George Clooney discussed his pivot from in front of the camera to behind it during the promotional rounds for his latest directorial venture “The Boys in the Boat.”
The film is centered on the University of Washington’s rowing team, from their Depression-era beginnings to winning gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics in Hitler’s Nazi Germany. It stars Callum Turner, Joel Edgerton and Peter Guinness, among others.
“It’s more fun, you have a lot more control. I get to boss them around and I don’t have to learn how to row,” Clooney said in an interview with Sky News. “Directing is a fun thing to do. It’s fun to come in in the morning and it’s fun to write a screenplay and then have somebody build a set that you wrote, it really is.”
“As you get older, you need to have other things to do. You can’t just do one thing. I’m lucky because I’m 62 and I get to do the stuff I love, and a lot of people don’t get that,” the two-time Oscar winner added. “I’m well aware of it, and I celebrate it because, you know, if I’m not having fun, I think people would be really pissed off. If they look at my life, you go, ‘If you’re not enjoying that, then, you know, then who knows.'”
Referring to the team he assembled for the film, Clooney said: “I only want to work with people that want to be there and like what they do because these are long hours, they are hard. It’s hard to do. No one’s here to complain. We’re not complaining. But they are long hours and it’s a lot of work. And so, people have to enjoy what they do, because I really don’t want to be around people that don’t want to come out of their trailer.”
Someone Clooney still enjoys working with is Brad Pitt, who he has starred alongside in several films, including the “Ocean’s” trilogy. The actors are reunited in the upcoming action-thriller “Wolfs.”
“I still like acting, I have fun. I just did a film with Brad Pitt, he’s an up-and-coming actor,” Clooney joked.
“The Boys in the Boat” is in theaters now.
