George Clooney mixed gravity and laughter as he landed at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday to receive a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the opening ceremony this evening.
The actor, director and producer was put through his paces at a press conference preceding the honor on a wide range of topics from U.S. politics to climate change, the role of the press, Mark Ruffalo, the Paramount-Warner Bros merger, studio shying away from festivals and whether he plans to return to the director’s chair.
On the latter, Clooney, who has nine feature and two TV series directorial credits to his name including Good Night, and Good Luck and most recently, The Boys in the Boat, revealed he had put directing aside for now in favor of acting because of fatherhood.
“The only reason I’m not directing, which I love doing, is because I have two nine-year-old kids, and in order for me to spend time with them, I can’t,” he said.
“You know, if I act in a movie, it’s three months, and I can go and come and go and come back. When you direct a movie, it’s a year, wherever you are, and there’s no traveling back and forth, so I can’t do that anymore. The last thing I did was this play last year on Broadway, and that took away that took us all away for a period of time. And I can’t really pull the kids out of school anymore, so I’m really happy doing this. It’s fun to be an actor again. I’m enjoying it, actually.”
Unsurprisingly, Clooney also found himself being quizzed about U.S. politics and the direction of his country under President Donald Trump.
“I’m always very optimistic about things,” he said. “We’re at a moment in time that’s unfortunate… that’s an understatement. I do believe that we’re going to get through all of this. I’m old enough to have been through 1968 in the states when every city in the United States was set on fire, and we lost Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy in the same year. There was tons of violence. The capital was surrounded with tanks. We’ve had some other difficult times, but this is one of them,” he said.
He suggested the midterm elections for the U.S. House of Representatives in November could set the tone for a change of political direction in the U.S..
“There’s a great word, kakistocracy, which is a country run by the least qualified people. I think maybe we have a kakistocracy right now, but we’ll get through it, and we will have an election in November that should be a check and balance, and then in 2028, with any luck, we’ll have some restoration into some normalcy.”
Clooney slammed what he called “the idea of cruelty” at the heart of the current administration, reserving special criticism for U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and his recent post deriding women and Canada’s cadet program.
“You see what the Secretary of Defense just tweeted out a picture about women in the military in Canada, and you’re going, ‘What’s wrong with you? Where’s the sense of decency in all of this?’ And I’m ashamed of all of that, but we will get through it, and we will we will come out better on the other side.”
Clooney was asked for his view on the ongoing furore around Mark Ruffalo who has been accused of antisemitism in relation to his criticism of the Paramount-WBD merger.
“I support Mark Ruffalo’s ability to speak freely… I believe in free speech even when I completely disagree with it. That’s important, right? In fact, it’s part of how a democracy works. There are going to be people tonight in the room that are going to disagree with most everything I say or stand for. Fair enough. That’s how it’s supposed to be. We’re supposed to argue these things out and come to a conclusion based on the information that we take in,” he said. “I will always support Mark Ruffalo’s ability to speak freely. I like him. He’s a good man.”
On the Paramount-Warner Bros., Clooney said he had yet to understand how the deal could be brought over the line but that overall he was concerned about its implications.
“There’s so many issues involved… it doesn’t matter how much money you have; it’s going to be very tricky to do. So, my opinion on the merger is I always worry whenever big companies are consolidating because it usually means a lot of people lose their jobs. That’s the truth, but we’ll see,” he said.
He also noted that the merger comes at a time when the film industry is already going through major changes due to AI.
“We’re going through a revolution in our industry… AI is going to be a very big part of this industry. It’s going to hurt us in a lot of ways. If you’re a visual effects supervisor, you’re going to have trouble coming up because… a lot of jobs are going to be taken away, probably about 30% of the jobs. I don’t know what the real number is, but there’s going to be a big number of jobs going to be taken away, and we’re kind of on our back foot on it. We’re not taking the lead on it. People are just now starting to, so it’s going to be a complicated time in our industry, and so we’re going to have to find ways to survive.”
On a lighter note, Venice regular Clooney also talked about his long-time love of the festival and the city, which he said was also special in his heart as the place where he married wife Amal Clooney in 2014.
Asked on his plans for the evening after the ceremony he replied to laughter, “I’m going to drink”, before adding he was hoping to get in an intimate dinner with his wife.
“We’re going to go out to dinner… you know this is a town where you ride, you take the boat underneath some little tiny arches, and suddenly you’re in the middle of a a restaurant that has four tables, and the the guy who runs it comes out and sits with you… it’s just a really optimistic, beautiful place, and we’re gonna go find a fun place to have dinner, my wife and I. She’s gonna be wearing a very nice dress, so we’ll have to be careful where we go.”
