George Clooney is not fazed by outside opinions.
Indeed, the Ocean’s Eleven actor defended his talents against those who have claimed all his characters are mere iterations of himself.
“Do people say that I only play myself? I don’t give a s--t,” Clooney told Vanity Fair in an interview published August 4. “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 s--t.”
To further prove his point, the 64-year-old referenced a key quote from his new Netflix coming-of-age comedy film Jay Kelly: “Have you ever tried playing yourself? It’s hard to do.”
And having been in the entertainment industry for over four decades, the Batman & Robin actor has learned a thing or two about navigating fame and stardom.
“I’ve been the beneficiary of having my career not be massively successful in lots of different directions,” he continued. “I didn’t really get successful, in the kind of success that can be blinding, until I was 33 years old.”
After all, his popularity only began to skyrocket in 1994, when he started playing Doug Ross on the NBC medical drama ER.
“I’d been working for 12 years at that point,” he added. “I had a real understanding of how fleeting all of it is and how little it has to do with you, quite honestly.”
As for who has been issuing George these criticisms over the years? Well, among the movie critics and directors was, most recently, Hunter Biden.
“F--k him!” Joe Biden’s son told Channel 5 last month in response to Clooney’s New York Times opinion piece published last July, which called upon the Democratic party to find a new presidential nominee. “F--k him and everybody around him. I don’t have to be f--king nice.”
“I agree with Quentin Tarantino,” he continued. “F--king George Clooney is not a f--king actor. He is f--king like…I don’t know what he is. He’s a brand.”
For his part, Tarantino previously criticized the Oscar winner’s filmography, suggesting that his notability was a thing of the past.
“It’s been a long while since I think George Clooney has drawn anybody to an audience,” he told Deadline in July 2023. “When was the last time that he had a hit in this millennial?”
In response, the Wolfs actor did not hesitate to fire back at the Pulp Fiction director.
“Quentin said some s--t about me recently, so I’m a little irritated by him,” Clooney told GQ at the time. “He did some interview where he was naming movie stars, and he was talking about [Brad 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 me a movie since the millennium,’” he continued. “And I was like, ‘Since the millennium? That’s kind of my whole f--king career.’”
For a look back at Clooney’s decades-long career, keep reading…