George Clooney is done with romantic films: ‘I’m not trying to compete with 25-year-old leading men’
Romance is dead to George Clooney.
The Oscar actor revealed in his new interview with “60 Minutes” that he’s moved on from a certain movie genre.
“Look, I’m 63 years old. I’m not trying to compete with 25-year-old leading men. That’s not my job,” Clooney said. “I’m not doing romantic films anymore.”
Clooney has had leading roles in multiple rom-coms over the years including “One Fine Day” (1996), “Intolerable Cruelty” (2003)” and “Ticket to Paradise” (2022).
While promoting the flick co-starring Julia Roberts, Clooney told CNN that he returned to the rom-com genre because of real-world events.
“I got sent the script and you know, we’ve had a lot of dark things going on in the world. And I always feel that films try to reflect that, often,” he said in Oct. 2022. “They’re usually late because it takes a couple of years to make a film.”
“It felt like we all needed a break. I needed a break,” Clooney added. “I needed it to be a little carefree.”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that same month, Clooney said that Universal Pictures “did a very brave thing” by releasing a rom-com at a time when there’s so few of them being made.
“These things are only going on streamers now, and they did a very brave thing to make a movie like this. We’re grateful. We’re hopeful,” he shared.
Clooney is currently making his Broadway debut in the production “Good Night, and Good Luck,” which is based on his 2005 movie of the same name.
Both the play and the movie are about broadcast news legend Edward R. Murrow and his work during the witch hunts of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.
Clooney is playing Murrow in the stage production, which officially opens April 3.
When asked on “60 Minutes” if he wishes he did Broadway “earlier in his career,” Clooney responded, “I don’t know that I could’ve. I wasn’t — I didn’t do the work required to get there.”
He added of loving being on stage, “Anybody who would deny that would just be a liar. I mean, there isn’t a single actor alive that wouldn’t have loved to have, you know, been on Broadway. So that’s — that’s the fun of it. It’s trickier the older you get. But why not?”
Last month, Clooney told reporters in New York that he’s “nervous” about starring in his first Broadway show.
“The fun part about this is we get to do a play about a subject matter that’s very close to our hearts … which is telling the truth,” Clooney said.
