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Clooney Does Reddit AMA: Internet Explodes With Brad Pitt Pranks, Whipping Leo's Ass And Getting Revenge On Amy And Tina

By Joanna Robinson | Miscellaneous | January 28, 2014 |

By Joanna Robinson | Miscellaneous | January 28, 2014 |


You know when Leonardo DiCaprio walked out on the Saturday Night Live stage and you went “GASP! A MOVIE STAR!!” That’s how I felt just now when I opened up Reddit, the world’s great equalizer, and saw that George Clooney was doing an Ask Me Anything from the set of Tomorrowland. Clooney refers to himself as some guy who was on The Golden Girls, admits that he’s currently wearing a harness and answers questions of all nature with his usual crinkly-eyed, silver foxy aplomb. You can read the whole thing, but here are the highlights.

On Brad Pitt’s Best Prank

It was Brad, we were shooting Oceans 12 in my hometown in Lake Cuomo and he had a flyer sent around saying George only wants to be called by his character’s name Danny Ocean, don’t look him in the eyes, and it got into the local paper. As you know, jokes don’t translate at all, and they called me il divo, and said that I was treating the crew like shit. When it got into the paper I came downstairs and Brad had the paper in his hand, and I said “You’re mine from here on out.” Brad just said, “Please don’t harm my children.” Yeah, he’s done some pretty rotten things.

On Being A Cheap Date

I think I might be the cheapest date ever, $10. I’m literally the cheapest date anyone has ever been on. Check out http://www.omaze.com/clooney. It’s gonna be fun though, we are gonna get out of the car together, walk the Monuments Men red carpet, the paparazzi will take a bunch of pictures, we’ll go backstage at Letterman. You’ll get to see the other side of it all, which is unusual and fun.

About The Internet’s Long Memory

The funny thing about my career is that, I’m the first one to be very well aware of how lucky I am to be where I am. I appreciate it all. But I would have made a living, fed myself, housed myself. And everyone goes through awkward phases a lot of the time and sometimes it’s very public which is always bad. Somebody was talking to me on set and said remember Merv Grifin? I was on in 1985 which is pretty odd, and they youtubed it and I come out in this horrible yellow shirt and yellow socks and a mullet. And the whole set is howling. This stuff lives on forever. So everyone has awkward phases, just hope they’re not recorded for everyone to see for the rest of time.

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On KY Pride

Well, I hope you mean KY the state, and not KY jelly. Because, you know, I don’t know how proud you should be about that.
But we do have a very good basketball team this year, we’re about 14th in the nation and I think the University of Kentucky will do very well in this year’s March Madness.


On What He’s Reading

I’ve been spending the last year trying to get through the Cat in the Hat series. But, I’m still not there - I’m a slow reader. You know I do read but I don’t read as much as I’d like to. And why read when there’s such good television? I have been going back to some classics lately. You know, for a period of time in your career you tend to read books just to see if you want to adapt them or make them into a film then all of a sudden you realize you’re just reading that. I’m reading some classics I haven’t read in 30 years, I’ve got an original copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, a signed original copy, and I pulled that out 2 months ago. You tend to forget how great the great writers are.


On The Perfect Sandwich

Oh the perfect sandwich. Well, good question. The perfect sandwich would be… I want to come up with two gorgeous actresses but I won’t do that. Name your two. I don’t know you know I’d have to think about it. I do like ham and avocado and a little tomato and a little mustard. Just a simple deli sandwich is great. You know, put some coleslaw in there.

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In That Time He Pranked His Roommate Richard Kind By Sh*tting In The Litter Box

It took him a long time to figure it out. At first he figured out that I’d done it and then he found I spent the whole week planning it out. And if you know Richard Kind’s work from Spin City or other things he’s a big, loud guy. Once he fully realized what was going on, he just yelled, “I understand humor, defecation doesn’t make me laugh.” Which I suppose should go on someone’s tombstone.

About Getting Richard Kind In Trouble With TSA…Cloons Is Kind Of A Terrible Roommate, No?

I remember I got this insane looking prop from this movie Solaris. It was the size of a lunchbox and it had all these intricate lights and tubes and I snuck it into Richard Kind’s carry-on bag. They ran it through the machine and pulled it off and asked, “What is this? Did you pack your own bag?” He had no idea what to say. Of course this was pre-911. If you did that now it would be a very horrible thing, but it was very funny at the time. Anyway, don’t do that at home.

On Whipping Leo’s Ass At Basketball

It’s true. That was a fun day. It’s always fun when you play people younger than you and win. We’re playing a bunch of six year olds tomorrow.

On Getting Even With Amy And Tina

Usually it’s pretty funny. You know I got really good by Tina and Amy the other day and I’m working on getting them back in a big way. But for the most part most of the time when it’s bad it’s actually funny. You actually feel bad for the comedians up on stage cause you know if you’ve ever gone to a comedy club and you see somebody bomb it makes you cringe. Shows like that are designed to have fun with you without being devastatingly unkind. I’ve been the target of a couple of stupid jokes that didn’t work, but in general I’ve only seen a couple that were really vicious toward people, and they didn’t work. When they don’t work you feel badly for the person doing it.

On The Best Actor To Work With…It’s Exactly Who You Think

Let me think about this in the best possible way that doesn’t get me murdered by all other actors I’ve worked with. I don’t know…
I’ve done 6 films with Damon now, so I guess I do enjoy working with him, though you wouldn’t know it. I’ve been really lucky to work with people who enjoy what they do. I’ve worked with a couple of turkeys, but I’ve mostly been really lucky.

On Working With That Fall-Down Drunk, Sandra Bullock

It’s tricky cause Sandy drinks so much that oftentimes it’s just hard to keep her upright. No, you know, Sandy and I have known each other for over 20 years and we both were struggling actors when we first met. She was dating a friend of mine at the time who’s still a good friend of ours. Every time we’re together it’s funny. She’s somebody I adore, really, she’s just fun to be in a room with. I’m sure people will assume people aren’t quite who they appear to be on screen—they’re shorter or taller or meaner or dumber—but Sandy is exactly what she appears on screen, an incredibly charming woman who’s really just fun to hang out with. Very smart and centered, even though she does drink a lot.

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On What He’s Wearing…

I literally have a harness on and I’ve been hanging from 30 ft from 4 different blue screens and literally as we are talking they are all staring at me because I had to get down to do this. I have all these wire hanging off of me.
Brad [Bird, the director of Tomorrowland] is a really good guy with a wild imagination. If I don’t screw it up it will be a great film. You have to be careful what you say because everything is top secret, so I don’t want to ruin it by telling you that everyone dies in the end.

ON THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION OF THIS AND ANY REDDIT AMA:
“Would you rather fight one horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?”

Can’t I do both? No, I want the duck-sized horses, I could take them. The saddles on them are so cute.

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