As the son of television broadcaster Nick Clooney, young George always felt at home in a newsroom and became enamoured with all its activity, spending his youth on the set, working the teleprompter and watching reporters prepare for their stories.
In his new film, Good Night and Good Luck, the actor/director takes film fans back to the 1950s, when revered US newsman Edward R Murrow triumphed in bringing down Senator Joseph McCarthy, who staged a witchhunt for communists in celebville and their sympathisers. The Ocean's Eleven star took painstaking care with every fact and detail of the film to authentically portray the era. We caught up with him to find out more...
You recently hosted a viewing party of this film with today's top TV newsmen. How did that go?
We had a screening of the film that [newsman] Walter Cronkite hosted for us, and it was with [respected US news Anchors] Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and Morley Safer, Brian Williams, even Bill O'Reilly [Clooney's one-time adversary]. My dad was there too, so it was a really exciting night to show it to those guys. I got a text message from Morley Safer which is as good as any review. It was a good night.
There was an awful lot of cigarette smoking going on in the film. Did anyone have to sign any health insurance policies?
We figured with David [Strathairn, who plays Edward R Murrow] his Oscar acceptance speech will be 'I'd like to thank...' in a gravelly voice. We were the only set you've ever seen where people had to go outside to get fresh air, instead of smoking outside. It was rough, although I didn't have to smoke. But nobody had to sign anything. When you look at the all of the photos from the time, that's how it was.
How did your father's career in broadcasting influence your approach to making the film?
I wanted to use the 'Box of Lights and Wires' speech from Edward R.Murrow describing the impact of television to his audience. My father used to do it for me, along with Shakespeare. He'd stand up on a chair when I was 10-years-old. I talked to my dad about getting the facts right because if we got anything wrong we would be marginalised. If you get anything wrong they could go, 'That's all horses**t.' We double-sourced everything, like my father does.
What was so compelling about your dad's career to you?
My fondest memories are of sitting on the floor of a newsroom in the early 1970s watching two reporters, Deborah Dixon and Howard Ane, preparing for a 5.30pm news broadcast, pitching their show. Watching my dad decide what the lead story is, watching them piece together what is news and what is entertainment and trying to discern between the two. I ran a teleprompter for my dad when I was 11, which was fun. Then it was just papers taped together and you'd be running it through a motor with a foot pedal. They'd cut to commercial and say, 'cut Thursday's child out,' and I'd literally cut the pages out and tape them back up and run them through. It was great. We didn't have a babysitter, so the newsroom was where we lived. It was a great place to grow up.
Why didn't you follow your father's footsteps into journalism?
I wasn't anywhere near as bright as my father was. I tried it. I did some interviews for a Warner Amex cable show for a while, which was really bad. I lacked talent at it! It was my mom's show, The Nina Clooney show. Then I did it for a show called PM Magazine, where each town had one of their own magazine shows. But my father just said, 'Get the facts right,' which is the most important thing you can do. We screened the film for him. He was the first person we showed it to - he just stood up and tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'You got it right.'
How did you guarantee authenticity with the actors who played the journalists in the newsroom?
You'd have real newsman Joe Wershba [played in the film by Robert Downey, Jr] sitting in the corner with headsets while we were in the room doing all the news scenes. I'd say [George plays producer Fred Friendly in the film] 'That's a civil rights issue,' and he'd yell out, 'It's civil liberties!' The news scenes were fun for us because we'd give all of the actors three or four newspapers of the day, let's say October 4th, 1954. They'd show up in the wardrobe, each of them had their own typewriters and desks with a copy of the New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Post from October 4th, 1954. They'd go through it and type their stories for two hours. Then I'd say, 'OK what's your lead, what's your story?' and they'd each pitch their stories the way I'd watch my dad do it. It gave it real energy.
