George Clooney muses about regret, redemption, 4 years of mismanagement by Trump, and the joys of getting distracted by ‘2 knuckleheads’

George Clooney —ANETTE NANTELL, DAGENS NYHETER, TT AND SIPA USA

George Clooney is charming even when he throws up his hands in mock frustration. “They’ve taken over my life—these kids …,” quipped the dashing 59-year-old Hollywood superstar when asked what the best and worst parts were about getting locked down at home during the pandemic.

We, along with other members of the Philippine and Singaporean press, spoke to the actor recently to discuss his latest film “The Midnight Sky,” which launches on Netflix on Dec. 23.

The precocious kids he “complains” about are actually his own: That’s Ella and Alexander, his 3-year-old fraternal twins with his wife, British-Lebanese human rights lawyer Amal, whom he married in 2014.

“It’s been great, because we get to spend time together,” George shared. “I get to wake them up in the morning and put them to bed at night. I’m very lucky in that sense.

“Yeah, I’d like to get out of the house every once in a while. These two knuckleheads have turned my office into a nursery! So, I have to hide, like, a bottle of tequila in a stuffed teddy bear somewhere, so that I can get through it (laughs).”

George was trying to playfully draw a parallel to his own life while discussing “The Midnight Sky,” which tells viewers so much more about parental responsibility and the indispensability of forging connections with our loved ones, as urgently as it follows the intriguing 2049-set story of Augustine Lofthouse (George).

The actor-director describes his film as “a meditation on life and on what we’re capable of doing to one another, if we’re not careful.”

Augustine is a lone, lonely and sickly scientist in the Arctic who races against time to stop Sully (Felicity Jones) and her fellow astronauts—Mitchell (Kyle Chandler), Adewole (David Oyelowo), Maya (Tiffany Boone) and Sanchez (Demian Bichir)—from coming home to postapocalyptic Earth, after they discover a habitable exoplanet called K-23 near Jupiter.

Like George, Augustine is distracted by the unexpected appearance of a child, 7-year-old Iris (Caoilinn Springall), who was left behind by the rescue mission. But the actor said that this is where their similarity ends.

“Augustine doesn’t want this interruption. [Having this child around] is just a disaster for him,” the actor explained. “I, on the other hand, welcome the interruption. It’s fun when the kids come in and interrupt my Zoom meetings, like they’ve done so many times while I’m here. I mean, in this theater, where I edit—this is all I have left. But they’ve taken over my life …

“But during lockdown, I discovered that nothing can get to me. I always thought I’d be overwhelmed by certain things, like if a kid falls down. All of my pretending to be a pediatrician on ‘ER’ has come in handy, as I pretend to be a doctor when my kid splits his lip if he falls down. But I’m learning stuff as I go along. The only thing the lockdown does is that it just puts it all on steroids (laughs).”

As with his previous forays into the sci-fi genre (“Gravity,” “Solaris”), George, who also directs and produces the movie, once again explores the possibilities the deep void of outer space provides. But what keeps “The Midnight Sky’s” fantasticating tale grounded and relatable are the intimate circumstances fueling its characters’ motivations.

In Augustine’s case, for instance, there’s more at stake explaining his never-say-die determination to keep Sully and her team alive—which, as it later turns out, reveals something deeply rooted from his past. It isn’t just about saving the human race.

After telling George how the well-timed release of his gracefully contemplative film couldn’t have come at a more appropriate period in man’s history, we asked him if, like Augustine, he felt he had unfinished business to come to grips with.

“Well, mine is not the kind that Augustine has to deal with in the movie,” he said. “It’s funny. I know people in my life who are close to me, people older than me, who live with regret. But regret is a cancer—it’s a terrible thing! It eats you alive and, as you get older, it cripples you. Augustine is a guy who’s seeking redemption for his regret and gets it at the end, thank God.

“But that’s his journey. I don’t have that journey. In my life, I feel as if I had plenty of things I wish I didn’t do or say over time, but they’re none of the major things you end up regretting. Where it concerns family, career, the people you love and take care of—all those things—I feel fairly comfortable there. So, I didn’t have to deal with the same issues that Augustine does, which made it easier for me to play him.”

Clooney (left) with Caoilinn Springall —PHOTOS COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Our Q&A with George:

How hopeful are you about our ability as a species to avoid an apocalyptic situation like the one we see in “The Midnight Sky?” Has the difficult year we’ve had challenged your perspective on that front?

