George Clooney plays the kind of man he isn't in "The Descendants" -- ambivalent about life, uncertain about his role as father and husband, a passive link in a long Hawaiian chain. As lawyer and cuckold Matt King, he manages to convey both pathos and humor, often in a single scene. In an exclusive interview with TheWrap he spoke to me about that, and about growing up.
In "The Descendants," you've gotten to that point where you're able to play a real guy who is sad and touching but also very funny.
You go through these steps as you get older, and you watch the guys who did it best -- Newman and guys like that -- as they rolled into character actors. You have to begin to deal with questions of loss: of confidence, of skill. I did that with "Michael Clayton" and "Up in the Air." In this one, this is a guy who never won an argument. He loses arguments to 10-year-olds. I would say it's a coming-of-age story for a 50-year-old man. When I read it I thought, "I'm not sure if I can do this," which is a good thing.
Why?
If it weren't Alexander Payne, I don't know if I would have jumped -- unless it were the Coen brothers or Steven Soderbergh. You don't do parts like that with people unless you trust them.
Also read: 'Descendants' George Clooney, Alexander Payne Say There's Hope for Adult Dramas
Or David Russell -- we can talk about him later.
I actually was at a dinner party a couple of weeks ago with David. I saw him and he saw me and I walked over and I go, "Are we done?" and he's like, "Yeah, we're done." And he gave me a big hug, and I gave him a hug, and I said, "Listen, I don't want to be mad at you. We made a really good film ['Three Kings']." And he goes, "I don't want to be mad at you anymore." I go, "So let's stop." And he said, "Great." So it was a nice moment.
Anyway, back to why you weren't sure you could do this movie...
I wasn't confident in doing it. I was confident in working with Alexander, and I was confident that if I could do it, it would be with him.
But what about "Up in the Air," where you showed such a beautiful vulnerability?
There's a difference. That character was immensely confident, and then he gets knocked off his horse. This [Matt King] is a guy who has absolutely no confidence. When I was writing "Good Night and Good Luck," I was writing it to play the part of Edward R.
