George Clooney is 63 years old and approaching things differently when it comes to acting. In a joint cover story for GQ magazine alongside his “Wolfs” co-star Brad Pitt, the Oscar winner called “time allotment” a huge deciding factor in the projects he takes on at this stage in his career. If he’s going to go away for half the year to act, then he’s not going to put himself through hell. Clooney said he only wants to work with “people who like what they do.”
“The older you get, time allotment is very different,” Clooney said. “Five months out of your life is a lot. And so it’s not just like, ‘Oh, I’m going to go do a really good film, like “Three Kings,” and I’m going to have a miserable fuck like David O. Russell making my life hell. Making every person on the crew’s life hell.’ It’s not worth it. Not at this point in my life. Just to have a good product.”
Clooney headlined “Three Kings” alongside Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube. The 1999 war movie is set during the end of the First Gulf War as four American soldiers try to pull off a gold heist amid the conflict. The movie had a notorious production as Clooney fought with Russell on set.
The duo’s on-set feud has been well documented over the years, with Clooney once saying that Russell “yelled and screamed at people all day” during the making of “Three Kings.” Tension reached a breaking point when Russell allegedly got physical with an extra on set, prompting Clooney to fight the director. The two would reconcile years later.
“Look, there came a time when I just said to him, Is this going to go on forever? We’ve got to shake hands and let it go,” Clooney told ShowBiz 411 in 2014. “We put it behind us. And that’s great.”
Clooney’s “Wolfs,” in which he stars a professional fixer forced to work with his rival (Pitt), is world premiering at the Venice Film Festival before a September launch in theaters and on Apple TV+. The actor also recently shot Noah Baumbach’s new movie, in which he plays a movie star opposite Laura Dern and Adam Sandler.
“I remember I talked to [Matt] Damon about this 25 years ago, when he first hit with his movie and won the Oscar,” Clooney told GQ. “I was like, ‘Just know that if you get a 10-year career, playing at that level, it’s an absolute jackpot.’ Nobody sustains it much longer than that. So yeah, I’m surprised that I still have the work.”
“Wolfs” streams on Apple TV+ starting Sept. 27. The movie will have a one-week theatrical run beginning Sept. 20. Head over to GQ’s website to read the actors’ latest cover story in its entirety.