{"id":108444,"date":"2025-10-08T09:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T09:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/108444\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T09:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T09:14:07","slug":"my-kids-have-a-much-better-life-in-france-i-was-worried-about-raising-our-kids-in-the-culture-of-hollywood-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/108444\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018My kids have a much better life in France. I was worried about raising our kids in the culture of Hollywood\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Clooney<\/a> has said that his decision to base himself in France<\/a> was informed by the desire to give his children a better start in life than if they had remained in the US<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The actor (64) \u2013 who has eight-year-old twins, Ella and Alexander, with his wife, the human rights lawyer Amal Clooney<\/a> \u2013 gave a lengthy interview to US Esquire magazine while staying at his Italian villa on Lake Como.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live on a farm in France,\u201d he said. \u201cA good portion of my life growing up was on a farm, and as a kid I hated the whole idea of it. But now, for [the twins], it\u2019s like \u2013 they\u2019re not on their iPads, you know? They have dinner with grown-ups and have to take their dishes in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a much better life. I was worried about raising our kids in LA, in the culture of Hollywood<\/a>. I felt like they were never going to get a fair shake at life. France \u2013 they kind of don\u2019t give a shit about fame. I don\u2019t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don\u2019t want them being compared to somebody else\u2019s famous kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clooney\u2019s father Nick, now 91, was a local TV anchor in Cincinnati and the actor reflected that the age gap between himself and his own children means that similar comparisons will be harder to draw.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing I feel lucky about is that I\u2019m so much older that the idea that my son would be compared to me is pretty unlikely, because by the time he actually will have done anything, I\u2019m gonna be gumming my bread.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also spoke about his desire to ensure his children were self-sufficient, through encouraging them to help out in the grounds and witness his handyman skills fixing, variously, a fan belt (using a pair of his wife\u2019s stockings), a coffee machine and the automated cover for the swimming pool. \u201cIt\u2019s important to me that they can survive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In April 2025, Amal Clooney was among a number of senior legal counsels to the International Criminal Court<\/a> (ICC) warned by the foreign office they may be at risk of sanctions by the Trump administration<\/a>, including being banned from entering the US.<\/p>\n

Last year, Amal sat on a panel that recommended lead ICC prosecutor Karim Khan issue an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu<\/a> and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant. The warrant was duly issued in November 2024<\/a>, citing the allegation that the men had committed war crimes in Gaza, including using starvation as a method of warfare, during Israel\u2019s fight against Hamas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

As you get older, it doesn\u2019t matter how many granola bars you eat; your brain starts to lock up<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In February, Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC and naming Khan in its annex, promising to \u201cimpose tangible and significant consequences on those responsible for the ICC\u2019s transgressions, some of which may include the blocking of property and assets, as well as the suspension of entry into the United States of ICC officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members\u201d.<\/p>\n

Clooney did not comment on his wife\u2019s work, although speaking to Anderson Cooper in the spring, he batted back concerns of persecution from Trump, saying: \u201cMy wife spent two years in a bunker trying Hizbullah. She\u2019s the only person to put Isis on trial. She\u2019s the bravest person I\u2019ve ever met. We have other issues besides just worrying about an American administration saying unkind things about us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clooney was then publicising his Broadway run in a stage version of 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck, which, he told Esquire, was made considerably more stressful by his age.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you get older, it doesn\u2019t matter how many granola bars you eat; your brain starts to lock up,\u201d he said. \u201cI had all these long monologues, and I was afraid of blowing my lines. So every single night for 100 performances, I would do the whole play in the dressingroom before I went onstage. I was so terrified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clooney is currently promoting Jay Kelly, Noah Baumbach\u2019s film in which he stars as a Clooney-esque film star reassessing his life in advance of a lifetime achievement tribute. Making the movie, said Clooney, caused him to look back at the highs and lows of his own career, and the impact it has had on his own health and family.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0George Clooney\u2019s Good Night, and Good Luck: The Broadway audience gasps at Musk\u2019s \u2018Nazi salute\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He told Esquire that although never addicted to alcohol, he had \u201cruns where I\u2019d get pretty toasty every night\u201d as well as having dabbled in cocaine during the early 1980s.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, it was like, \u2018No, this is not like heroin. It\u2019s not addictive.\u2019 But then it was like, \u2018Oh, well, it\u2019s actually pretty f**king bad.\u2019 Plus, it was all cut with mannitol. The baby laxative. Everybody would do a line and then take a shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watching film classics from the same period with his wife had also caused him to reassess that time, he said, recalling a viewing of Animal House, which he billed as a film with \u201cno equal\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said: \u2018Well, let\u2019s watch it.\u2019 I go, \u2018I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s going to hold up.\u2019 Like, the first scene, a 13-year-old girl passes out and the devil pops up on the guy\u2019s shoulder and says, \u2018F**k her brains out!\u2019 And my wife\u2019s looking at me like, \u2018Are you kidding me?\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh my God, this is terrible!\u2019\u201d \u2015 The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Clooney has said that his decision to base himself in France was informed by the desire to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[24123,6222,356,18,117,2220,3761,10232,11146,19,12467,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-108444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-amal-clooney","9":"tag-binyamin-netanyahu","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-france","14":"tag-gaza-strip","15":"tag-george-clooney","16":"tag-hollywood-la","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-international-criminal-court","19":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}