George Clooney: Donald Trump is clearly ‘in over his head and incapable’
George Clooney is about to start making all of the film festival rounds to support his latest directorial effort, Suburbicon, a film which I think looks kind of bad. It’s George’s first project in a while, and it will be interesting to see how he handles the press as a new father. Thankfully, he’s giving us a preview of coming attractions. George sat down with the Associated Press so that everyone can catch up on what he’s been doing. Some highlights:
How he’s preparing for the film festival circuit: “I just have to clean the barf off of my tux. It used to be my barf but now it’s the twins’ barf. So it all works out.”
What Suburbicon is really about: Clooney believes the film, which peers into the dark racial tensions of 1950s suburbia, is deeply relevant to Donald Trump’s America. It bristles, he hopes, with the spirit of Howard Beale, the truth-telling Network newsman who yelled, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” “I last week screened it for my good friend Norman Lear. When it was over, he looked over and said, ‘This is the angriest film I’ve ever seen.’ It’s a pretty angry film. There’s a lot of anger out there. I think that’s reflected in the film. The main idea of the film was to pick some fights and I always like picking fights.”
The story is based on a never-produced script written by Joel & Ethan Coen. The Coens wrote a screenplay about 1950s Levittown, Pennsylvania, and specifically the enclave’s response in 1957 to a black family moving in. It’s a tale, they believe, that mirrors today’s political landscape. “I found it interesting to talk about building walls and scapegoating minorities,” said Clooney. “I think that’s always an interesting topic but particularly when I was hearing these conversations on the campaign trail. I thought: It’s always good to look back and remember that nothing really is new and every time we’re shocked, we forget that we’ve had this behavior time and time and time again.”
On Donald Trump: “It becomes increasingly clear how in over his head and incapable this man is of being president of the United States. The good news is that our other institutions — meaning press, finally, and judges and senators — have proven that the country works. There is a check and balance.”
Fatherhood: “Suddenly, you’re responsible for other people, which is terrifying,” he chuckled before heaping credit on his wife. “She’s like an Olympic athlete. She’s doing so beautifully. Right now my job is changing diapers and walking them around a little bit. I really didn’t think at 56 that I would be the parent of twins. Don’t make plans. You always have to just enjoy the ride.”
Work as an actor: “I’m in an interesting place in my life. I’m acting almost never — for a lot of reasons, mostly because I don’t have any great interest in it and haven’t read anything (good enough). If somebody showed up with The Verdict, I’d jump but it’s not all that often you get Michael Clayton kind of scripts. And if you’re not going to get those, there’s no real point at this point in my career. They still let me do what I want to do. As long as that’s the case, then I’m going to keep doing it. For me, you’ve got to keep pushing the envelope until they take everything away — which they eventually do with everybody.”
[From USA Today]
“It becomes increasingly clear how in over his head and incapable this man is of being president of the United States.” It was clear during the election! It was clear in his first hours in office! I don’t even have enough faith in checks and balances at this point. Like, the answer to our prayers is not going to be douchef–ker Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House. The answer to our prayers MIGHT be Robert Mueller, who was never elected to anything. So much for separation of powers?
As for the rest of it… I’m very wary of Clooney pushing this idea that Suburbicon is some kind of hyper-political story. I’ve seen the trailer. It looks like a straight-up Coen Bros rip-off (which is what it is, basically). It’s not the political film of the year. This reminds me of when George tried to sell The Monuments Men by pushing the narrative that no one had ever heard this story, while there had been several well-regarded documentaries about the subject. George’s raison d’être is to make his films sound super-political and like it took everything he had to make them. That’s never the case.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Source: George Clooney: Donald Trump is clearly ‘in over his head and incapable’
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