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George Clooney

By FamousBios Staff   2021-12-12 00:00:00
2011–present

As of 2011, Clooney is represented by Bryan Lourd, co-chairman of Creative Artists Agency. In 2011 Clooney starred in The Descendants as a husband whose wife has an accident that leaves her in a coma. He earned critical praise for his work, and won the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Also, he was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild for Best Actor, the BAFTA Award for Best Actor, and the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the political drama The Ides of March. In 2013, Clooney won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, the BAFTA Award for Best Picture and the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing Argo. He is the only person in Academy Award history to be nominated for Oscars in six different categories: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Clooney co-starred with Sandra Bullock in Gravity, a space thriller directed by Alfonso Cuarón. He co-wrote, directed and starred in The Monuments Men, an adaption of The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel. Clooney also produced August: Osage County, an adaptation of the play of the same name. The film stars Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. His next film was Tomorrowland, a science fiction adventure film in which he played Frank Walker, an inventor. Later in the year, he was featured as himself in the Netflix Christmas musical comedy A Very Murray Christmas, starring Bill Murray.

Hail, Caesar!, a comedy from the Coen brothers set in the Hollywood film industry in the 1950s, premiered in February 2016. Clooney portrayed Baird Whitlock, a Robert Taylor-type film star who is kidnapped during the production of a film. Josh Brolin co-starred as fixer Eddie Mannix. Clooney reunited with Julia Roberts for the Jodie Foster-directed thriller Money Monster, playing the host of a television show that investigates conspiracies on commerce and Wall Street, who is taken hostage by a bankrupt viewer given a bad tip.

In 2013, Clooney co-founded Casamigos Tequila with Rande Gerber and Michael Meldman. It was sold to Diageo for $700 million in June 2017, with an additional $300 million possible depending on the company's performance over the next ten years. According to Forbes annual ranking, he was the world's highest-paid actor for 2017–2018, earning $239 million between June 1, 2017, and June 1, 2018.



In October 2017, his directorial project Suburbicon a 1950s-set crime comedy was released. It stars Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, and Oscar Isaac, from a script written by the Coen brothers in the 1980s, that they had originally intended to direct themselves.

He received the 2018 AFI Life Achievement Award on June 7, 2018.

In 2019, Clooney starred, directed, and produced the Hulu miniseries Catch-22 based upon the novel of the same name by Joseph Heller. Clooney was initially cast in a main role in the series; however, he opted to take a smaller supporting role instead. The series premiered on May 31, 2019, to critical acclaim.

Clooney next directed, starred, and produced the science fiction film The Midnight Sky, based upon the Lily Brooks-Dalton debut novel, Good Morning, Midnight, for Netflix. He also directs The Tender Bar adaptation for Amazon Studios with Ben Affleck in the lead. It will have a limited release in Los Angeles and New York theatres on 17 December 2021, followed by a nationwide premiere on 22 December 2021. The coming-of-age film will be streaming on Amazon Prime Video from 7 January 2022.

In February 2021, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Clooney's Smokehouse Pictures would be teaming with Sports Illustrated Studios and 101 Studios to produce a docuseries about the Ohio State University abuse scandal, and that the series would be based on an October 2020 Sports Illustrated article by Jon Wertheim. In the same month, he reunited with Julia Roberts for a romantic comedy film Ticket to Paradise directed by Ol Parker. It was initially set to release in theatres on 30 September 2022 but was pushed by a month to 21 October 2022. In September 2021, Clooney reteamed with Brad Pitt for an untitled thriller film written and directed by Jon Watts.

Activism and public advocacy

Political views

Clooney supported both of Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. Clooney endorsed Hillary Clinton for the 2016 presidential election. Clooney endorsed Joe Biden for the 2020 presidential election, and he hosted a virtual fundraiser for Biden together with Obama on July 28, 2020.

He has also made humorous statements against Republican Party figures. In 2006, Clooney sarcastically thanked Jack Abramoff at the 63rd Golden Globe Awards before concluding with 'Who would name their kid 'Jack' with 'off' at the end? No wonder the guy's screwed up'. Clooney has also described Republican donor Steve Wynn as an 'asshole' and a 'jackass', after the two had a heated disagreement over the Affordable Care Act.

Humanitarian work

Clooney is involved with Not On Our Watch Project, an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities, along with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub. In February 2009, he visited Goz Beida, Chad, with New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof. In January 2010, he organized the telethon Hope for Haiti Now, which collected donations for the 2010 Haiti earthquake victims.

In March 2012, Clooney starred with Martin Sheen and Brad Pitt in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play '8'—a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage—as attorney David Boies. The production was held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. In September 2012, Clooney offered to take an auction winner out to lunch to benefit the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. GLSEN works to create a safe space in schools for children who are or may be perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

On August 7, 2020, George and Amal Clooney donated $100,000 to three Lebanese charities after the capital, Beirut, was left devastated by a deadly explosion. They donated money to the Lebanese Red Cross, Impact Lebanon, and Baytna Baytak. The blast claimed the lives of at least 145 people and injured more than 5,000.

References









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