At 52, I found the love of my life and I'm really happy: George Clooney

Voted as one of the most ‘beautiful’ men in the world on several occasions, George Clooney knows that his stint in front of the camera comes with an expiry date. In a freewheeling chat, Clooney talks about enjoying direction, finding love with wife Amal and his role in his latest release Money Monster, directed by Jodie Foster.

What do you think about the theme of Money Monster?
We loved the idea of talking about the world of money and how it’s gotten out of control, about how when things do go wrong you actually don’t understand what is happening, causing you to lose a lot of money. And how, when things like these happen, it’s always the little guy who kind of gets screwed.

Did you think the subject was relatable?
Well, I think mostly people understand the real simple themes; that somebody out there is probably benefiting off of my lack of understanding. That is a very easy thing for an audience to understand. They go, yeah, that happened to me, or yeah, I didn’t understand that either, or I put my money in this or I did this and I got screwed. We as a society understand being scammed. So it made that part of the story sort of simple. We didn’t get too much into the weeds, trying to explain the simple bits and instead dealt much more with characters.

How is working with Jodie Foster?
Most actors who become directors focus on performance, in general. That is a very good thing if you’re an actor in a movie by such a director, because the very first thing that you realise is that you’ll be protected in terms of performance. So from the minute Jodie asked if I wanted to play the part, I thought I will be perfectly safe working with her, because she’ll take care of the actors.

Do you ever feel that you are limited to the scope of work because of your age?
Nobody really wants us to see anybody’s real age; it’s a very unforgiving thing, the camera. Ageing becomes something that you try to show less and less on screen. You try to pick the films that work best for you, and as you age their frequency too reduces.

How’s married life?
I’ve never been happier in a relationship by any stretch of the imagination. At 52 I found the love of my life and I’m really happy.