News Beat
George Clooney says there’s one thing he can’t do in movies any more after ‘conversation’ with wife Amal
George Clooney has reiterated that he is now too old to play the romantic lead in movies, saying he’s “not kissing a girl anymore”.
In a new interview, the Ocean’s Eleven star, 64, talked about ageing and the changes he was making in his life, saying he made the decision after turning 60 and a “conversation with my wife” Amal Clooney.
The American actor married British lawyer Amal Alamuddin, 47, in 2014, and welcomed twins Alexander and Ella in 2017.
“I’ve been trying to go the route Paul Newman did,” Clooney told the Daily Mail, “‘Okay, well, I’m not kissing a girl anymore.’”
“When I turned 60, I had a conversation with my wife,” Clooney recalled. “I said, ‘Look, I can still play basketball with the boys. I play with 25-year-old guys. I can still hang, I am in shape. But in 25 years, I’m 85 years old. It doesn’t matter how many granola bars you eat, that’s a real number.’”
The actor said earlier in March that he would not be “doing romantic films anymore”.
“Look, I’m 63 years old. I’m not trying to compete with 25-year-old leading men. That’s not my job. I’m not doing romantic films anymore,” he told 60 Minutes.
The Oscar winner also shared earlier this month that directing had taken a back seat to parenting.
“I have eight-year-old kids, so I have to change my career choices – directing means 10 months on the road,” Clooney told the Irish Examiner.
“Directing right now is not something I can do anymore, because I’ve got kids, and I’ve got to be home, and I want to be there for all of that. You make those decisions but it’s a lot easier to make those decisions later in life when you’ve sort of succeeded.”
“It’s a lot harder for people who have to make those decisions when they’re trying to make their mark and trying to get to there,” he said. “They are certainly decisions that are made a lot easier when you’re 64.”
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Clooney’s latest work is Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly in which he plays an ageing actor who travels through Europe with his longtime manager Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler), while reflecting on their life choices.
The film, out now on Netflix, also features Emily Mortimer, Riley Keough, Billy Crudup, and Greta Gerwig.
“Clooney seldom strays too far in his movies from his long-established persona as the handsome everyman,” The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey wrote in a four-star review.
“However, if he is playing yet another variation on himself in Jay Kelly, at least he’s doing so in a far more raw and revealing way than he has ever done before. That’s why a film that looks in its early scenes as if it’s going to be unbearably smug ultimately tugs so hard on the heartstrings.”
