‘A certain amount of straight-up luck’: on the other side of 60, Clooney and Pitt show no signs of slowing down
The invincible pair take over GQ Australia’s style issue, reflecting on fame, friendship and three decades on the silver screen.
Friends for a long time but also competitive: so say George Clooney and Brad Pitt as they reflect on nearly three decades of fame, friendship and filmmaking. The pair sat down at Pitt’s sprawling vineyard in the south of France for a wide-ranging interview published in GQ Australia’s style issue, available on Friday with The Australian.
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Clooney tells GQ of their genuine bond. “And it’s fun because we also check in on each other every once in a while, which is an important part of this. Things get complicated in life and you always have to make sure everybody’s okay.”
“We have a competitive nature,” Pitt admits. “And I see that in most of the guys that are around. You take pride in what you do, you want it to really, really work. But at the same time, if I didn’t have a George Clooney in my life, I don’t know that I would’ve reached certain levels. Because it inspires you to push on.”
As they prepare to release their latest blockbuster, Wolfs, in which they play a pair of rival professional fixers who are reluctantly forced to work together, they also reflect on the state of the industry today.
“The business, it’s all getting eaten up,” Clooney tells GQ of the rise of the streaming giants and the decline of the traditional studios that first set him and Pitt on the path to superstardom. “They haven’t developed stars the way the studio system used to. We kind of were at the very end of that, where you could work at a studio and do three or four films, and there was some plan to it. And I don’t think that’s necessarily the case anymore.”
The state of the industry was also on their mind earlier this month when Wolfs held its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a four-minute standing ovation. By Venetian standards, it was a warm, if not overwhelming, response at an event where crowds have been known to stay on their feet for up to 18 minutes – a record claimed the following evening by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar for The Room Next Door, which also won the Golden Lion for best film.
But the real question buzzing around Venice was not one of what the critics made of Clooney and Pitt, so much as the studios. Wolfs had originally been destined for a full-blown theatrical release, in a partnership between Apple and Sony Pictures. But just prior to the festival, it was announced the film would instead be heading straight to streaming on Apple TV+ from September 27.
“Clearly we’re declining,” Clooney quipped at the film’s press conference, when asked what it meant if even movie stars like Clooney and Pitt could no longer command a cinematic debut. “[But] the democratisation of our industry is not a bad way to go. And, you know, infinitely more people are seeing them because of these streamers and I think that’s a good thing.”
