Film interview: Leatherheads – George Clooney

George Clooney considers the secrets behind his appeal to women, gets serious about the issue of Darfur, and reveals what he and Gordon Brown discussed during their meeting while he was in London…

Is there any sport that you find incomprehensible?
George Clooney: Cricket... I think that's probably what baseball is to you guys. The rules are just different enough that you can't quite figure them out. I remember shooting a movie in Montreal and the first day I turned on the TV it was curling on every channel. At first I was like: "What the hell?" And then by like the third month they couldn't get me out of the hotel room. I was like: "Hang on! That's proper technique, they've got a different shoe..." I guess you can figure them out when you spend a little time there. It seems to me that you've shown greater variety in your three films as director to date than some directors manage in a lifetime.

Is that by design?
George Clooney: It's not necessarily by design. It's really and truly trying to do different things. The terror is that you get stuck with people thinking you're only allowed to do one thing, and so the trick to me is I'm interested in a lot of different genres and a lot of different kinds of film-making. Sometimes I do it well and sometimes I don't, but I enjoy the process and I'm sort of on this constant... there's something really exciting about being in this position where you can say, "I want to go and make this film,” and people will make it. You know, it doesn't last very long in your career, you don't get that to last very long, so while you have all the toys you want to be able to play with them all before they make you put them in the box and go back to the SAG retirement home.

When you're producing, writing, polishing and directing, who says no to you in terms of the process?
George Clooney: Grant Heslov, the producer. He and I co-wrote Goodnight, And Good Luck. He's one of my oldest friends. He was 19, I was 21 when we were in acting class and he was doing an episode of Joanie Loves Chachi and he loaned me $100 for headshots, which I still use by the way. So Grant's one of those guys that can look at you and be objective. He's going to direct a film this fall that I'm going to be in. He's really smart and really talented. I gather you visited our Prime Minister in Downing Street earlier today.

What do you make of the lack of progress from the international community on Darfur? And where do we go from here?
George Clooney: First of all, there hasn't been much going on as you know because it's a very complicated issue. It's very hard to get in. We're not going to invade a Muslim country to solve its problems – we've done that before to not great success. So, what it really comes down to in many ways is finding ways to apply pressure. It's also getting the rebel groups together. It's been one of the biggest issues. We had a great meeting today and two things happened with the Prime Minister that I thought were amazing. One of the things we've been very concerned about are helicopters. It's a big thing. You've got 13,000 UNIMID forces, which is the UN Force that used to be the African Union mostly, that are allowed to be in right now. There's 26,000 but right now there's only 13,000 allowed to be in. Those groups can't get anywhere. They sit in small pockets and they're not able to protect anyone. So, you need helicopters just to get them to places to protect the different camps. It's been impossible to get the funding. Ethiopia offered a couple of helicopters, which is sort of embarrassing when none of the other countries did, because you obviously can't use British pilots for these helicopters. So, the first thing was we need helicopters, first and foremost. He had a wonderful suggestion and has been almost immediately following through on it of setting up a fund, which we will put together, that the British Government and hopefully the French – who we started talking to this afternoon – will begin to put funding together to lease or buy these helicopters in order to create sort of an air of some security for the guys. He was amazingly helpful in that.

He also suggested that London be a place for the rebel leaders to meet. We had a conversation already today with [Abdel Rahim] Kalil, who is one of the three or four main rebel leaders, who has not really been part of the peace agreements before, but he agreed today to come to London or wherever to do it. I think we have a chance, even though he hasn't ever shown up. It's all very technical but the bottom line is that we have a chance now of trying to resurrect this idea of getting the rebel groups together, having them have an agreement on what's going on, because there's a lot of violence going on among the rebel groups as well, and then being able to go to the Sudanese government as one solid unit and say: "Let's now try talking again about negotiating peace." It's all long and complicated but it was great steps today and really encouraging.

Finally, you're clearly the type of man that women love to be around. What is it about you that women love?
George Clooney: [Looks perplexed but laughs] What’s not to like? How much time do we have? I think it's really hair. I have good hair I just bought. Hair, mostly.

Interview: Rob Carnevale
Photo: Universal