George Clooney explains his jaw-dropping $14m cash gift to friends

George Clooney made headlines when he revealed a staggering gift he made to 14 close friends — but he tells news.com.au it actually paid dividends in return.

While George Clooney was shooting new Netflix film The Midnight Sky, playing a man dying of cancer on a remote research station in the Arctic, the 59-year-old star began to consider his own mortality.

“Listen, I’m about to be 60, so you definitely start to think about your own mortality, and it’s a number that is always surprising to say out of your mouth,” he tells news.com.au.

“And I’m reminded of it every time I lift up one of the kids and my back goes out, but getting older does make you consider the important things in life.

“In the same way what COVID has done, ageing makes us consider the idea that we need to be in the presence of our friends and family and I’ve missed my parents so much through this time, and the film is a reminder of those things.”

It pays to be a friend of George Clooney’s. Picture: AFP

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Speaking of mortality, it was while he was writing his will a few years back, that his act of generosity in donating US$14 million to 14 of his closest friends — that’s $US1m per pal — came about. It turns out that Hollywood’s Mr Nice Guy is the real deal. Now he explains the reasoning behind the very expensive gift-giving.

“I was a single guy at the time... I’d just met Amal but we weren’t dating, and while I was making out my will I was thinking about my very close friends, all of whom helped me stay in LA when I was broke.

“I was going to leave them money anyway, and they needed it. They had kids going to college, some had to pay back taxes, none of them were loaded,” he says.

“And I thought, ‘Why am I waiting until we’re old and wearing diapers? Why don’t I give it away now? And so I did. Funnily enough, a month later (2013 sci-fi hit) Gravity came out. They didn’t pay us for that movie because they thought it was going to be a big flop so they gave us a percentage of the movie instead.”

The film made more than US$723 million. “So, I ended up getting the money back and a year later on the same day I married my wife, Amal, so it was a case of good karma.”

Clooney did the big cash giveaway before he got together with wife Amal. Picture: David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty

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Clooney is now worth a reported US$500 million. How will he raise his three-year-old twins, Ella and Alexander with a healthy attitude towards money?

“Well, of course, they have to work. They’re going to have to make their own living. There’s nothing worse than giving your children the idea that they don’t have to work, that would be terrible,” he says. “The idea should always be that you’re there as a backstop for them but you’re not there to just funnel money.”

He is speaking via Zoom from his Los Angeles home, with no evidence of the mountain man beard he donned for the movie. “I would hope that I would be able to instil into our children the value of a job and the importance of making your own way and making your own position in life,” he says.

Clooney in The Midnight Sky.

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“And equally important is to look out for others.” He chuckles. “From the time I was very young, every Christmas morning we would have to go to some stranger‘s house and bring the whole family Christmas presents and spend Christmas morning with people I’d never met before who were having a bad year,” he recalls.

“And I’d have to work for it. I’d have to mow lawns and rake leaves so that we had money to buy these kids who I had never met before, their Christmas presents. I think that’s an element that we will instil in our children as well. We’re responsible for one another, not just inside the family.”

Now that his appearance has returned to the familiar handsome visage, he admits the “big ugly beard” got mixed reactions from his family.

“My son loved it,” he says. “He would hide things in it which I wouldn’t know about until I’d get to work and I’d be like, ‘Oh there’s a popsicle stick in my beard!’ But my wife and my daughter were really happy when it came off. It was very hard to find a face underneath all of that mess.”

Clooney is definitely of the glass-half-full philosophy and intends to live life to the fullest. “Some people go on vacation for 14 days, and as soon as they get there, they say, ‘I only have 13 days left.’ And there are the other people who get there and just live it, live it, live it until the very last minute that they leave. I try to be that guy,” he smiles. “I don’t want to worry about how many days left, same with ageing, because the truth is there‘s nothing we can do about it.”

What are some of the most important lessons he’d like to pass down to his offspring?

“My father taught me a long time ago when I was very young to challenge people who are in power and stick up for people who have less power. And that’s always been a driving force for me and I believe in it,” he says. “That’s something I really want to instil in our children too. But right now I’m just teaching them how to do poo-poo jokes,” he smiles. “And that’s just fine for now.”

The Midnight Sky debuts on Netflix on December 23.