The Midnight Sky is George Clooney as you’ve never seen him before.
Not only does the post-apocalyptic epic showcase a rarely-seen, gruff side of the charming megastar, he is barely recognisable with a full white Santa Claus beard, shaved head and slender frame, having lost around 11kg for the role.
Speaking to news.com.au, Clooney, 59, discussed the difficulty of preparing to play the terminally ill scientist Augustine due to the fact that he was in Italy in the lead-up to filming.
“It’s unfair because I lost about 25 pounds (11 kg), but we did it over the summer while we were in Italy,” he explained, referencing the eighteenth-century Laglio villa in which he lives part time with wife Amal Clooney and three-year-old twins Alexander and Ella.
“So everybody in the family’s eating pasta. I’m eating like a little bowl of lentil soup. I deserve a medal for that,” he joked.
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Jokes aside, he later admitted to The Mirror that he “probably wasn’t taking care of himself” while losing weight for the film, revealing he was hospitalised with pancreatitis shortly before filming.
As for the beard, he added to news.com.au that he wasn’t the only one happy to be rid of it.
“And then, you know, having to grow this long beard that was as you can imagine not anyone in my family’s favourite. They didn’t like it much.”
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While there’s an unglamorous side to preparing to play an older character (in the book which inspired the film, Good Morning, Midnight, Augustine is at least 10 years Clooney’s senior), the star agreed that it was freeing to embrace ageing on screen within a youth-focused industry.
As for whether he thinks there’s a shift towards ageism being eradicated from Hollywood for men and women, he said: “I’m hoping for it. I’m about to turn 60, so I’m lobbying for it, as you can imagine.
“There’s a really interesting movie now with Meryl Streep and Candice Bergen, it looks great, it’s three women in their 70s as the lead and I think that’s a spectacular step in the right direction,” he added of upcoming film Let Them All Talk, dropping on HBO this month.
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In what was his first time directing a feature film since 2017’s Suburbicon, Clooney stepped up to the plate for The Midnight Sky as well as taking on the lead role.
Set in the near future, the film follows ageing scientist Augustine, alone in the Arctic after a mysterious global catastrophe has devastated the human race, as he tries to warn an astronaut (Felicity Jones) and her crew (Kyle Chandler, Demian Bichir, David Oyelowo, Tiffany Boone) of the extreme danger of returning home after two years off the planet.
Speaking about his approach to the film, he said he wanted it to be more of a “meditation” rather than a typical action flick.
“The reason for it was because we’re talking about small stories, intimate stories,” he explained of the choice.
“We have a couple of big action sequences, but in general, you want this to be about people trying to communicate with one another, people trying to get home. People trying to be near the people they love.
“And in doing that, you don’t need to mess it all up by trying to go ‘let’s go blow something else up’,” he added.
While the film was finished before COVID-19, in many ways it’s as though it was made with the pandemic in mind.
“The good news is there’s a very hopeful theme to this,” Clooney said of the parallels.
“There is a theme about regret and also about redemption, and it’s about finding your way home and whether or not this experiment of mankind is worth it or not, and it seems that it is.”
Asked how he thinks people will experience the film in the year we’ve had, he said: “We’re all experiencing this sort of isolation, in a way, and I think it’s good to have a version of that storytelling that says we’re going to get through it, that we will find a way to find a way home.
“You and I, we would be doing this in a room somewhere, we’d be talking normally. I hope I never have to hear the word Zoom again when we’re out,” he added.
It’s clear Clooney feels a strong sense of home in his aforementioned Italian bolthole. In a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, he even revealed his two three-year-old children speak the language fluently.
Given the global catastrophe theme of the film, when asked how he’d spend his last 24 hours on earth, he answered with little hesitation that he’d be headed straight there.
“I’d take my wife and my kids and I’d fly to Italy,” he said.
“And I’d get a giant plate of pasta, and a nice glass of red wine, and I’d put the kids in the pool we’d all sit in the pool and eat the pasta. I’d even give the kids some red wine, what the heck, it’s the last day.
“I think I’d go out like that, it’s a beautiful spot,” he concluded.
The Midnight Sky will be available to stream on Netflix from Wednesday, December 23
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiqQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5uZXdzLmNvbS5hdS9lbnRlcnRhaW5tZW50L21vdmllcy9uZXctbW92aWVzL2dlb3JnZS1jbG9vbmV5LWRpc2N1c3Nlcy13ZWlnaHQtbG9zcy1pbi1uZXRmbGl4LWZpbG0tdGhlLW1pZG5pZ2h0LXNreS9uZXdzLXN0b3J5L2FkYWY5M2U5NjIyOTkwZjcyZDU2NzAzNDFlOWE2NjA50gGpAWh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLm5ld3MuY29tLmF1L2VudGVydGFpbm1lbnQvbW92aWVzL25ldy1tb3ZpZXMvZ2VvcmdlLWNsb29uZXktZGlzY3Vzc2VzLXdlaWdodC1sb3NzLWluLW5ldGZsaXgtZmlsbS10aGUtbWlkbmlnaHQtc2t5L25ld3Mtc3RvcnkvYWRhZjkzZTk2MjI5OTBmNzJkNTY3MDM0MWU5YTY2MDk?oc=5
2020-12-17 07:11:04Z
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