Charm school

He may easily be the coolest, most charismatic man on the planet. Who else could we be referring to but George Clooney? Georgia Lewis reports

It was a typical Dubai moment. After receiving precisely one hour’s notice to get to George Clooney’s press conference at the Dubai International Film Festival, I drove at breakneck speed to the venue, parked the car, ran across eight lanes of traffic and was faced with a point blank refusal of entry. Nobody appeared to be in charge and if I wanted to be admitted behind the big wooden doors, I’d have to fill out a media registration form and my registration would be ready in 24 hours. Subject to approval, of course.

I pointed out that I shouldn’t have been invited to the press conference if I had to wait for 24 hours of bureaucracy to gain admission. I stamped my feet. I said “This is a joke!” an awful lot. Finally, with me playing bad cop and another scorned journo playing good cop, we were allowed behind the big wooden doors for George Clooney’s arrival.

In stunning contrast to the frustrating idiocy of five minutes previously, George breezed in like the proverbial breath of fresh air. He wasn’t fashionably late, he didn’t appear to have an entourage of beefy security dudes, he looked much thinner in real life than he does on screen.

“Hey guys!” he chirped as he bounded in, the famous smile instantly on display.

No sunglasses. No minders. No nonsense.

Dressed in jeans, a black T-shirt and black jacket, his look nailed smart-casual – although he probably would have made a tartan wetsuit and matching mittens look like a bona fide fashion statement. Men like him can do that. A turquoise-jacketed matron introduced him to us and then the translator repeated the introduction in Arabic. “That’s not what she said,” Clooney cracked as soon as she was done. Everyone laughed. Everyone was already on his side.

Clooney was on a flying visit to Dubai to promote his latest flick, Michael Clayton. While he was quick to point out that he doesn’t want to be just known as “the political film guy”, it’s another Clooney movie with a message. Playing the title role, Michael Clayton is an attorney who becomes involved in a case whereby an auto manufacturer decides it’s financially better off if they pay out victims of their faulty cars in the event of accidents rather than doing a multi-million dollar product recall.

It was nearly a movie that Clooney didn’t star in but his good friend and collaborator, director Stephen Soderbergh, urged him to have a chat with rookie director Tony Gilroy.

“I was worried about working with a first-time director but Stephen Soderbergh persuaded me to meet with Tony Gilroy and I realised he was entirely capable,” said Clooney.

While he may not want to just be the “political film guy”, Clooney is still acutely aware of the commercial realities of making films with messages. “With a film like Michael Clayton, it has to make money so you can keep making more of them,” he said.

Last in Dubai to make the complex Middle Eastern political drama Syriana, Clooney was eager to express how delighted he was to be back in the city that dared to let him make a film which might not have thrilled everyone in the Arab world. While some deemed him a traitor after Syriana’s release, Clooney is adamant it’s a film that sought to educate America on the Middle East, admitting that his fellow Americans might not necessarily have the best general knowledge on this part of the world.

“Very few people in the US would know the difference between a Shi’ite and a Sunni, we’re not very well educated, we don’t learn other people’s languages because we don’t have to,” he said. “But we all [Arabs and Americans] want to live out our lives in love and peace without harming each other.”

With his open opposition to the war in Iraq and his determination to bring the injustices of Darfur to the world’s attention, it wasn’t long before the press conference turned to Clooney’s worn-on-the-sleeve politics. He smoothly gave a lesson that any PR hack would benefit from, achieving the near-impossible stunt of making his views known without truly offending anyone, not even George W Bush.

On the US involvement in Iraq he said: “We have a history of panicking but we’re good at fixing things too and that’s what we’re in the process of doing.”

Nicely done. Clooney was not going to be drawn into making sweeping statements on what issues needed more media attention in the Middle East. Instead, he stressed the importance of getting one’s facts straight if you’re a celebrity who wants to use his or her position to take a stand on an issue. “If I’m sitting here in front of a microphone and it’s an issue of great urgency, I have a responsibility to know what I’m talking about.”

When someone asked a pointed question aimed at making him slag off George W Bush, Clooney silenced her by asking: “Are you calling Bush a terrorist? I certainly don’t want to be drawn on that. What is the real meaning of terrorism? That’s a long, long discussion. There’s plenty of people better qualified than George Clooney to answer that question.”

A breathless reporter fluttered her eyelids at Clooney and asked if he’d consider running for public office, pouting relentlessly as she reassured him he would be elected president if he chose to run. To his credit, Clooney appeared suitably flattered by the question. “My father was a newsman and he ran for Congress and my mother was a mayor – I’ve seen what compromises you have to make [when you run for office],” he said. “I’d rather not have to worry about offending the six people who fund my campaign and advocacy is a much better way for me to make a difference.”

Then the Clooney charm bubbled to the surface once again. “I’ve made too many bad films to run for office – my opposition would use them against me,” he said.

Clooney was also asked about the writers’ strike in the US, which has caused production on many films and TV shows to come to a standstill. Describing himself as a “union man” who belongs to five different unions, he said the strike was the inevitable result of new technology. “It’s putting an awful lot of people out of work but we came to this point with VHS and DVDs [as well]. We’re talking about a new medium – the internet and streaming and at what point is it possible for writers to participate in the profits?”

He’s not optimistic for a fast settlement on the strike and joked that if it wasn’t resolved soon, we can expect the next Dubai Film Festival to be a very different beast indeed. “Your film festival next year might just be a bunch of reality TV shows,” he quipped.

Ever the wisecracker, when the questions turned back to George Clooney the film star, rather than George Clooney the outspoken political advocate, he was self-deprecating and humble – and it didn’t feel like a bunged-on act. There were no long, heart-rending tales of being a starving actor sleeping in his car and he fully acknowledges the role the hit medical drama ER played in his rise to fame and ultimately acclaim.

“The only reason I have the career I have is because of ER,” he said. “In the 10 years prior to that I was a working actor making a pretty good living but I wouldn’t be taking my film to the Dubai Film Festival.”

“I did a lot of bad plays for a very long time,” he said of his early career but he doesn’t see his early work as difficulties or hardships but as stepping stones and learning experiences that all helped him get to the great place he is at today.
“I’m lucky I didn’t get famous early because I was really bad,’ he said.

Again, a collective laugh erupted at the press conference.

The last question of the day was asked by a hysterical young thing seated right beside me. She jumped up and down and hyperventilated like an asthmatic on a pogo stick to get the attention of the turquoise jacketed gatekeeper only to ask the silliest question of the morning. “What was your first film that made you famous?” A 10-second check on www.imdb.com would have revealed the answer to be From Dusk Till Dawn but Clooney didn’t make her feel stupid and gave a polite, smiling response to she-who-did-not-do-her-research.

And with that, the press conference was called to an end. Everyone in the room, male and female, either wanted to be Clooney or wanted to be with him. The male reporters were just as starstruck as the female reporters. He’s the kind of guy who is so ridiculously good looking, you might want to hate him but as soon as he starts talking, it’s almost an impossible task.

No airs. No graces. No bull.