George Clooney has some choice words for Quentin Tarantino, who said he doesn’t think Clooney is a movie star
“Quentin said some s—t about me recently, so I’m a little irritated by him,” Clooney said in an interview with GQ published on Tuesday, which he did alongside his “Wolfs” costar Brad Pitt.
Clooney went on to say that Tarantino “did some interview where he was naming movie stars” and that when Clooney’s name came up, the “Pulp Fiction” director said, in his opinion, that Clooney is “not a movie star.”
“All right, dude, f—k off,” Clooney playfully continued, with Pitt – a frequent Tarantino collaborator – laughing in the background. “I don’t mind giving him s—t. He gave me s—t,” Clooney added.
The “Gravity” star is presumably referring to a conversation that Deadline columnist Baz Bamigboye had with Tarantino at the Cannes Film Festival, which the journalist recalled in a 2023 column.
Tarantino and Bamigboye were discussing who Tarantino considered to be a movie star, with actors like Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio, Charlize Theron and Denzel Washington, among others, named as people who fit the bill.
But when it came to Clooney, Tarantino said, “Well, it’s been a long while since I think George Clooney has drawn anybody to an audience... When was his last hit where he drew an audience?”
Clooney – who was directed by Tarantino in an early episode of “ER” in 1995 before the pair went on to costar in the Tarantino-penned “From Dusk Till Dawn” one year later – in recent years has opted to produce and direct more projects, as opposed to act in them.
But with films like “Wolfs,” premiering in September, and an upcoming Noah Baumbach-directed movie that he just finished filming, Clooney acknowledged the reason he’s shifted back to acting.
“It is a year on the road to direct, and now my kids are of a certain age. We’re not going to uproot our kids out of school and run around,” he said in this week’s interview. “Before that, they could just come with us and we would all go. But that’s different now. So now I’m going to just probably focus on other things, like acting.”
Clooney shares seven-year-old twins Ella and Alexander with his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney.
In the end though, Clooney also made sure to assert there’s no bad blood between him and Tarantino, as he stated further down in the GQ interview how “lucky” he and Pitt have been to have repeatedly worked with some of the best filmmakers in Hollywood, Tarantino included.
“But no, look, we’re really lucky we got to work with these great directors,” Clooney said. “Director and screenplay is what keeps you alive.”
In response to Tarantino's comments, Clooney might find solace in the frequent positive reception his upcoming projects, such as "Wolfs" and the Noah Baumbach-directed movie, are expected to receive in entertainment circles. Additionally, the entertaining nature of collaborating with renowned directors like Tarantino himself is something Clooney appreciates and values.
