Clooney Raises Debate in Films

From his performances as the cute neighbor on TV’s “The Facts of Life,” to the suave Dr. Doug Ross of “ER,” to the debonair Danny Ocean in “Ocean’s 11,” George Clooney has secured his role as one of America’s permanent sex symbols. Clooney claims that his most recent roles—writing, producing, and starring in “Syriana” and writing, directing and acting in the journalistic docudrama “Good Night, and Good Luck”—are not attempts to shy away from this image. These politically-charged dramas demonstrate his desire, which he reiterated in a recent college conference call, to provoke debate over national politics rather than his dating status.

Clooney gained over 30 pounds, seriously injured his spinal cord in filming, and was literally tortured in a particularly grueling scene, an act which nearly gave him an aneurysm. The Crimson asks Clooney about his “eye-opening” and challenging filming process on the set of “Syriana.”



The Harvard Crimson: Have you had any significant or moving anecdotes that you could share with us, while in contact with some of the non-American cultures during the making of the film?



George Clooney: I remember sitting on the roof of a building in Casablanca, during Ramadan. A siren would go off and everyone would get out of their cars and face Mecca and would pray in the middle of the street. There were hundreds of people, as far as your eye could see.

Anyone who thinks that they have the religious hierarchy over anyone else should be standing here looking at these people, and understand that they have a very strong belief in what they are doing as well. It reminds you that there are so many other people with so many other opinions, and how easily those opinions can be swayed in the wrong direction.



THC: Tying into that, how was your experience with learning Arabic and Farsi for the film?



GC: I had an Iranian roommate in college, so Farsi wasn’t so hard, but Arabic almost killed me. There’s no Latin to it, so there’s nothing I could really cling to. I had to learn it phonetically and it was a tricky thing, but you spend a few weeks just practicing and you start learning.

—Staff writer Kristina M. Moore can be reached at moore2@fas.harvard.edu.