More Magazine, 1998

"More” magazine (UK) 29 July 1998

GIVE US A CLOONEY

‘I’m worried about that girl table!’ teases George Clooney when he spies our all-female table of journalists at a recent press conference. Here to promote his new film Out of Sight (due out later this year) he sidles over and, with a mischevious glint in those mahogany eyes, asks, ‘OK, so who are
we talking bad about?’

That’s George for you – three minutes in the room and he’s already flirting! Maybe he’s hoping that if he distracts us enough, we’ll overlook his bleach-blond hairdo. But to be honest, as tragic as it is, the hair can’t possibly detract from the man’s sexy, movie-star looks. ‘I had to do it after I lost a best,’ he laughs. ‘A friend and I played basketball on the set of ER and whoever lost the one-on-one game on the last day of the series had to bleach his hair,’ he laughs. ‘It seemed like a safe bet at the time!’

‘And by the way, being blond is not fun!’ he laughs. ‘It hurt like hell. I was completely white for a day and then the next morning I tried colouring it back – I spent six hours in a chair with tinfoil everywhere. And it looked horrible. The worst part is that people start spelling words for you… treating you like an idiot! It’s a drag. Still it’s been six weeks now and I’m finally getting my grey back!’

Those horny flecks of grey are in fine form in Out of Sight. George plays a bank robber who’s escaped from the Florida prison where he’s been incarcerated for 30 years. His character, Jack Foley, is so damn charming you desperately want him to hook up with the sassy US marshal, Karen Sisco (played by Jennifer Lopez), who’s supposed to catch him. One of the sexiest scenes is a dream sequence where Jennifer Lopez climbs fully-clothed into a hot tub with a naked George! Finally – a role where George can flaunt that torso to its full effect. Now that’s a bit better than the usual fleeting glance of his wrist on ER, eh? ‘You know we weren’t wearing anything from the waist down in that scene,’ George says through a bit of grubby snickering. ‘You just couldn’t see that!’

>From Dr Doug Ross to Batman, George is ever the charming ladies’ man on-screen, yet in reality, he claims that until ER made him famous, he was always a flop with the women. ‘I was always the guy who sat at the bar and stared at the girl while she stared at me for two hours and I never walked over,’ says George. ‘Of course, I went home and banged my head on the wall and said, ‘What am I, a jackass? Why didn’t I go say anything?’. I was always that guy. I’ve never walked up to a girl and asked her to dance in my life. Never.’

George, seemingly unaware of his looks at the time, unashamedly admits that he was a full-blown chicken back then!

‘I’d see my friends do it and the girl would be like, ‘Go to hell!’ and I’d watch them come back with what was left of their testicles!’ he laughs. ‘I didn’t want to give anyone that power, so I just stayed in the corner.’

Clearly he got over it. Two years ago George walked into a trendy Paris bar (while taking a break from filming The Peacemaker) and managed to strike up a conversation with the girl pouring the pints – French student, Celine Balitran. They talked, he asked her on a date the next day and by all reports she didn’t once try to do anything barbaric with his testicles!

In fact Celine didn’t even know George was famous and friends say that’s one of the things that made him flip over her. Today, for instance, mention her name and George, who’s usually very tight-lipped about his private life, cannot fight the smitten grin that’s spreading across his face: ‘Anthony
Edwards rang me and said, ‘I’m really bummed because Celine bumped me off the 50 Most Beautiful list!’ he grins.

Celine was indeed one of the 50 Most Beautiful People as featured by America’s People Magazine (George won their Sexiest Man Alive title in 1997). But he still insists he’ll never get married. Even though it’s rumoured he and Celine have exchanged engagement rings, he seems adamant
that the failure of his first marriage to actress Talia Balsam in 1989 (they were together for many years prior, but the marriage lasted just three) has made up his mind forever.

‘Celine and I knew going into this that it wasn’t about marriage, so we’ve never really talked about it, it’s never been an issue,’ he says. ‘Friends who are married with six kids are like, ‘C’mon! What are you afraid of?’

But most of the time people appreciate the fact that I’m saying, ‘Look I’ve done it!’, I had this image of marriage an when mine didn’t exactly fit that image I thought it didn’t work. I wasn’t very bright about it. I walked away. Maybe I wasn’t ready to be married. It was my fault all the way down
the line.’

Still, this attitude hasn’t stopped Celine going on a bit of a domestic mission in the couple’s Hollywood home. Until Celine arrived, George’s posh gaff was something of a doss house that smelled of blokes (the blokes being all his acting mates who struggled through the bad times with George as well
as the good). Celine was absolutely horrified at the state of the place - big piles of dirty clothes and empty takeaway packets heaped in every room plus a pet pot-bellied pig (a present from his ex-girlfriend Kelly Preston) rampaging about! So at least she sorted him out on that count. Today he
lives in the style you’d expect of a rich movie star. And by all reports, his movie career is about to make him a lot lot richer.

While the rumours that he’s leaving ER at the end of the series’ fifth season (which will be shown on channel 4 early next year) are sadly true, George wisely says, ‘Now’s the time to give my movie career a shot.’

OK, so you won’t be able to curl up with George for a night in front of the telly for much longer, but it seems his future as a mega-successful film star is set. With Out of Sight, George has made a movie that even America’s harshest critics are calling the movie of the year, and they’re tripping over their own drool in the rush to praise his performance. Yep, he’s come a long way from those bit parts that no one remembers on shows like Roseanne.

‘When I started out I was going to auditions once a month and you just act up a storm when you get in there!’ says George. ‘Your one line is (chirpily) ‘Here’s your pizza Ma’am!’ and when your turn comes you’ve got tears in your eyes and it’s like (croaks, choked) ‘Here’s… your… pizza… Ma’am!’ (pretending to break down and cry). But I always knew I didn’t want to wake up at 65 and think I should have been something or should have tried something. I was willing to have not succeeded as an actor – as long as I’d tried. With auditions, if you’re doing really well as an actor you’re going to get one out of 10 jobs. That means 90% of the time people are saying ‘No!’. And you’re not selling encylopedias, you’re selling yourself. You’re walking in saying, ‘Like me!’.

Yeah, like anyone’s going to refuse to, George!"

Karen Deacon