Interview with Diane Sawyer at Villa Oleandra - Sept 2005

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Gorgeous George

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Reporter: Diane Sawyer
Producer: Primetime, ABC

It is with some satisfaction we announce the fact that the impossibly handsome George Clooney is no longer the sexiest man on earth. These days he's merely the sexiest man over the age of 40.

Be that as it may, he's still pretty damn lucky, as you'll see when he takes us on a guided tour of his new house in Italy. And what a house it is, an exotic 18th century mansion, with all the latest mod cons.

Not only that, our George has a new movie too, one he's poured his heart and soul into. One the critics say is terrific. But what's he really like? Diane Sawyer went in search of the real Mr Clooney.

Transcript

DIANE SAWYER: Welcome to Lake Como, Italy, and the 18th century villa with the 21st century superstar inside. This is unbelievable in every single direction.

GEORGE CLOONEY: It's not bad. It's nice weather too, don't you think? Let's go inside. Let's go this way.

DIANE SAWYER: Do you know its history?

GEORGE CLOONEY: I bought it from one of ... the Heinz family.

DIANE SAWYER: Okay. So what made you fall in love with it when you hit it?

GEORGE CLOONEY: I like ceilings like this.

DIANE SAWYER: That will do it.

GEORGE CLOONEY: I was on my back for about six weeks painting that.

DIANE SAWYER: (Laughs) Yeah, right.

GEORGE CLOONEY: This is before they had television so you just watched your ceiling.

DIANE SAWYER: And how about this bedroom with a fantastic ceiling too?

GEORGE CLOONEY: This is the master bedroom, which I don't stay in because it's too big. I was going to do the interview from the bathtub in here.

DIANE SAWYER: (Laughs)

GEORGE CLOONEY: I just would have been sitting here with bubbles and you would sit in the chair and we would talk.

DIANE SAWYER: Clooney also has a gym where he works out one or two hours a day. He lost the 30 pounds he deliberately gained for a recent film but has been battling an injury, one so serious it makes each beautiful day here a gift.

GEORGE CLOONEY: This isn't a bad view here today.

DIANE SAWYER: Yeah. Not so bad.

GEORGE CLOONEY: Not too bad at all.

DIANE SAWYER: He damaged the protective membrane surrounding his spinal cord. When your nose was running, it was...

GEORGE CLOONEY: It was spinal fluid, yeah, coming out of my nose. I thought I had a sinus infection at first.

DIANE SAWYER: Do they put plates in?

GEORGE CLOONEY: They put sutures in and then they wrap it with plastic and they give you a spinal tap, which is always fun. I've done about 40 of them now.

DIANE SAWYER: Is this life threatening?

GEORGE CLOONEY: No. It's not life threatening. I was on a hospital show for five years so you do actually start to think you're a doctor.

DIANE SAWYER: You're going back through all the shows trying to figure it out?

GEORGE CLOONEY: I remember the guy with the headache, that guy with the brain tumour. Of all the options, it was by far the best. It's been a ... long year.

DIANE SAWYER: We remember that after he gained that weight for the movie, he joked about temporarily dropping off People magazine's sexiest list. But we had news — he's on his way back. Are you aware that you now have topped the list of sexiest men over 40?

GEORGE CLOONEY: See, what I need is a very specific sexiest man over 40 whose last name starts with a 'C'. Then I've got … well, there's Connery, Tim Conway.

DIANE SAWYER: Even some of your friends have said now he's going to wake up and say, "Children!"

GEORGE CLOONEY: Children, get married?

DIANE SAWYER: Yeah.

GEORGE CLOONEY: My friends said that?

DIANE SAWYER: Yeah. I saw upstairs, you know, you have pictures of kids.

GEORGE CLOONEY: Oh, yeah. I actually have several children. I just don't tell people. Nine illegitimate children that are running around. I got a beautiful niece and nephew. I'm godfather to a bunch of great kids who are here most of the summer.

DIANE SAWYER: But that has to be in that moment where you are looking at the finite nature of life that you say, "Why didn't I? Why haven't I?"

GEORGE CLOONEY: I think that most people think that. You know, most people feel that way. And they have no understanding about someone who has no thought like that. There isn't anything in me that wants to replicate. I believe in all of those things, in a way, but I don't necessarily think it has to be from my loins. And I always find that it is such a great responsibility that I thought it was something I couldn't just do half-arsed.

DIANE SAWYER: As we talk, we notice Clooney rubs his head. That spinal injury, which will heal, but there's still pain and short-term memory loss. Still have headaches?

GEORGE CLOONEY: Yeah. I still have them every day. And I stay away from as much of the medication as possible. When you have a family history or a family that has enjoyed painkillers over the years. Not my dad but through my aunt, Rosemary.

