‘It was associated with a questionable country’: George Clooney admits he once turned down $35 million dollars to appear in airline commercial after wife Amal told him ‘it wasn’t worth it’
George Clooney has admitted he once turned down $35 million dollars for one day’s work of starring in an airline commercial.
The actor, 60, who is reportedly worth $500 million, revealed his wife Amal, 43, had dissuaded him from taking the eye-watering paycheck because it was associated with a ‘questionable’ country – he doesn’t specify which.
A human rights lawyer, the Beirut native studied at Oxford University and specialises in international law – which she is permitted to practice both in the US and UK.
Shock! George Clooney has admitted he once turned down $35 million dollars for one day’s work of starring in an airline commercial (pictured in October 2021)
In a recent interview with The Guardian, the Ocean’s Eleven star said: ‘Well, yeah. I was offered $35m for one day’s work for an airline commercial, but I talked to Amal about it and we decided it’s not worth it.
He added: ‘It was [associated with] a country that, although it’s an ally, is questionable at times, and so I thought: “Well, if it takes a minute’s sleep away from me, it’s not worth it.”‘
Despite the snub, he has reportedly raked in more than £30 million through promoting Nespresso coffee.
Couple: The actor, 60, revealed his wife Amal, 43, had dissuaded him from taking the eye-watering paycheck because it was associated with a ‘questionable’ country (pictured in October 2021)
Proving himself to be a very proud husband, George boasted that Amal’s last two clients each won the Nobel peace prize, and she has gotten countless journalists out of jail.
The filmmaker recently spoke out against Alec Baldwin’s actions after his accidental fatal shooting of camerawoman Halyna Hutchins, 42, on the set of the Western film Rust in October 21 in New Mexico.
Alec, who produced Rust as well as starred in it, hit back at George during a Thursday interview, after his fellow actor criticised him for not checking the gun.
He told ABC journalist George Stephanopoulos: ‘There were a lot of people who felt it necessary to contribute some comment to the situation, which really didn’t help the situation at all.
Wow! The Ocean’s Eleven star said: ‘Well, yeah. I was offered $35m for one day’s work for an airline commercial, but I talked to Amal about it and we decided it’s not worth it’ (pictured in October 2021)
‘If your protocol is you checking the gun every time, well, good for you. Good for you.
‘I probably handled weapons as much as any other actor in films with an average career, never shooting or being shot by someone. And in that time, I had a protocol. And it never let me down.’
Asked why he never checked his gun, Baldwin replied: ‘What I was taught by someone years ago was: if I took a gun and I popped a clip out of a gun or I manipulated the chamber of a gun, they would take the gun away from me and redo it.
Controversial: The filmmaker recently spoke out against Alec Baldwin’s (pictured) actions after his accidental fatal shooting of camerawoman Halyna Hutchins, 42, on the set of the Western film Rust in October 21 in New Mexico
‘The prop person said, ‘Don’t do that.’ I mean, I was young.
‘And they’d say, ‘One thing you would need to understand is we don’t want the actor to be the last line of defense against a catastrophic breach of safety with the gun. ‘My job,’ they told me, man or woman.
‘My job is to make sure the gun is safe, and that I hand you the gun, and I declare the gun safe. The crew’s not relying on you to say that it’s safe. They’re relying on me to say that it’s safe.’
‘When that person who was charged with that job handed me the weapon, I trusted them. And I never had a problem, ever.’
He said he trusted others on set to do their job.
Tragic: Halyna was described by Alec as ‘fantastic’, as he paid tribute to her vision and professionalism
ALEC BALDWIN ON-SET TRAGEDY: WHAT COULD HAVE GONE WRONG?
The Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate what exactly happened on the set that led to the death of Hutchins and the injury of the director, but past accidents involving guns on movie sets present a range of options for what could have led to the tragedy.
Squib load – something was lodged in the barrel of the gun when Baldwin fired
One possibility is that an object was stuck in the barrel of the prop gun that Baldwin was using. Known as a squib load, it happens when a cartridge isn’t fired from the barrel because the gas isn’t strong enough to push it out.
In itself, it is not dangerous and can be fixed if the gun is safely cleared but if someone keeps firing rounds from that same gun – live or not – it can be highly dangerous.
If a second round is fired behind the stuck round, it can cause the weapon to explode, or injure people in the near vicinity.
A real bullet was accidentally loaded, or part of one was, instead of a blank
After firing the gun, Baldwin’s immediate reaction was to ask why he’d been handed a ‘hot’ gun – meaning one containing live bullets.
That is what happened in the 1993 shooting of actor Brandon Bruce Lee on the set of The Crow.
Those on set thought the gun was loaded with blanks, but an autopsy revealed a .44 caliber bullet was lodged near Lee’s spine.
Police recovered dummy shell casings from the set.
A dummy, unlike a blank, looks like a live round with a bullet at the tip of the cartridge.
The difference between live rounds and blanks is the tip of the cartridge where the lethal bullet is contained is not there on a blank. Sometimes they are replaced with cotton or paper. Dummy bullets, unlike blanks, look like ordinary bullets but aren’t meant to contain the metal bullet tip either
Blast from the blank struck something else on set
One possibility, though it is not likely, is that the blank hit something else, damaged it, and caused that prop or piece of equipment to send pieces flying towards the director and Hutchins.
Rhys Muldoon who has used guns on set many times and says even blanks are dangerous, speculated at that possibility, telling the BBC: ‘The first thought I had is this is a close up of a gun being fired by the actor, very close to the frame of the camera, that has misfired, hit the DoP, and then something has either come off the French Flag or the black box like a part of the camera and hit the director as well.’
But movie experts say even in those cases, there should be more safeguards in place.
‘If you are in the line of fire… You would have a face mask, you would have goggles, you would stand behind a Perspex screen, and you would minimize the number of people by the camera.
‘What I don’t understand in this instance is how two people have been injured, one tragically killed, in the same event,’ Steven Hall, who has worked on films such as Fury and The Imitation Game, told BBC.
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