George Clooney talks about his lust for life and bad acting

From Sunday Mercury

George Clooney's lust for life and bad acting

Jan 29 2012 by Roz Laws, Sunday Mercury

MAKING a film about mortality made George Clooney remember the moment when he vowed to live life to the fullest. It was while holding the hand of his great-uncle George, after whom he was named, as he died from lung cancer.

“He kept saying ‘What a waste, what a waste...’,” recalls George. “I think he was talking about smoking. But he had had a life.

“I remember thinking at that moment, I’m not gonna be 70 years old and be laying somewhere and saying, ‘What a waste’. It’s gonna be foot on the gas pedal all the way. As fast and as hard as I can. Death to me was an understanding that life must be lived. Do it all. Don’t ever wake up and say ‘I should have done this’.”

Director Alexander Payne says he always had George in mind for the role in The Descendants, though he asked him to put on weight and grow his hair.

George admits he gets a little exasperated when people are surprised that he doesn’t live up to his heart-throb image, where looks come before talent.

“I get people saying, ‘Surprisingly not bad in this film...’. When are you gonna stop being so surprised?

“I think there’s a certain assumption of things, due to earlier choices in my career that weren’t particularly great. I will always have those skeletons that people hark back to all the time.

“I was bad in Batman & Robin. It wasn’t a good film, but I was bad in it. I wasn’t particularly good in The Peacemaker. I didn’t really understand what I was trying to do.

“I made some decisions, but Batman & Robin made$250 million worldwide and I couldn’t have gotten Syriana made without it because that was part of my deal for doing Batman. It works out in strange ways. And I learned how to take hits on the chin – there were great lessons there.”