Film interview: Leatherheads – George Clooney

Leatherheads – George Clooney interview We talk to George Clooney about directing and starring in screwball romantic comedy Leatherheads, the physical aspects of the shoot and which films he was trying to emulate… The Leatherheads script has been around for years.

Why did you choose to direct and star in it now?
George Clooney: Well, after Goodnight, And Good Luck and Syriana, every film that I was sent to direct was an issue-driven film, which at some point the issues start to become bigger than the films you're doing and you really don't want to do that if you want to direct. So I wanted to do a comedy. And this was one. If you're going to do a romantic comedy it was about housing it in something that we haven't seen before. The reason I avoid romantic comedies in general is because we sort of know how everything ends all the way down. So, it's about where you put it, is it worth the journey? I wanted to put it in something that would be fun. I'm a big fan of the old screwball comedies and I thought that without really trying to mimic it, because we couldn't really do it that same way, it felt like this was a good time to do something different. You also want to keep playing with things and keep trying different things and figure out what you're good at and what you're not.

It also means that you could dust it down yourself and polish it yourself…
George Clooney: Yes. I spent two summers ago in Italy, which is a good place to do that. It's where we did Goodnight, and Good Luck the year before, and spent the summer working on it with Renée [Zellweger] in mind to play the part. It makes it easy to write when you have somebody particularly as talented as Renée in mind for it. So, that was part of the fun.

What types of films did you look at to get the style of the banter? George Clooney: We looked at His Girl Friday. I tell you a great film... I was watching this [Frank] Capra documentary and he talked about the greatest screwball romantic comedy he'd ever seen was The More The Merrier, which I didn't know and felt like a moron because when you see it you realise it was nominated for five Academy Awards. It was Joel McCrae and Jean Arthur and it was so beautifully done, and so quick and smart. The trick was to be able to try and do that without it sounding... You couldn't take Rosalind Russell and do that performance now. She's brilliant in His Girl Friday but if Renée was in there doing it [mimics her voice] it just won't play. So, it's finding that heightened level and it's hard to find actors that don't feel contemporary when you put them in a period piece. It's a strange thing and I have that problem sometimes because we slur or we say “y’know” a lot and we try to explain things too much. But Renée has this incredible ability to be able to walk into a period piece like that and just be impeccable. But we looked at a lot of films. We ripped off The Philadelphia Story of course!

Your character in Leatherheads is very sensitive about his age and there are a lot of jokes at his expense. Is that something that resonates with you personally?
George Clooney: [mimics being an old man and shouting random things out, while laughing] I don't worry about it because, you know, the option is death! So, getting older is not something that you're much concerned with. I kept putting those old man jokes in because it was a project that I was looking to do 10 years earlier, when I would have been about the right age to be too old to be playing football. So, I did keep putting in old man jokes. But I find that the best thing with those things, especially with directing, is to have other options so that you're not just relying on what people will think about you in front of the camera.

As both director and star, how physical were the football scenes?
George Clooney: There's this awful moment when you're 46 and you get hit and it hurts. So, you get up and say: "OK, that's good, we got it." And you go to the monitor and you're looking at it and as a director you know you've got to do it again. But as me, I was like: "I think we got it!" But then Grant [Heslov], the producer, is sitting there and going: "Back out, get out there and shoot it again." I'm like, "s***"! The first day, you're running 100-yard dashes back and forth and you do it for a couple of days and realise there's 65 more days of it [laughs]. And you don't want your director to be covered in mud.

Are you a fan of American Football and the way the game has moved on since the time you depict in the film? Is it true that you tried out for the Cincinnati Reds?
George Clooney: Well, I did have two trials for the Cincinnati Reds. I only lacked talent. All the rest of it I had. The uniform I had down. We didn't have a football team at my high school, it was a very small school. But we played sand block football and it sort of reminded me of this kind of football. Listen, I'm a football fan, I like the game. But I also really like... right now what just finished in America last night is, I think, one of the most fun times in sport – the final four of the college basketball. What's fun about it is, although it is commercial, is that it's kids playing for a team and for spirit and that kind of thing. It's so much more exciting than when it gets to be very big pay. I think that's sort of the fun of it and that's why I can relate to that kind of thing.

Interview: Rob Carnevale
Photo: Universal

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