Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Hollywood star George Clooney spoke to hundreds of fans at a public session held as part of the recent Dubai International Film Festival.
The star touched on his early career, expressed respect for the Press, and described how his fame led him to become more vocal as a humanitarian activist, drawing attention to the plight of civilians in Darfur.
The discussion initially touched on the progression of Clooney's illustrious career. The actor moved from Kentucky to Los Angeles at 21, he said, quipping: "I'm 24 now!"
He slept in a friend's closet for a year and a half, spent five years unemployed, then gradually progressed to better parts. He attributes his success to ER, the popular series in which he starred for five years, and to luck: "Everything you do as an actor requires an element of luck. I got very lucky because after years and years, a Thursday night time-slot opened for ER and I got a lot of exposure from that."
The transition to film was not easy, and his first films were perceived as failures because he was concurrently performing in a television series. However, the turning point came when he performed in O Brother Where Art Thou? and A Perfect Storm in the same year, both critically acclaimed.
At 46, ("though I have the knees of a 70-year old"), he feels that he has just begun his creative stride with an interest in directing. As Clooney becomes more selective of the films he accepts, his leaning toward politically-conscious films has become more apparent, a trend that began with 1998's Three Kings, which implicitly criticised American activities in Iraq.
Outside of film, Clooney began to be more vocal, which also got him in trouble: "During the leadup to the war on Iraq, I was saying we should be asking more questions, and they started picketing all the movies I was doing.
What Clooney describes as "the lack of questions in the Press" and the trend toward entertainment-led editorial led him to make Good Night and Good Luck as a meditation on the role of the Press as a government watchdog and educator of the public.
