George Clooney says he was “themed” in early roles

Nothing like a professional achievement award to make someone, in this case George Clooney, think about work they’ve done and haven’t done.

Before being honored by the Kennedy Center on Sunday, the 61-year-old actor and filmmaker recalled seeing a photo of “this gray-haired guy from behind” at his movie premiere. Heaven ticket. He wondered who it could be, before realizing it was him.

It was a change from Clooney’s first roles in the 1980s, when his good looks were front and center as he appeared as a recurring character in popular sitcoms. The facts of life And the Roseanne.

“Quite honestly, I was objectified,” he told L.A Washington Post For a story published on Friday. “I remember doing the scenes on Roseanne And I’d drop the holster and bend over, and they’d all slap me on the butt. You had to prove yourself that you are more than that. … Good evening and good luck He did it for me, quite literally.”

Clooney directed, co-wrote, and co-starred in this 2005 film, which is set in the early days of broadcast television as CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow works to expose Senator Joseph McCarthy’s lies while hunting down communists. The film, the second directed by Clooney, was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay.

But it seems there may not be many projects that require it everything from him. He wants to spend more time with his wife, Amal, 44, and their 5-year-old twins, Ella and Alexander, while he’s young enough to enjoy it.

“Amal and I had these long conversations about my age,” he told the newspaper. I said, ‘You know, I’m 61, I can still do most of the things I used to do. But in 20 years, I’ll be 81, and things will be different. … These are the good years, these are the next 20 or 25. ‘ I said, ‘Let’s make sure we live [life] In a different way. Which means I probably won’t be directing, unless it’s something I absolutely have to do. Acting in movies is an easy job. … I sure get paid a lot of money to do it, it’s a lot easier, and I still get to spend more time with my family.”

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He said that, for a while, he mistakenly thought he needed more work to have a full life.

“Amal changed that for me in a big way,” Clooney said of his wife of eight years. “Because now there is this amazing love, this amazing sense of family and these two kids [something] I really didn’t think I’d ever do it.”

The activist said he now needs to “make peace” with aging and “accept what these roles are” as an actor and person.

In the first case, he notes, the late Paul Newman did what he aspired to.

Newman was the best at this. He discovered, [with] The verdictHe was a character actor and he accepted the role,” Clooney said of the acclaimed 1982 movie that came out when Newman was in his late fifties, quite frankly. And it changed expectations a bit.”

This does not mean that we have seen another Michael Clayton Star in leading male roles or as a director. In addition to the headlines Heaven ticketthe romantic comedy in which he and girlfriend Julia Roberts play a divorced couple, in October he is directing the upcoming drama The boys in the boatwhich tells the story of the University of Washington rowing team that won the gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.