{"id":193814,"date":"2025-11-22T05:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T05:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/193814\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T05:01:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T05:01:14","slug":"george-clooney-charms-brits-with-comedic-jabs-at-brad-pitt-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/193814\/","title":{"rendered":"George Clooney Charms Brits With Comedic Jabs at Brad Pitt, Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tGeorge Clooney<\/a> had an enraptured London crowd in stitches Friday, taking comedic jabs at President Trump and Brad Pitt, while also sharing the devastating put-down he received from his son recently. Clooney, whose latest film \u201cJay Kelly<\/a>\u201d was released in theaters earlier this month, was in conversation with Scottish broadcaster Edith Bowman at the British Film Institute<\/a>\u2019s large theater on the south bank of the River Thames.<\/p>\n

\n\tLooking back at his first film with the Coen Brothers, \u201cO Brother, Where Art Thou?,\u201d he joked that \u201cthey like to make me out to be, you know, just a pure knucklehead in every film.\u201d He recalled how nervous he felt when he shot his first scene, in which he gets the shit beaten out of him by John Goodman. \u201cJoel came over and goes, \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s great. It\u2019s just, you know, you\u2019re not dumb. You\u2019re the smartest guy in every room you walk into\u2019 \u2013 which, of course, is what I should have thought of as an actor. I should have understood that dumb people don\u2019t think they\u2019re dumb. They think they\u2019re smart. You know, we have a President to prove that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDiscussing \u201cGood Night, and Good Luck,\u201d which he directed, co-wrote and acted in, he explained that he was prompted to make the film because of the Iraq War, which was \u201ca pretty shameful moment in our history when the three branches of government \u2013 the judicial, the executive and the legislative branches \u2013 all failed in their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReminding the audience that he was \u201cthe son of a newsman,\u201d he continued, \u201cThe Fourth Estate, meaning journalism, has the responsibility to question authority, has to, and when it doesn\u2019t \u2013 it didn\u2019t and it failed \u2013 we end up in a war in Iraq, a war of choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also mentioned the flak he received for criticizing the war. \u201cAnd it\u2019s funny too, by the way, they protested against me. There was only about five of us that came out at that point. People forget that. The government put me on a deck of cards, called it a deck of traitors. They picketed my movies, put me on TV shows, and all this shit, and those exact same people now they all talk about how bad that war was, so it\u2019s like, \u2018Fuck off.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added, \u201cSo I wrote \u2018Goodnight, Good Luck,\u2019 because I wanted to talk about when journalism, when the Fourth Estate, stood up to a populist, stood up to a bad idea when it wasn\u2019t convenient, and when it was difficult to do and when it mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough he didn\u2019t play the lead role of Edward R. Murrow in the film, he did in a stage version on Broadway earlier this year. \u201cIt was fun to do it, and there was a different urgency to do the play this spring. It felt like we were talking about things now that, you know \u2026 the idea of telling the truth and speaking truth to power is more important than ever. Truth is more negotiable than ever.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a line in this that Murrow said, this isn\u2019t my writing, \u2018We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. You must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who fear to write, to speak or to associate with people whose ideas for the moment are unpopular.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was important to say those words,\u201d he said to warm applause from the London crowd.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the end of the play, he said, \u201cMurrow looks out at the audience and says, \u2018What are you prepared to do?,\u2019\u201d and some in the New York audience, he said, shouted back, \u201cResist!\u201d He added, \u201cIt\u2019s an interesting thing to remember that each of us, each one of us, our voices, have to matter, and being silent is not an option.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about the challenges of being a movie star, he mentioned that he had to watch what he said. \u201cEvery opportunity to have an interview or to have a conversation could result in the end of your career. You know, I\u2019m not on Twitter or Instagram or any of that bullshit because \u2026 I drink. You know, 3 a.m., my Mother Teresa joke might not play so well when I wake up the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added that his children keep him grounded. \u201cMy son, for Halloween, dresses up as Batman. He has no idea that I\u2019m Batman. And I said, \u2018You know, I was Batman,\u2019 and he\u2019s like, \u2018Err \u2026 no.\u2019 He has no idea how right he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tClooney made repeated references to his age, 64. He joked that in the upcoming \u201cOcean\u2019s 14,\u201d starring Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts, \u201cwe are all in wheelchairs.\u2019\u201d He later added, \u201cIt is like, you know, all the things we used to be able to do that we can\u2019t do anymore [\u2026] It\u2019s gonna be like \u2018The Golden Girls.\u2019 [\u2026] So, we\u2019re looking forward to that, and I\u2019m not sure when we start that yet. It\u2019s about getting the schedule going, and we also have to take all of the budget and give it to Brad, now that he\u2019s had a hit. He\u2019s hard to live with, you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Clooney had an enraptured London crowd in stitches Friday, taking comedic jabs at President Trump and Brad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[107768,434,18,117,10232,19,17,23389],"class_list":{"0":"post-193814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-british-film-institute","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-george-clooney","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-jay-kelly"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115591596212751872","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193814","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=193814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}