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In addition to the Murrow movie, Section Eight has eight projects awaiting release, including an improvised sitcom about actors, premiering on Jan. 9 on HBO, and is developing a mini-series for FX comprising 10 short dramas based on the Ten Commandments, as well as 12 more films. Both partners are heavily involved in all of them. "They each put in several years of work on The Jacket," says Mandalay Pictures CEO Peter Guber about a small-budget thriller he's making with Soderbergh and Clooney, starring Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley. "They really get into the details of the business. They come to meetings and are involved in everything, even approving one sheets [movie posters]." Maybe because that's where the star sees his future. "You can't be an actor for too long," Clooney says. "If you're 60, you don't want to be hoping a casting agent likes you."
Or that you like the director. Though he's proud of Three Kings, Clooney says he will never again work with David O. Russell. "I don't know if he's bipolar. But he is crazy. I can't stand him," says Clooney, who reportedly came to blows with Russell because he felt the director was bullying an extra. "David tries to sell the idea of screaming and yelling and hitting as a way to get a performance out of people. But when he's screaming at a cameraman, then it's just that he's not in control." Russell, through a spokesman, declined to comment except to say that their clash was over a long time ago. But Clooney's decision to stand up to him illustrates another trait. He is one of the few leading men who come off as adults. He's 43, but--unlike most other actors--he often plays older.
Clooney, who is a hard-core Democrat, wants to bring some of that full-grown masculinity to his party and uses the term "ruthless liberalism" as an antidote to compassionate conservatism. Clooney's father Nick, a former Cincinnati, Ohio, anchorman and host on cable's American Movie Classics, ran for Congress in Kentucky as a Democrat and got crushed. Though George raised funds, he didn't do any campaigning for his dad. "It would have been Hollywood versus the heartland," he says. "I definitely would have hurt him." Charm, apparently, will go only so far.
You get a sense that Clooney's passion for acting will run its course sooner rather than later. He gained 30 lbs. in 30 days for a role in Syriana, a Soderbergh-produced film about oil corruption with Damon and Amanda Peet. Although he has worked off 18 lbs. playing basketball and eating light, he regrets taking the role. "There was not one thing that was fun about it," he says. "It really messed me up. I have these migraines now. I would trade not having done the movie for the pain it's caused me." But then he catches himself and realizes how he sounds. "Even a migraine," he says, putting the grin back on, "sounds like a Hollywood thing." It's pretty charming when you can be self-aware with a splitting headache.