The Ides of March
George Clooney was in London with Evan Rachel Wood and Phillip Seymour Hoffman last week for the BFI London Film Festival to promote new movie The Ides of March.
Here is the second part of our interview with the trio as they discuss the movie as well as their desires to direct.
- The film shows a side of politics where you have to trade your soul to get to the top I wonder how Machiavellian is Hollywood?
George: Well when I die I will be going to hell I know that. (laughs). Well we will all be there.
Evan: Yeah we will be partying.
Phillip: It’s not like this movie - I think it might be in some sense but ultimately you know who you are or it’s made clear.
You can’t hide because the work speaks for itself - meaning that you will eventually see this film and you are going to see the work that that person does, produces or directs and how they go about doing that, I guess, a story that could be told in as many books that are written about those people and the nasty things that they do - ultimately it comes down to art. But this story could be told about our business but I think it will be told in a different way.
George: Actors aren’t like that, the business can be that way and there is certain cut throat element to the business, but actors are pretty kind to one another - you are so lucky where you get to be in a film and you understand that it’s not just your brilliance that got you there but you are standing on the shoulders of a lot of happy accident along the way; and you recognise than in one another.
There’s a certain generosity I find with most actors that I don’t find certainly in politics. (laughs).
Evan: Can you imagine if we had ads on TV campaigning against other actors for roles and stuff? ‘Over-actor!’
George: Did you see him in that film? It would just be shots of me in a rubber suit and a Batman outfit. ‘For your consideration… ass!’ Matt Damon taking it out.
- Do we take it that this is the nearest that you get to running for office in anything at all?
George: I think that you just saw what would happen if I took office. No I have a very good life and a very comfortable existence and, if I want to, I can dip my toe into issues involved in politics such as Sudan or Darfur where I can have some involvement then I am happy to do it as I don’t have to compromise as a politician would.
So I happen to find it to be much nicer where I am - and they are a lot smarter than me those guys. I tip my hat to those guys.
- Evan how do you think your character’s life would have panned out if she had made it past that campaign?
Wow. That’s a really good question. I would see her getting out of politics but maybe she can’t - her family is in politics so she is kind of stuck. I would hope that she got out of there because she is too sweet and too honest.
- Phillip you have said that you don’t think that all actors should direct but that George is the guy that should and did and should keep doing it is that based on your own experience of directing? And George what compels you to keep having a crack at both?
Phillip: Sometimes I think when actors direct it’s something about ego or hubris but I don’t think it is at all because sometimes you are an actor and you find out that you are a director.
Sometimes actors give directing a try and they are not very good at it but most of the actors that I know have no desire to direct at all; a lot of people assume that actors want to direct and that is not the case at all. So the people that do, like George and myself, it’s something that we have thought about for a while.
And George is able to wear that director hat easily and oversee a group of people in order to tell a story and I enjoy that too - and for me it complements acting when you are directing it is so much about everyone else.
It’s a different part of my brain and heart that allows me to get away from what I do as an actor so when I go back to it I am a little bit more charged.
George: I did hundreds of hours of television before I even got film work so it’s like doing a hundred films - I have been doing it a long time.
And you start to realise that creatively you need to continue doing and trying things, that doesn’t mean that you are not going to do that as an actor, but you want to continue being creative in this industry and if directing is something that you are interested in or writing is something that you are interested in it’s an incredibly creative process.
Acting is one element of a film the director is sort of the painter using all of those elements, using sounds, music, camerawork and putting it all to work - and it’s all creative and fun.
And you fail and it’s incredibly upsetting, much more so than when you are an actor, and when you succeed it’s incredibly exciting - I like the risk involved and I want to keep on doing it.
- Evan do you have any ambitions to direct?
Maybe. I don’t know if I am there yet but I do love story telling - I have visions of what I would love to do. People keep telling me that is what I should be doing but we will see. There need to be more female directors so maybe I need to step up.
- You are very convincing as a politician, I don’t know whether that is a compliment, do you think that you have too many skeletons in your closet to run for office? And off the back of that in the film they talk about loyalty is that one of the most important things in your personal relationships?
George: Loyalty yes, I find it to be my favourite quality in people I find it to be a tremendous quality.
As far as skeletons in the closet I think we are going to have to start getting to the realisation that there are so many different medias and so many ways of getting information out we have to get to the point where we just have to start every candidate with phrase ’Yeah I did it.’ It’s going to be very hard to find people who haven’t smoked a joint or drunk some bong water along the way.
Evan: You are never going to find anyone who hasn’t done anything wrong - it’s impossible.
George: We are at a strange state in our world where we have that strong belief that if it is written down, I grew up with it, then there has to be some truth in it we haven’t quite got to the spot where you go ‘well it doesn’t mean it’s true. It could be made up and made to look very nice’.