DIANE SAWYER: Your aunt, Rosemary. Rosemary Clooney, his aunt, who was once a huge Hollywood star herself. Her rise and fall became a cautionary tale that still shapes her nephew's life. She battled an addiction to painkillers for many years and saw her fame and fortune diminish.

GEORGE CLOONEY: I pay cash for everything. I'll do very commercial films so that I can go do films like this. And if I didn't do them — I can't do ... you know, if I didn't do Ocean's 12, I couldn't have done this film.

DIANE SAWYER: It's a tribute to valiant journalism and the dad who made him a true believer.

GEORGE CLOONEY: My mom was working, my dad was working. Nobody had any money in my family. It wasn't like my dad was getting paid anything for local television then. We didn't have a babysitter so the babysitter was the TV station.

DIANE SAWYER: His dad is Nick Clooney, a retired local newscaster.

GEORGE CLOONEY: He's funny, got a great sense of humour, but he has this incredible sense of right and wrong. And it doesn't bend.

DIANE SAWYER: Even as a five-year-old boy, young Clooney heard about his dad's real life hero, Edward R. Murrow, once the titan of CBS News. In the early 1950s, Murrow watched a ruthless ideologue named Senator Joe McCarthy rouse America into a kind of punitive frenzy, exploiting the fear of communism to blur the line between dissent and disloyalty. Murrow decided he would take on McCarthy, putting his own power and career on the line.

GEORGE CLOONEY: And he knew that if he fired and missed at McCarthy, he was going to saddle the country with McCarthy for another five years.

DIANE SAWYER: So it was sort of like two gladiators and they both had a new weapon, which was television?

GEORGE CLOONEY: It's true. They went head to head.

DIANE SAWYER: Some people who have seen the movie say they think the man playing McCarthy is over the top. They don't know that Clooney has used the real man in old footage.

GEORGE CLOONEY: We want to take out ... you know how in the trades they always say, "For your consideration for best supporting actor, Joe McCarthy." He gives a riveting performance as himself.

DIANE SAWYER: So we wondered how Murrow the crusader would feel about television news today.

GEORGE CLOONEY: Nowadays, it is car chases. Local news — we love car chases. There is no news value in that.

DIANE SAWYER: Would you ever put Brad Pitt marries Angelina Jolie in any broadcast?

GEORGE CLOONEY: Entertainment shows, sure. If I gave birth to a goat, it should be on an entertainment show, which, by the way, has never happened. But, you know, if you use it the right way, you can actually use it responsibly.

DIANE SAWYER: Clooney is a famously committed Democrat who is always supporting anti-poverty causes. Still no public office for you?

GEORGE CLOONEY: Oh, God, no. No, no, no. Done too many bad things in my life. I would literally have to run on the ticket of, "Yes, I did it." "Wasn't it true that..." "Yes, I did." "And weren't you with..." "Yes, I think, I believe I was. And I drank the bong water at the time."

DIANE SAWYER: Okay, you can answer these or not answer these?

GEORGE CLOONEY: I'm going to answer them all.

DIANE SAWYER: Okay, here we go — blonde or brunette, skinny or curvy?

GEORGE CLOONEY: Blonde or brunette? I have no preferences.

DIANE SAWYER: The thing you're most shy about?

GEORGE CLOONEY: A room full of strangers, always, still.

DIANE SAWYER: Last time you cried in a movie?

GEORGE CLOONEY: Terms of Endearment, you know, a big sappy movie. She brings the little kid in, you know, like ...

DIANE SAWYER: And when you get to heaven, what will be the sign that it really is heaven? What do you know for sure will be there?

GEORGE CLOONEY: It'd be ... if you get to heaven, it will be Rosemary sitting there singing with Nat Cole playing the piano.

DIANE SAWYER: What's the song?

GEORGE CLOONEY: 'When I Fall in Love' is a pretty good one. Of course, if it's Rosemary, it might be purgatory since, you know, you can't live a good life and go straight to heaven. You might have to stop on the way.

DIANE SAWYER: And what about his father? The title of the movie is Goodnight and Good Luck, Edward R. Murrow's trademark sign-off, a film dedicated to his dad and all those who stand and fight armed only with their honour.

GEORGE CLOONEY: I think the best moment I've had on this film when my dad was here in Italy with my mom and I said, 'Do you want to see the film?' He knew a lot about it but he hadn't seen any of the footage. He finished the film and he got up and he turned around and he goes, "You got it right," like that, and patted me on the back and walked out and I thought, Well, that's as good as it gets.

DIANE SAWYER: Goodnight ... and ...

GEORGE CLOONEY: … good luck. (Laughs)