Is George Clooney part of a secret group shaping a pro-liberal message at the Oscars?

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Is George Clooney part of a secret group shaping a pro-liberal message at the Oscars?

Yes, actually.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.][size=14]Clooney at the Suburbicon press conference during the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox.[size=12]Kevin Winter/Getty Images[/size][/size]

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Chris Knight
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February 27, 2018
12:41 PM EST

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[size=17]Is George Clooney part of a secret cabal of left-leaning Hollywood power mongers secretly controlling the message that gets sent out at the Oscars? It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but Clooney himself suggests otherwise.

Last September at the Toronto International Film Festival, I sat down for a chat with the 56-year-old star. Granted, there were about a dozen other people at the table, but Clooney has a way of working a room so you feel like you’re the only one in it.

He was talking about his new movie [size=17]Suburbicon, but out of nowhere he launched into a story about the 2004 Oscars, two years before he became a two-time nominee for Good Night, and Good Luck, and a Supporting Actor winner for Syriana.

“I’d gotten a call from Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, who I didn’t really know,” he begins. “I’d met them a couple of times. And it was the night before the Oscars. I’d never been to the Oscars. And I get a call to come to the Bel Age Hotel.” The swanky Hollywood locale has since been renamed the London West.

“So I go to the Bel Age Hotel for this clandestine meeting. I walk in and it’s Tim, Susan, Gore Vidal, Eddie Vedder, Don Cheadle, Michael Moore and Woody Harrelson … and they’re all talking about what they’re going to do the next night at the Oscars.” Anti-war, anti-Bush, etc.

“And I was like, ‘If you win, say whatever the f–k you want, but if you’re presenting, you know, it seems a little gratuitous.’” Anyway, he tells them it’s moot because he’s not going. The evening wraps up, and he goes home.

“A year later, Bill O’Reilly does a half-hour show about why my career is over.” Clooney and O’Reilly, famously far apart on the political spectrum, had clashed over a telethon Clooney had participated in for the victims of 9/11 that the Fox News host said had mismanaged the contributions.

O’Reilly’s guests included a producer who vowed she would never work with Clooney again, which was okay with him since he’d never seen her before. “And then he brought on – I think it was Richard Roeper from Ebert and Roeper. And Bill O’Reilly says: ‘You know how these guys are! They get in a room and they talk it out and they do this and blah blah blah,’ and he goes through this whole scenario.

“And Roeper goes: ‘Bill, think about what you’re saying. Do you honestly believe that the night before the Oscars, all these people get in a room to talk about what they’re going to say the next day?’ ”

Clooney doubles over with laughter at the memory. “Literally that’s exactly what happens!” Keep that in mind when the winners take to the podium on Oscar night.[/size][/size]