George Clooney is working behind the camera — not in front of it — because he can.
“Look, I acted for a long time and, you know, I’m 56,” the Oscar winner told the UK’s Sunday Times. “I’m not the guy that gets the girl anymore … I shouldn’t be the guy that gets the girl. But, look, if somebody’s got Paul Newman in ‘The Verdict,’ I’d jump. But there aren’t that many [roles] like that. Acting used to be how I paid the rent, but I sold a tequila company for a billion f—king dollars. I don’t need money.”
The father of two revealed that he made just $50,000 to produce, write and direct “Suburbicon” over two years, which he didn’t mind because it was a passion project.
“I have money, so I can fight to make movies I want to make. If you look at what I’ve been in over the past 15 years, for the most part they weren’t going to get made if I didn’t do them,” he said. “Nobody was going to make ‘Good Night, and Good Luck,’ ‘Michael Clayton’ or ‘Up in the Air,’ and I fought to get those out there. [Brad] Pitt’s doing that a lot too. Brad does it, and that’s a good use of celebrity, or whatever the f—k that is. I’ll make money other ways if I have to. I used to do coffee commercials.”
One career move that Clooney isn’t interested in is running for political office, though he does have strong opinions.
“Trump, for all his terrible instincts, is very charismatic. A TV star. People didn’t vote for him because he accomplished anything. They knew him. And they were like, ‘He’s exciting. He says outlandish stuff. That’s fun. He’s got a star on Hollywood Boulevard.'”
Clooney conceded that while he doesn’t think the Democrats need a celebrity in order to ensure a 2020 victory, “You need someone who can light up the room. You need what Barack Obama had: he showed up and you went, ‘That guy speaks to my voice.’ Democrats in general are very passive. In debates, the Republican will go, ‘That guy’s bad, and that guy’s good.’ And the Democrat will say, ‘Well, I understand what you’re saying, because your parents were alcoholics …’ And the reality is that you need people who go, ‘That’s good. That’s bad.'”