immediately thought “That’s not gonna be me”. I think there a real desire to only work on things he controls or with people he is already comfortable with.