George Clooney, in a candid interview for GQ magazine alongside Brad Pitt, has taken aim at Quentin Tarantino, accusing the acclaimed director of dismissing his status as a movie star. The two actors, who previously shared the screen in 1996's "From Dusk Till Dawn," found themselves at odds after Tarantino reportedly downplayed Clooney's film career in a recent interview.
"Quentin said some shit about me recently, so I'm a little irritated by him," Clooney revealed. "He did some interview where he was naming movie stars, and he was talking about [Brad], and somebody else, and then this guy goes, âWell, what about George?â He goes, heâs not a movie star. And then he literally said something like, âName me a movie since the millennium.â And I was like, âSince the millennium? That's kind of my whole fucking career.'"
Clooney, known for his versatility and acclaimed roles in films like "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Michael Clayton," clearly took umbrage at Tarantino's remark. "So now I'm like, all right, dude, fuck off. I don't mind giving him shit," he added.
Variety has reached out to Tarantino's representative for comment.
The exchange highlights a broader discussion about the changing landscape of Hollywood stardom. Clooney and Pitt both acknowledge that the industry no longer produces stars in the same way it did during their rise to fame. "They haven't developed stars the way the studio system used to," Clooney stated. "We kind of were at the very end of that, where you could work at a studio and do three or four films, and there was some plan to it. And I don't think that's necessarily the case anymore."
Despite this shift, Clooney sees a silver lining for young actors. "But it's a great time as a young actor," he said. "Because when I was a young actor, if you looked at the back of the LA Times every Monday morning they had the 64 shows that were made. And of those 64 shows, if you're actually on one of them, you're trying to be in the top 20 to keep your show on the air. But that was it. And then the studios were doing five films a year. Now there's 600 shows. So there's a lot more work for actors."
Reflecting on his own remarkable career, spanning over four decades, Clooney expressed surprise at his longevity. "I remember I talked to [Matt] Damon about this 25 years ago, when he first hit with his movie and won the Oscar," Clooney said. "I was like, âJust know that if you get a 10-year career, playing at that level, it's an absolute jackpot.â Nobody sustains it much longer than that. So yeah, I'm surprised that I still have the work."
He attributed his endurance to his willingness to take risks and experiment with different genres, a strategy that allowed him to avoid becoming typecast. "There's a narrative that people love to do with me, which is like, I'm always just playing a version of me," Clooney explained. "And I always go, âWell, all right, but I don't know that many people are doing 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' and 'Michael Clayton.' And I think part of the reason I'm allowed to do that is I had so many genres of films that I was in that weren't successful. You know what I mean? If you're not wildly successful at action films, then no one's asking you to do more action films. And the same thing with sort of everything. So part of life for me was always, the lack of massive success allowed me to do other things and try new things."
Clooney and Pitt's latest film, "Wolfs," will premiere at the Venice Film Festival before streaming on Apple TV+ starting September 27th. The movie will also enjoy a one-week theatrical release starting September 20th.
