George Clooney recently told Vanity Fair that he could not adhere to Noah Baumbach’s usual directing style of multiple takes when the duo teamed up for Netflix’s “Jay Kelly,” which is world premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival later this month before bowing on Netflix later this year.
“I literally said to him, ‘Noah, look, I love the script. I love you as a director, but I’m 63 years old, dude—I can’t do 50 takes,’” Clooney said. “‘I don’t have it in me. I’ve got the acting range from A to B.’”
Clooney headlines “Jay Kelly” in the title role. Written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, the film stars the Oscar winner as a world famous movie star in his 60s who faces a personal reckoning when he travels to an Italian film festival to receive a tribute award. Laura Dern stars as Jay’s publicist, while Adam Sandler plays his manager.
“When you’re an actor in my position, at my age, finding roles like this aren’t all that common,” Clooney said of the movie, which is being touted as one of Netflix’s Oscar players this upcoming awards season. “If you can’t make peace with aging, then you’ve got to get out of the business and just disappear. I’m now the guy that, when I go running after a bad guy, it’s funny—it’s not suspenseful. That’s okay. I embrace all of that.”
One of the reckonings Jay Kelly faces in the movie is longstanding criticism that he always just plays himself in his movies. That hit close to home for Clooney.
“Do people say that I only play myself? I don’t give a shit,” Clooney told Vanity Fair. “There aren’t that many guys in my age group that are allowed to do both broad comedies like ‘O Brother [Where Art Thou?]’ and then do ‘Michael Clayton’ or ‘Syriana’. So if that means I’m playing myself all the time, I don’t give a shit… Have you ever tried playing yourself? It’s hard to do.”
“I’ve been the beneficiary of having my career not be massively successful in lots of different directions,” Clooney continued. “I didn’t really get successful, in the kind of success that can be blinding, until I was 33 years old. I’d been working for 12 years at that point. I had a real understanding of how fleeting all of it is and how little it has to do with you, quite honestly.”
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Clooney also spoke highly of Sandler, who reunites with Baumbach in “Jay Kelly” after their work together on “The Meyerowitz Stories.” Sandler’s manager character accompanies Jay on his trip Italy, resulting in many two-hander scenes between Sandler and Clooney.
“This film, more than any film Adam has done, shows what a beautiful, heartfelt, soulful actor he is,” Clooney said. “I kept telling the cast, ‘Don’t call him Sand Man. Don’t talk to him like he’s just some goofy comedian. He’s actually a really beautiful, wonderful actor.’ Because of what his paycheck is, which is doing big goofy comedies, when he does these other, beautiful, ‘Uncut Gems’ kinds of movies, it reminds people of that. He’s not just a good comedian.”
“Jay Kelly” will release in select U.S. theaters on Nov. 14 before streaming on Netflix starting Dec. 5.
From Variety US