"His Best Work Yet"

In the 1990’s, George Clooney became Hollywood’s quintessential leading man in blockbuster hits like Out Of Sight, Batman & Robin, Three Kings, The Perfect Storm, and the Ocean’s Eleven films.

In the past ten years, Clooney has produced some of the finest work of his career, including his Oscar winning role for Best Actor in Syriana and his Oscar nominated roles for Best Actor in Michael Clayton and Up In The Air. Now at the age of 50, he hopes to continue delivering another knockout performance with his latest film The Descendants.

Writing and directing the film is Alexander Payne, whose previous films include Election, the Oscar-nominated About Schmidt, and the Oscar-winning Sideways. Clooney recalled how he found him to do the film, based on a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings.

“It was a Turkish bath,” George replies, “Well, Alexander failed to find me fascinating when I met with him for Sideways, which I’ve not yet let go. And then what was it, it was about two years ago this time almost, we met in Toronto and he came and said ‘I have a script coming I’d like you to look at.’”

“And I said, ‘I’m doing it whether I read the script or not,’ which didn’t work with Batman & Robin, by the way, but that happens,” he continues, “And then we met at an Italian restaurant.”

In The Descendants, George Clooney plays Matt King, a land baron who tries to reconnect with his two daughters, played by Amara Miller and Shailene Woodley after his wife suffers a boating accident. Clooney talks about how he bonded with his two young co-stars in preparing for the bonding his character Matt attempts to achieve.

“Yes, we did bonding exercises,” Clooney replies, “I would say, ‘You guys stay over there and don’t talk to me.’ No, Alexander has a really, it’s a process that I very much embrace in the rehearsal process, which is we’d go over the scenes a little bit,

"His Best Work Yet"

but mostly it’s about spending time with one another. Because the truth of the matter is once you get to a set everything is so different. We could sit here and work out the hospital scene, but the blocking alone is different. Everything changes so drastically when you finally get to do that.”

“The rehearsal process in general is about trusting one another,” he continues, “And so a big part of it was just getting to know the gang and all of us getting the ability to feel comfortable enough to give each other shit. But there’s some truth in that, and once you can get to that place it’s easy. The lucky thing is that they’re all such talented actors, but we’ve got a really good script and a really good director, and that sort of protects everything else. So that was the process.”

Clooney mentions that it’s not the first time his co-star Judy Greer has appeared in a film with him.

“We did a scene in Three Kings,” George remembers, “And our first scene together is us having sex up against the desk.”

It was mentioned to George that Alexander Payne had him dressed in what was considered the ugliest pair of pants ever.

“Those were my pants,” Clooney replies, “I’m not completely against khakis, it’s just the level you have to wear them at. The higher you pull them the more excruciating it is. This whole process was just about schlubbing up a little bit and this seemed kind of easy to me. I grew up in Kentucky. This is standard, just different colored shirts.”

Clooney talks about the film having been partially shot in Kentucky, where he was born and raised.

“Well most of the time, I’m working in places I’m not familiar with,” he says, “Sometimes that’s Slovakia and then sometimes it’s Hawaii, and not to bash on Slovakia but I really did enjoy Hawaii, as you can imagine. I think everybody will agree, it’s a

"His Best Work Yet"

great script, great director, and you’re shooting in Hawaii, there’s no downside to this. It was fun for me. I haven’t spent much time there, and certainly not in Oahu, Honolulu, so it was fun to see.”

“It’s such an island, it really is an island,” George adds, “On the freeway the speed limit is like 45 miles an hour, and it takes you a while to get into that rhythm. So I’m driving behind people and I’m like, ‘Move it!’ and they’re like ‘Hey, hey, hey’ I was an alien because I wanted to go 50 miles an hour. But that’s just my problem and eventually you got into their rhythm, so that was fun. I really enjoyed it there.”

George was asked about the difference between shooting the Hawaii location scenes and where ones where he grew up in Kentucky.

“Well I didn’t have relatives on the set everyday,” Clooney says, “When you’re shooting in your hometown, you’ve never met so many cousins. I mean really, they were like, ‘This is your cousin,’ I’m like ‘I have no idea who that is, but okay, you’re my cousin.’ I didn’t have a whole lot of that in Hawaii. It was fun.”

In the film, the actor’s character Matt’s wife cheats on him. Clooney was asked how he would react if any girlfriend or wife of his own ever cheated on him.

“No idea, because I know how any answer will read,” George answers.

One of the big subjects of The Descendants is the notion of forgiveness. George shared his thoughts about forgiveness as it pertains to both the film and to real life.

“I forgive you,” Clooney replies, “Now I don’t forgive you. I take it back. I thought in the film that you’re absolutely right, there’s a big part of it, it’s forgiving yourself as much in this film because so much of this that happened was also his responsibility. And I think a big part of that

"His Best Work Yet"

release at the end when he’s with his wife and he looks at her and he kisses her goodbye is understanding his part in this as well. Yes, she cheated on him, but he was not there and he was not a good father as much as he thought he was. He was busy working, and that happens. So part of it was coming to understand that, and I think that forgiving yourself is a very big part of that.”

“And I think that that’s true, I think we all go through those experiences of understanding that the older you get, the more forgiving you are of other people’s mistakes,” he continues, “When you’re young you find that anything that stands against something you believe in is just plain wrong. I remember there would be relatives of mine who would say something and I would say “Well he’s a bigot,” and then you come to find out later that I was way too judgmental of those sorts of things. I was making the issue much bigger than it was. And I think as we all get older we get a little more forgiving of everything, except the guy driving 45 miles an hour.