So we have to get to a point where scandal are going to become less and less of the reasons you stay out of politics - otherwise we are not going to have any politicians at all.
- Could the same be said about Hollywood?
George: Sure. Hollywood can be a little more forgiving because they don’t really expect us to be saints along the way. It depends if you are trying to make a career off of your personality or you are just an actor.
- George what motivates you to be quite a political person is it something that you would discuss with your parents when you were a child?
My great grandfather was a mayor and my farther was an anchorman for forty yeas - if you were an anchorman in Cincinnati, Ohio then you were very politically involved. I grew up in a time when most people had a social and political conscious - some of the biggest changes in our country’s history happened while I was growing up.
So I was raised to be a part of those things and I will continue to do that - sometimes that makes you very unpopular but I haven’t changed, the attitudes in the States sometimes will change, but I don’t change and I continue to try and be involved as much as I can.
- With the title of the film, which evokes that line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, do you feel there are ties to Shakespearean drama in this film?
George: The Ides of March actually means 15th March so part of the reason that we did it was because the primary took place on 15th March - Farragut North was the original name for the play but that was a little to local specific for a general film.
But we always thought that it was interesting idea for a good friend and an enemy conspiring to take you out and we always thought that those themes were interesting - and we will let people decide who is Caesar along the way.
We weren’t really trying to tell anyone that this is Shakespeare we were just telling them that it is about backstabbing and those sorts of thing and that seemed to make sense.
The Ides of March is released 28th October. Read the first part of the interview here
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
George Clooney was in London with Evan Rachel Wood and Phillip Seymour Hoffman last week for the BFI London Film Festival to promote new movie The Ides of March.
Here is the second part of our interview with the trio as they discuss the movie as well as their desires to direct.
- The film shows a side of politics where you have to trade your soul to get to the top I wonder how Machiavellian is Hollywood?
George: Well when I die I will be going to hell I know that. (laughs). Well we will all be there.
Evan: Yeah we will be partying.
Phillip: It’s not like this movie - I think it might be in some sense but ultimately you know who you are or it’s made clear.
You can’t hide because the work speaks for itself - meaning that you will eventually see this film and you are going to see the work that that person does, produces or directs and how they go about doing that, I guess, a story that could be told in as many books that are written about those people and the nasty things that they do - ultimately it comes down to art. But this story could be told about our business but I think it will be told in a different way.
George: Actors aren’t like that, the business can be that way and there is certain cut throat element to the business, but actors are pretty kind to one another - you are so lucky where you get to be in a film and you understand that it’s not just your brilliance that got you there but you are standing on the shoulders of a lot of happy accident along the way; and you recognise than in one another.
There’s a certain generosity I find with most actors that I don’t find certainly in politics. (laughs).
Evan: Can you imagine if we had ads on TV campaigning against other actors for roles and stuff? ‘Over-actor!’
George: Did you see him in that film? It would just be shots of me in a rubber suit and a Batman outfit. ‘For your consideration… ass!’ Matt Damon taking it out.
- Do we take it that this is the nearest that you get to running for office in anything at all?
George: I think that you just saw what would happen if I took office. No I have a very good life and a very comfortable existence and, if I want to, I can dip my toe into issues involved in politics such as Sudan or Darfur where I can have some involvement then I am happy to do it as I don’t have to compromise as a politician would.
So I happen to find it to be much nicer where I am - and they are a lot smarter than me those guys. I tip my hat to those guys.
- Evan how do you think your character’s life would have panned out if she had made it past that campaign?
Wow. That’s a really good question. I would see her getting out of politics but maybe she can’t - her family is in politics so she is kind of stuck. I would hope that she got out of there because she is too sweet and too honest.
- Phillip you have said that you don’t think that all actors should direct but that George is the guy that should and did and should keep doing it is that based on your own experience of directing? And George what compels you to keep having a crack at both?
Phillip: Sometimes I think when actors direct it’s something about ego or hubris but I don’t think it is at all because sometimes you are an actor and you find out that you are a director.
Sometimes actors give directing a try and they are not very good at it but most of the actors that I know have no desire to direct at all; a lot of people assume that actors want to direct and that is not the case at all. So the people that do, like George and myself, it’s something that we have thought about for a while.
And George is able to wear that director hat easily and oversee a group of people in order to tell a story and I enjoy that too - and for me it complements acting when you are directing it is so much about everyone else.
It’s a different part of my brain and heart that allows me to get away from what I do as an actor so when I go back to it I am a little bit more charged.
George: I did hundreds of hours of television before I even got film work so it’s like doing a hundred films - I have been doing it a long time.
Tagged in George Clooney