No, I’ve always been an optimist and am also pretty much a realist. I believe in looking at things head-on, but I also believe that we’ve also had [to deal with tough times]. In addition to a pandemic, we’ve had four years of mismanagement, where the leader of the free world is calling the press the enemy of the people.

[Trump] has decided that, as a policy for people seeking asylum, we have to take their kids away and put them in cages. I look at that and think, “This is insane … Is this who we are?” But all that comes to an end on Jan. 20.

I remember Martin Luther King’s line that says, “The arc of moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I do believe in that. It does take a long time to get there. And I believe we’ll eventually head in the right direction. We just have a few pit stops along the way, where we do idiotic things. But I think the world in general is going to figure it out—and I’m always optimistic about that.

Why did you decide to cast Ethan Peck, the grandson of movie icon Gregory Peck, as the younger Augustine, instead of opting to use digitally de-aging technology? How did you two prepare to synchronize your performances?

I don’t think the “digitally de-aging” thing works. When I saw it utilized in “The Irishman,” a movie I love, it was very tricky because, all of a sudden, all you’re doing is just watching that. It becomes a story on its own.

So, I knew I wasn’t going to play the younger Augustine. But my voice is pretty recognizable, and everybody knew what I looked like when I was 35 years old. So, I had to get somebody with some eyebrows.

A lot of guys read for the part, then Ethan came in. He’s a wonderful actor. I’m 5’11’, he’s 6’3”, and he’s really handsome—he’s Gregory Peck’s grandson, for God’s sake! So, he walked in and he’s got this deep voice. And I looked over to Grant [Heslov], my producing partner, and said, “That’s the guy!” Grant said, “But he’s too tall and too good looking.” And I was like, “I’m the one casting this, so I’m picking Ethan Peck (laughs)!”

Then, I talked to Ethan and said, “Look, here’s the trick. We’re going to be blending our voices using Lucas Sound, and they’re going to deconstruct our voices and raise the octave, because everybody’s voice is higher when you’re younger.

Felicity Jones

Felicity Jones got pregnant during the shoot. How did it change the direction of the film?

Her pregnancy changed everything! We were already shooting when she called me about it. We shot all my stuff in Iceland first. We started in October 2019, and she wasn’t scheduled to start until the first month of 2020. Then, she called me in mid-October and said she was pregnant, and I was like, “Oh, no!”

We did try to shoot around it, but it just doesn’t work that way. I woke up in the middle of night and called up Netflix, then Felicity. I told her, “Look, you’ve been away for two years, you fell in love and got pregnant—these things happen.” And many women go to work pregnant every day, and it’s not a big deal.

But, by the time we got to the end of the film, when Sully stands up, you can no longer imagine the film without her pregnancy, because there’s a continuum to it. That’s life. They’ve been looking for any sign of life the whole time, and they finally find that life inside her!

So, we all became very protective of little Wilbur, her son’s actual name, who became as big a part of the team as any of us was.

What was it like filming with someone so young like Caoilinn in the cast?

Caoilinn was seven at the time, but she’s Irish, so she’s a tough little girl—I’m not kidding! I’d be freezing there and when the winds from a five-minute hurricane would hit us, we’d pick her up and carry her into the van. It’s a windstorm, not a snowstorm, because there’d be perfectly blue skies. Then, you’d see Caoilinn coming right back out (laughs)! She’s tougher than any of us.

You’ve been the eternal bachelor for the longest time. Did you see yourself in Augustine, a guy who was afraid of commitment, and what you would have become if you hadn’t met Amal?

We’ll never know (laughs). I’d probably be living with regret now if I’d met her already married to someone else. Yeah, I feel that. We met at the exact right time for both of us and, luckily enough, just in time to be able to have these two knuckleheads that are running around the house.

They may run in here, you never know. It’s their bedtime, but they come in any time and make some loud noises, you’ll know if they do. So, you’re probably right, I could have ended up living with regret and harboring anger and bitterness.

How would you like people to feel after watching the movie?

Hope. It should be a warning shot about denying science and creating divisiveness and hatred, but it should also be hopeful. That’s what the film is trying to say.

Because we’re looking at the pandemic right now and it’s causing a lot of panic, heartbreak and angst. It’s scaring people. But we have to remember that everything that we’re facing right now is man-made—and if man was able to make it, he can also unmake it.