Clooney and Pitt! Together again! In an interview! Taking pictures and giving names!
The superstars teamed up for GQ's September cover, published Tuesday ahead of the release of next month's buddy comedy “Wolfs,” and the interview plays out like a literary version of that film's premise: “Two men play rival fixers hired for the same job. It's a comedy, it's an action movie, it's an excuse for two guys who like to finish each other's sentences in real life to do it again in a movie,” wrote GQ's Zach Baron.
And the so-called best friends in Hollywood certainly finished many sentences in the interview, with virtually no care in the world..
The seemingly lengthy Q&A is filled with “rich guy banter,” multiple observations about aging (Clooney is now 63; Pitt is 60), talk of their 40 years of fame, their quarter-century-long friendship, and their endurance in Hollywood as they near the end of the bygone studio era. It even includes a cameo by Amal Clooney and the 7-year-old Clooney twins they’re trying to “protect,” an extended gazelle metaphor, rampant bigotry from their interviewer, and criticism of the director (we’ll get to that last bit in a minute).
There's also some fashion and plenty of profile-picture-worthy portraits of the boys being silly but eternally picturesque. The camera still loves them, at any age, and they know it.
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Clooney said. “And it’s funny because we also keep in touch from time to time, which is a big part of it. Things get complicated in life and you always have to make sure everyone is okay.”
“George is probably the best at understanding, seeing the chess board and the possible moves. I will call George on numerous occasions when things get tough,” Pitt added. “George is going to understand something that no one else is going to understand, something we don’t even have to talk about. That’s a comfort.”
The relationship between the “Ocean's Eleven” and “Burn After Reading” co-stars is central. They speak briefly with a few anecdotes sprinkled throughout the speech. Surprisingly, or perhaps intentionally, there is no mention of politics or Clooney's seminal op-ed calling for President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 election. Nor was there much talk of Pitt's personal life, which has been making headlines, except for an indirect admission that he has done “four or five dumb things, and he just keeps going.”[s] (Incidentally, the interview takes place in the south of France, at Pitt's Miraval estate, which is at the centre of the dispute with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie.
Meanwhile, Clooney responded to fellow filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and attacked David O. Russell in the interview, openly sharing his unfiltered thoughts on his bad experiences with directors.
“Quentin said some things about me recently, so I’m a little irritated with him,” Clooney said.[Tarantino] I did an interview where I named movie stars and talked about you. [Pitt]and somebody else, and then this guy goes, 'Well, what about George?' He goes, he's not a movie star. And then he literally said something like, 'Name one movie since the millennium.' And I was like, 'Since the millennium? That's my whole fucking career.'
The “Pulp Fiction” and “Inglourious Basterds” director did indeed speak “somewhat unkindly,” according to Deadline, about Clooney’s filmography last summer, and a clip of Clooney’s Tarantino impersonation went viral.
“Now I’m like, ‘Okay, man, fuck off. I don’t mind beating him up. He beat me up.’ But no, look, we’re so lucky to be able to work with these great directors. The director and the script are what keep you alive. And I learned that after making some really bad movies. You can’t make a good movie with a bad script. You can’t do it. You can make a bad movie with a good script. You can screw it up.”
Russell, who has endured years of misconduct allegations, was not given the same grace. Later in the GQ interview, and seemingly unprompted, Clooney directed his ire at the director of “American Hustle” and “Joy,” with whom he worked on “Three Kings,” the 1999 wartime heist film.
“The older you get, the allocation of time is very different. Five months of your life is a long time. And it’s not just about, ‘Oh, I’m going to make a really good movie, like ‘Three Kings,’ and I’m going to have one miserable shitty day like David O. Russell making my life hell. Making every single person on the crew’s life hell. It’s not worth it. Not at this point in my life. Just to have a good product.”
Pitt added: “It’s not really worth repeating ourselves. It’s boring as f*ck. We’re both doing a lot of things outside of the film world, which is really fascinating.”
Representatives for Tarantino and Russell did not immediately respond to The Times' requests for comment Wednesday.
