Sunday, April 06, 2008
A+E, Movies
Calling the shots
George Clooney on ‘Leatherheads,’ his directing career and working with—George Clooney
George Clooney stars in and directs the screwball sports comedy “Leatherheads.”
CREDIT: Courtesy of Universal Pictures
“LEATHERHEADS”
George Clooney, Renée Zellweger
Directed by George Clooney
Rated PG-13
Wide release
By Bert Osborne
The same year he took home an Oscar for his supporting role in the geopolitical thriller “Syriana” (2005), George Clooney also earned nominations for directing and co-writing the Edward R. Murrow drama “Good Night, and Good Luck.” (The actor made his directorial debut with 2002’s “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” about game-show host and avowed spy Chuck Barris.) For his next foray behind—and in front of—the camera, Clooney tackles the wild, waning days of the amateur football league, circa 1925. In the screwball comedy “Leatherheads,” he directs himself as an aging team player who matches wits and locks horns, respectively, with Renée Zellweger (as a brassy newspaper reporter) and John Krasinski (as an up-and-coming star quarterback).
Clooney, 46, discussed the new movie during a recent interview in Los Angeles.
Q What were some of the biggest challenges for George Clooney, the director, in terms of working with George Clooney, the actor?
A It’s tricky. For one thing, there’s an enormous amount of narcissism that comes into play [laughs]. I had parts in the other two films I’ve made, too, but they weren’t the lead characters, you know? When it’s just you, as an actor, working in a scene with another actor, one thing you never want to do is break that trust between actors. You’re not supposed to be judging them, the method they use or the choices they make coming up with their characters. I mean, a lot of actors do try to tell you what to do, that you ought to try it this way or that way, but in general there’s a line between us that actors just aren’t supposed to cross. But at the same time, as a director, one of the biggest parts of your job is to suggest different ideas to the actors about a scene or different approaches to how they play their characters. It’s awkward, and it definitely requires a certain amount of finesse. I just went to all of the other actors ahead of time and said, “Look, this is going to be strange all the way around,” basically just laying it out there early and getting it out in the open. The easiest part of it for me was knowing specifically and precisely what I wanted or needed from each scene, as a director, so I wasn’t having to explain things to my leading actor. That cut out at least one step in the process.
A lot of actor-directors choose not to appear in their own films, given all the other work that goes into making a movie. But your roles in your films keep getting progressively bigger.
Yeah. For my next project, I’m thinking about doing some kind of a one-man show. George Clooney is “Catch-22” [laughs]. The truth is, “Leatherheads” first came to me 10 years ago as an actor. Steven Soderbergh was going to direct it back in ’98 or so. The script wasn’t in great shape—it was more of an outline, with a couple of characters we liked but not much in the way of a plot—and I was excited about that prospect, before things fell through and moved on. It’s a part I’ve wanted to play for a long time. I thought I was the right guy for it, and let’s face it, I’m 46. If I didn’t do it now then I’d be done. It was probably a dumb move in some ways, but everything about this project finally came together really quickly. I wouldn’t by design ever direct another film in which I was playing the lead. What I neglected to pay much attention to was the fact that I was also going to be playing football [laughs]. It hurt. The first day I got knocked on my ass by some 21-year-old, I thought, “Four more months of this? Uh-oh, I’m in trouble.”
You mentioned being the right actor for this role. What made you the right director?
After that whirlwind year I had with “Syriana” and “Good Night, and Good Luck,” all that was coming to me were issues films. The studios were happy to let me direct, but it had to be the Richard Clark book or some other big political piece like that. I guess I had a fear of being known as an issues director, because the issues are always changing, right? I had a greater interest in wanting to direct something that was completely apart from all of that. I like screwing around with different genres, and this was a period and a style I felt I knew a little something about.
Still, the film does raise a few issues—freedom of the press, the commercialization of sports.
Well, you’ve got to throw some political stuff in there. I suppose there are some things about this movie that hold a personal interest for me, but I thought about it more like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” or something like that—holding on to a way of life that’s long since sailed away, holding on to all these great memories about how things used to be, mainly because you’re not willing to grow up, and how in order to save it you inevitably have to destroy it. I mean, none of these guys in 1925 wanted to make football commercial, if it meant having to play by a whole new set of rules and regulations. That’s no fun. As for the whole question about the integrity of the press, I’d already done that with “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Making Renée’s character a sports writer wasn’t some kind of comment on the fact that back in ’25 there were no women sports writers—even now, they’re fighting to do it—it was mostly about having fun.
All the repartee is an obvious throwback to the movie comedies of the ’30s and ’40s.
Yeah, I couldn’t begin to list all the people we ripped off and stole from—or maybe I should say paid homage to in a really big way. We homaged the hell out of Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges, “His Girl Friday” and “Hail the Conquering Hero,” early George Stevens, “The More the Merrier,” “The Philadelphia Story”—let’s see, what else?
All of us definitely spent a lot of time stuck in that world. The important thing about having actors like John and Renée is that they don’t feel contemporary. A lot of actors just feel like 2008 no matter what they do, you know what I mean? We couldn’t just do it exactly like Jimmy Stewart or Rosalind Russell would. Don’t get me wrong. What they did back in the ’30s and ’40s was brilliant, but if you took those exact performances and put them into a modern-made film, it would seem like too much of an impersonation.
Interestingly enough, the same was true in terms of shooting all the football scenes. As a director, you don’t really want to rely on steadicams or handheld cameras. Sure, they really increase the excitement level of the action, but it immediately sells out the period you’re in, because they didn’t have that technology back in the 1920s. It was a tricky balance, shooting the story and acting it in a way that we’re used to seeing that time portrayed. SP